3D printers seem to cost a dime a dozen these days on eBay. When I sourced out all my parts for a RepRap Prusa Mendel in the last quarter of 2011, I spent nearly $700. Seven years later and I'm able to pick up a Prusa i3 kit for 138 dollars! Everything needed to make a fully operable printer including tools and a spool of filament.
The printer I purchased (as in the image above), looks like a Geeetech 3D printer, but it isn't manufactured by that company. Lately, I haven't paid much attention to the plethora of commercial open source 3D printers, so I wasn't aware I was getting a Chinese knock-off of a Chinese manufactured product.
I was to discover later that one indication of a Geeetech knock-off can be detected by the placement of the extruder motor. The motor on Geeetech printers is located on the right side of the extruder, the printer I purchased, the motor is on the left. Obviously, without considering the product name placement, the printers are very similar. Below is a Geeetech Prusa i3.
This may not seem to be an issue for concern, but there has been a problem in regards to the motherboard. This will be addressed in a later blog.
Overall, the item was shipped very nicely packed. And all of the components were intact.
The frame of the printer is a laser cut particle board. Not very strong, but rigid when assembled.
It was easily assembled in a day. And the initial testing-- before all cables were tied-- was successful.
The test prints were pretty good for PLA extrusion without a cooling fan.
These prints were made with the firmware settings supplied with the printer. Though, I had a hard time printing larger pieces. This was partly due to my inability of uploading firmware changes either by Repetier-Host commands or by uploading new firmware using the Arduino IDE. The motherboard refuses to accept uploading of any kind, so fine tuning firmware is impossible. I'll be looking into this at a later time.
The printer I purchased (as in the image above), looks like a Geeetech 3D printer, but it isn't manufactured by that company. Lately, I haven't paid much attention to the plethora of commercial open source 3D printers, so I wasn't aware I was getting a Chinese knock-off of a Chinese manufactured product.
I was to discover later that one indication of a Geeetech knock-off can be detected by the placement of the extruder motor. The motor on Geeetech printers is located on the right side of the extruder, the printer I purchased, the motor is on the left. Obviously, without considering the product name placement, the printers are very similar. Below is a Geeetech Prusa i3.
This may not seem to be an issue for concern, but there has been a problem in regards to the motherboard. This will be addressed in a later blog.
Overall, the item was shipped very nicely packed. And all of the components were intact.
The frame of the printer is a laser cut particle board. Not very strong, but rigid when assembled.
It was easily assembled in a day. And the initial testing-- before all cables were tied-- was successful.
The test prints were pretty good for PLA extrusion without a cooling fan.
These prints were made with the firmware settings supplied with the printer. Though, I had a hard time printing larger pieces. This was partly due to my inability of uploading firmware changes either by Repetier-Host commands or by uploading new firmware using the Arduino IDE. The motherboard refuses to accept uploading of any kind, so fine tuning firmware is impossible. I'll be looking into this at a later time.
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