I've followed all the stock Rostock MAX innovations and upgrades through the late V1 and V2 series and observed some great improvements. But when I saw what the V3 offers, I had to try one ASAP. Here is my take on building, calibrating and printing with the V3.
Building the Kit
In many ways, this was one of the more pleasant surprises. This new machine has FAR fewer parts and FAR fewer melamine parts. These are replaced with well designed injection molded parts. I was able to assemble my kit - start to first print - in about 16 hours of work including photo taking. That's impressive. The new online documentation is very good and will only improve with time. My build thread linked above has more details on the build experience. But overall, if you know the difference between a left handed and right handed screw driver, you should be able to build the kit with few problems.
In this section I'm going to take a look at each of the major systems/subsystems in a bit of detail and compare them to what I feel is my Ultimate Configuration.
Frame: The new V3 frame is very nicely designed and very rigid. It provides space in the base for the power supply and upper lid for the steppers and electronics. The new injection molded tower braces help the alignment and rigidity and the belt tensioner built into the stepper mount is a great detail. In fact, it's the attention to details like this that might not be obvious to the lay person but are quickly apparent to those with some experience. Nicely done.
Bed: I like the new bed mounting system and design. But, with 6 attachment points, it is an over constrained mount. I only use 3 on mine - that guarantees that securing too tightly will not cause a slight warp. Only 3 are needed. The top plate of the base has a circular hole for the new bed to find into. It is a nice clean design. Although the V3 has an accelerometer probe (more below), those who might prefer an FSR system will find it difficult to modify this design to accommodate the FSRs. The new "snowflake" is a big, flat piece of molded plastic. I like it. The new Onyx is excellent, gone are the hot and cold spots. I'm running my V3 stock with no aluminum heat dissipator with no temperature issues. Finally, although not part of the kit, I decided to give FabLam a try. I'm very impressed and highly recommend it as a good utilitarian print surface for PLA and ABS. It does impart a slight texture to the bottom of the parts so for my 3D printed fly fishing reels, I still prefer PEI.
Carriages, arms and effector: These are all major improvements and as a system are pretty darned good. I really like the ball cup pivots, they have all the good features of Traxxis ends and magnetic balls without the problems. The new arms are nice and stiff too. And the carriages automatically adjust to eliminate free play, nicely done.
HE280 Hot end and accelerometer probe: Arguably the HE280 is the "big news" for the Rostock MAX V3. This hot end is quite capable, I am getting results on par with my E3D V6 hot ends. Of course, I'm only printing PLA and ABS right now, the optional Jet for high temp materials is not available. I look forward to trying it out. The hot end features a built in thermal fuse, a GREAT safety device and well done. I would prefer a 0.4 mm nozzle over the stock 0.5mm nozzle but for most new users, the 0.5 will be a little more forgiving without a big sacrifice in print resolution. The accelerometer probe is an interesting idea. I've been pleased with it so far. The additions to the firmware to support it don't do full auto calibration but they do do the essential things: endstop adjustment, delta radius and Z height. I've been very pleased with its reliability and run-to-run consistency. The new frame structure probably helps minimize tower rotations and lean that more involved calibration can handle. So this one falls in the category of "it works very well in practice". It is a bit surprising the first time you probe and the nozzle whacks the bed! But you get used to it and no harm is done. The other thing that impressed me abut the HE280 is its "systems" approach. It is a tightly integrated system of hot end, probe, electrical connectors to fans, the fans themselves and a simple wiring interface back to the controller. I was concerned about the 3 part cooling fans since I have perfect the art of air flow! But in practice, they have been working quite well. The one minor annoyance of this new approach is "serviceability". It is not trivial to disassemble the hot end to clear a major plug for instance. In practice I have not had cause to do this and may never but it would be nice peace of mind.
EZRstruder: bravo SeeMeCNC, bravo! The new EZRstruder is well designed and easy to use. It is the easiest extruder to feed new filament into I've ever used. It is a "single cogged gear against a flat bearing" mechanism but it gets the job done and is a great pairing with the HE280 hot end. I love my Bondtech opposing driven gear extruders, they could drive filament through a brick wall, but the new EZRstruder is quite capable and will retain its place on my V3.
Power Supply: the new power supply has enough beef to drive the hot end, Onyx and steppers with no problems. The bed heats up relatively quickly as does the hot end. It's a big step forward from the original PC power supplies we cut our teeth with!
RAMBo and Repetier: nothing new in the RAMBo department. It gets the job done but is not state of the art. The one thing I would (and will at some point) do is change out the RAMBo for a more capable board and firmware. For me, that is Duet and dc42. It is the best of the available boards and firmware for deltas in my experience. I forgot how loud the RAMBo stepper drivers are, the Duet Wifi drivers are whisper quiet with the same steppers. And I do see the banding artifacts we discussed at great length a year or more ago. Those don't appear on Duet prints. But, as a reliable, off the shelf solution, the RAMBo works and very good prints can be made. I would recommend printing from the SD card and LCD controller or add the OctoPi option. The primary reason for this is that PC based software controllers over USB are greatly affected by activities on the PC. This results in jerky motion, hiccups and other problems that telegraph to the printed part, resulting in lower quality. You can hear and see the difference when printing from your PC host and a dedicated OctoPi. And having the wireless connection is great too. You can position your V3 far away and manage it remotely if you want or need to.
The enhancements to Repetier to support the probe and probing are minimalist but get the job done. The auto calibration works, is reliable (as long as you head the instructions to probe with no power to the hot end), and reproducible.
All in all there are lots of great things about the new V3 and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it over any other production 3D printer on the market. Literally, the ONLY enhancement I feel is necessary is upgrading to a different controller and firmware - specifically Duet and dc42 as of this writing. Unfortunately, dc42 does not currently support the accelerometer probe, which is not interfaced like IR, switches and FSRs with the JohnSL board. If it were easy to fit FSRs I would migrate to FSRs and Duet in a heartbeat. But for now, I'll continue to use my V3 in its stock configuration for the foreseeable future.
