Upgrade suggestions

#21
Christian, Ray and I were just talking about these off-forum this morning and I believe he has some on the way for testing. My wife has me on a spending freeze at the moment, so I'm just going to sit back and watch whoever else takes the plunge. I am intrigued by both concepts, but I think the cyclops is going to need to more back-end support before I'd jump on that band wagon- meaning firmware support mostly to handle all the retractions and such.
 
#22
I've been thinking about this long before these were released. I had always thought that the gMax's top horizontal rail (where the filament spools and LCD are mounted) would make a great mounting point for multiple bowden extruders with tubing moving down to a light carriage. For something like the Kraken, with 4 extruders that would be quite necessary.

Then I started actually using a Bowden setup with my Cohesion printer. Decent results but lots of leaking filament. Long retracts are required, etc... Now I try to avoid bowden whenever possible.

But it will work, and you can mount bowden extruders to that top rail of your gmax, you just need to design some mounting brackets.

Thanks Chris - I haven't ordered any, as I've just gotten multiple v6's, but if Cohesion takes off I'll definitely create Chimera and Kraken toolheads. I was going to make them direct drive but that will prove difficult. Bowden it is, just keep the tubing length as reasonably short as possible, that's really all that can be done.

As far as cyclops - retractions are the easiest part. It's handling support for people with issues that will prove difficult. Plus, as they explicitly state, it's problematic for materials of different temps, and that eliminates the PLA/ PVA support from working in a Cyclops. I print PLA at 220 - 230 while PVA needs to be at 190 as it decomposes at 200.
 

mwu

New Member
#23
Just a note here -- I have been printing with PLA from filamentdirect.com. They have a lower recommended temperature range on their PLA.

I have had very good results printing with their PLA at 190 and a bit below. I have been using 190 for the first layer and then drop it to 185 for subsequent layers. Print quality is very good and I haven't had the shrinking issues I have heard others have had with cheaper PLA.

With that filament, you might be able to print with both PLA and PVA on the new e3d hotends.
 
#24
Marcus - I can print PLA at as low as 180. When I was using my filastruder it would extrude at 155 and print at 180.

The Microcenter stuff prints fine at 190. But since I'm printing rigid structural pieces (like the ones holding the gMax frame together) the added temp helps with strength of the piece.

Since all the live people :) are in this thread, I'd like to hijack it for a few side questions about my projects.

Do you guys like this forum, as far as functionality? I could use google groups, but I'd like to embed an actual forum onto my site and am trying to decide between this, PHPbb, or something else. I really like openbuilds.com but that seems to be XenForo and boy is that expensive....

Also, I'm thinking about forgoing the Kickstarter Campaign for Cohesion and just putting it up for pre-order with about a 2 month lead time right on my site. (I know I need a new site) I don't really have any minimums to meet, I was looking to get a laser cutter but with enough orders I could afford to do that anyways.

Thoughts?

Thanks guys.
 
#25
Ray:

This lengthy response still does not cover all I might have to say regarding your questions. Rather than further hijack the thread we could continue the exploration in some other manner.

This basic forum has met my initial needs. I bought my gMAX 2nd hand from someone who was not quite up to the task of calibrating it. At first I used the forum to figure how to solve basic problems and later used it to fine tune my printer. Lately I've enjoyed sharing ideas with the growing gMAX community. The forum has worked for that.

I am grateful for all of the work you and Gordon have provided to support my gMAX experience but don't know how the back-end structure works. If you set up your own site to market Cohesion, how will you draw customers to your site? Kickstarter acts as a good initial funnel but without that, how will people find you? There is an audience on this site but most of them are already gMAX owners and therefore not good prospects to buy a second printer. For example, I already own two printers and love tinkering. I'm more likely to invest in upgrades than I am a whole new printer.

I want gCreate to succeed. I'm very happy that all of the gMAX upgrades have been posted. I'd like to take advantage of further upgrades. In my view, this forum and user community are part of the product. I'd like to compensate gCreate for this effort but don't have a vehicle to do so since I can't buy anything other than a new printer. I have a few other thoughts on this subject but discussing a competing printer on this site seems detrimental to the gCreate. Perhaps we can connect off-line to further explore.

Christian