Rostock MAX v3...

[geneb]

Everyone's seen little hints about the v3...well I've got a big box full of v3 awesomeness sitting on my desk right now.

No pics yet, but here's a few things that are "for sure".

1. Power supply remains in the bottom.
2. RAMBo, LCD, and stepper motors are in the top.
3. ALL the vertical structural components are now injection molded out of glass-filled nylon (except the towers!).
4. Belt tension adjustment is done by rotating the stepper motor and not a turn-around that can tilt.
5. There's a specific location in the top to accommodate the Rasberry Pi 3. You can get one as an add-in when you order and all pre-built v3s will include it.
6. Removable connectors are back! The original Indiegogo Rostock MAX v1s included a RAMBo that had pluggable compression terminals on ALL the connector positions, not just the power connector as it is now.
7. The HE280 hot end from the Eris will be the new stock hot end for the Rostock MAX v3. The hot end design has been tweaked a bit to use heater cartridges and will include a thermal fuse as a safety measure. No more RTV on the hot end!
8. The auto-calibration system that the Eris uses will also be part of the v3.
9. No more dragging piles of wire through the towers! 1 12ga black wire in the X tower up to the RAMBo, 1 12ga red wire in the Z tower up to the RAMBo and 1 12ga black wire in the Y tower that goes down to the Onyx. The Onyx thermistor wires will also travel in the Y tower. The Onyx + connection will be straight from the power supply.

The build time is going to be very fast - you'll build the top section, then the bottom section, seat the towers, attach the carriages, mount the top and then run the belts.

More later!

g.

[Mac The Knife]

Nice!!

[Xenocrates]

Just to check what #3 means, that indicates that the towers are nylon now? Or is that referring just to the vertical supports that make up the bottom and top compartments?

Another quick question. What is the temp rating on the thermal fuse, and when/at what price point do you think they will be made available for purchase? I'm assuming that 280C is achievable with the hotend at least largely stock.

[geneb]

The towers are still metal. A nylon tower would be insane.

I don't know what the temperature rating of the fuse is - one wasn't included in my kit as they're awaiting parts.

I don't have any information on pricing.

g.

[Mac The Knife]

280 C is achievable on my Eris with the stock, resistor, HE280 hot end.

[Xenocrates]

I figured it is Mac. I was referring to the thermal fuse, as that's an intentional limiter. My pricing question was also about the fuses rather than the V3. Because if there's a thermal fuse with a sane temperature for the hotend, I am rather interested in it, as I hadn't found any yet.

And Geneb, I thought nylon towers would be a bit nuts. Thank you for confirming that they are still aluminum (You can see how "All vertical structural components are injection molded" would give that impression I hope though)

[geneb]

It's my understanding that the fuse is attached to the heat sink and has a fairly low rating.

g.

[travelphotog]

In Detroit Steve was showing off the new hot end with the fuse installed. They were working to get a fuse that would trip at a safe temp to be effective as a safety measure, but not trip if there was a power failure which stopped the print and shut down the hot end fan. It is a very fine balance and they were going back to the shop and testing a number of temps for the fuses. The new cartage heater is very nice and overall the hot end looked great. It is a FAR easier build on the hot end and i am very excited to the see the changes. I also spoke with Steve and the crew about how our 713maker products will work moving forward with the new calibration boards and mounting options. While holding the V3 hot end and calibration effector in hand at Detroit, we spoke about my concerns of how to adopt our mount to work with their new system and we found it will not be an issue at all. We (713maker) are working on a mount for the calibration board that will be backwards compatible and Steve assured me that the connection on their board for the heater and such will work just fine with other hot ends like a E3d V6 and such. Once our V3 early release unit arrives, I will get right on the mount for our system to use their new calibration boards.

[geneb]

Here's the kit packaging:

Probably not the final version.

g.

[Jimustanguitar]

I'll be curious to hear what you think of the floating heated bed.

[noventix]

Insane. And I am crazy jealous. Gene - if you need any help drafting the manual, I am a willing guinea pig.

[U.S. Water Rockets]

Are the melamine pieces there for support structure, or are they just decorative covers so the printer is not naked? I'm jealous either way.

