I'm having a pretty negative out of the box experience with this machine, but I'm willing to give it another try if someone can tell me what went wrong here.
So far, I unboxed it, followed all of the setup instructions, run the test file, and run the test print from the SD card. The Z offset was way too low out of the box and it wasn't even able to extrude filament (the extruder motor just skipped steps). Isn't this thing calibrated at the factory? Anyway, I "babystepped" it up a bit and it produced a print that was so badly stuck to the acrylic bed that there a still bits on there after re-sanding it. Anyway, no major loss there because I bought the heated bed and didn't plan to use the acrylic beyond the first test print.
I then installed the heated bed (really, no software control of the temperature, unplug it to turn it off?) and decided it was important to dial in the perfect Z offset before doing anything else. So I spent some quality time with a business card under the nozzle, stepping it by 0.1 (as best I could given that one detent of the knob moves several steps) until it was just tight, setting a new Z offset, saving settings, eventually realizing you have to power cycle and auto home to get the new setting to take effect. But now it was good, I printed the test file from the card and it worked.
Now on to using it for real. I'm partial to Cura, so I went to the gcreate.com downloads site, got the current version of the SD card software, downloaded and install the obsolete Cura 2.5 as instructed, put the printer and printhead settings in place, imported the three profiles provided, loaded a tiny sample STL from Thingiverse, plugged in the USB cable, and clicked the button. It heated to 200C, probed the bed, and then drove the extruder right down into my brand new BuildTak surface, melting a hole in it as I quickly hit the power switch.
What happened? I used the correct profiles and recommended settings. I had my Z-offset configured spot on. This machine is for a maker space. With our other printers, I have some confidence that as long as people use the installed profiles and default settings, they won't destroy themselves.
I'm not sure if this forum will let me include a file. If so, I'll attach the G-code that Cura generated.
So far, I unboxed it, followed all of the setup instructions, run the test file, and run the test print from the SD card. The Z offset was way too low out of the box and it wasn't even able to extrude filament (the extruder motor just skipped steps). Isn't this thing calibrated at the factory? Anyway, I "babystepped" it up a bit and it produced a print that was so badly stuck to the acrylic bed that there a still bits on there after re-sanding it. Anyway, no major loss there because I bought the heated bed and didn't plan to use the acrylic beyond the first test print.
I then installed the heated bed (really, no software control of the temperature, unplug it to turn it off?) and decided it was important to dial in the perfect Z offset before doing anything else. So I spent some quality time with a business card under the nozzle, stepping it by 0.1 (as best I could given that one detent of the knob moves several steps) until it was just tight, setting a new Z offset, saving settings, eventually realizing you have to power cycle and auto home to get the new setting to take effect. But now it was good, I printed the test file from the card and it worked.
Now on to using it for real. I'm partial to Cura, so I went to the gcreate.com downloads site, got the current version of the SD card software, downloaded and install the obsolete Cura 2.5 as instructed, put the printer and printhead settings in place, imported the three profiles provided, loaded a tiny sample STL from Thingiverse, plugged in the USB cable, and clicked the button. It heated to 200C, probed the bed, and then drove the extruder right down into my brand new BuildTak surface, melting a hole in it as I quickly hit the power switch.
What happened? I used the correct profiles and recommended settings. I had my Z-offset configured spot on. This machine is for a maker space. With our other printers, I have some confidence that as long as people use the installed profiles and default settings, they won't destroy themselves.
I'm not sure if this forum will let me include a file. If so, I'll attach the G-code that Cura generated.