[gchristopher]

Wow, that sounds like a great update. Go SeeMeCNC!!

[CRPerryJr]

Super excited to see this new version of a great printer!

[geneb]

The horizontal melamine parts in the v3 are structurally the same as the ones in the v2.

From the photos I've seen, the bed is pretty securely held. I didn't take the time to examine the v3 in the office when I was there for MRRF.

g.

[brianmichalk]

What is the referenced Pi 3 used for?

[geneb]

You can run Octoprint or Astroprint on it and print to the v3 wirelessly.

g.

[barry99705]

Super excited to see this new version of a great printer!

Is it bad that when I see your avatar I think of Katy Perry?

[Qdeathstar]

those blue things look neat. I wonder what they go to.... I'm not upset I missed out on the Rostock 3... the last four months have been nice ... I would have liked to play with those nylon parts though... I bet they are a lot better than the melamine.... I am assuming they have replaced the parts that use the nylon locknuts...

still waiting on upgraded electronics I see....

[Christian79]

Gene... Do you have any pictures to share? The few teaser pics where nice, but something... anything else would be appreciated...

Thank you!

[Tincho85]

Nice, I can't wait to see what changed.

I support the request, more pics please, or at least remove them from the plastic bags

[Eaglezsoar]

Best hurry to write the manual, the world awaits!

[cloneit3d]

So I did a search on the see me cnc website on V3 and they are getting the pages ready to publish the new product and have a pre-order option that is not ready yet but has a start shipping date of 9/6.... I can't wait to officially place my pre-order!!!!
Chomping at the bit to get my pre-order in!!!!

[626Pilot]

Nice!!! Looks like the part count is MUCH lower than it was on my old version 1 MAX. SeeMeCNC is obviously moving towards making their printers easier to assemble.

The decision to support a Raspberry Pi 3 is solid! I'm building them into all my current and future printers. OctoPrint is such a breeze, compared to uploading stuff to the controller directly. The interface is great, uploads of huge files take only a second or two, and it supports a camera for live streaming and time lapse generation. I'm currently working on getting the X server working on the OctoPrint stock image so I can run a browser in kiosk mode, and have their excellent Touch UI running. I've had it running before, and it's really good. A step above the old 20x4 character LCDs. (OctoPrint's image already supports tiny 320x200 touch screens, but that doesn't hold a candle to the Touch UI skin.) With OctoPrint's web server, you can just use your smart phone or tablet to control the printer from any room in your house. The live stream works really well in Chrome, even on cheap phones.

I do hope they get the auto calibration system working better than it is on the Eris. I talked about that some in my review. In short, it really needs plane compensation, at least on the Eris. I don't think that would be difficult to do, as the firmware already appears to have support for a transformation matrix. It would just be a matter of adding that extra step after delta radius is calculated, and ideally it would do endstops + delta radius + plane compensation several times, until the error goes down past a certain threshold. The results are better if you do it in a loop rather than just one time through.

Part cooling is not good enough on that hot end. It either needs a stronger blower fan, or more of them. A single-fan solution would probably have to sound like a tornado to do the same work as three regular blower fans. Nevertheless, the HE280 is, in my opinion, very well-integrated. It's such a clean install compared to anything that came before it, especially with the PCB and accelerometer! If it had two or three blower fans feeding the ducts, and PWM control, it would be perfect.

If they're going to use a chassis cooling fan that kicks on when the motors are energized, like the Eris, I would suggest going with a blower fan instead. The Eris' chassis fan is loud enough that it could get annoying after a few hours. Also, are they shipping with Astrosyn dampers? They took my old MAX from painfully loud to whisper-quiet. They're cheap, and I'll always use them.

I assume they will use the RAMBo, as they always have before. Moving to a 32-bit controller, it's not such a bad idea in 2016, you know? Repetier Firmware is nice and all, but it can be jerky compared to Smoothie and Duet. I did hear last year that SeeMeCNC was looking at a BeagleBone solution, but the feature set on that was pretty far behind the other 32-bit controllers at the time. Maybe they should ask UltiMachine to do a 32-bit controller for them.

[cloneit3d]

Smoothie works great and editing with notepad is so much easier!!