Of Pink Elephants and Melamine Bonfires

[EL Cuajinais]

You compare my printer against $999 pile of new parts. I compare my printer against a newly assembled $2400 Rostock Max V2, or a newly assembled $1300 Orion. Everyone values their time differently. The upgrades I have may be insignificant to many, but they add functionality and beauty (a subjective property) to the printer. I expended an amount of money and time on these upgrades that is not negligible. Anyway feel free to PM me an offer, I’m open to hearing any offers at this point.

To be clear, I never expected the RMAX V2, or even an Ultimaker 2 to be as simple as a refrigerator or an inkjet printer. But I did expect the RMAX V2 to be an unassembled Ultimaker 2. On that count I was wrong, and I was ignorant. Though nowhere in the literature does it say that the current SeeMeCNC deltas are “experimental”, as has been implied. And here’s the thing though: It is possible to create experimental products in experimental industries, while publishing truthful stats. Therein lies my rub.

***I took another glance at the RMAX V2 Spec Sheet.***

And you know what? They ARE scammers.

Abso-lute-ly.

They gained an unfair market advantage by publishing a false spec sheet. Here, take a look below:

Those are off-the-charts specs for a consumer 3D printer. That sheet is what many industry outsiders like myself use to make purchasing decisions. That spec sheet at a $999 price point makes the RMAX 2V the no-brainer choice among the barrage of 3D printers out there. Only it is less than truthful. Until I’m convinced most users can print reliably to the 11” line, I say SeeMeeCNC was deliberately deceitful. And why is the 11” spec absolved from needing to be met by the manufacturer in your minds anyway? I designed a part that needs to nearly touch the 11” edge. I can’t print it, and from the looks of it, maybe no one who has posted on this thread can either. What if only a small fraction of the users could get their nozzles up to 245 ºC? Would that be alright too? What if only a small fraction of the users could get the bed to 120 ºC? Oh wait… I think that one may also be a lie. I’ll try to check tonight to confirm. Who knows, I may get the pleasant surprise that my printer bed can reach 120 ºC… after 6 hours, without the build glass on it, and me not even breathing near it. Yes yes, very practical. Hmm… let’s see, a .0125 layer height... Quite possibly the only FFF printer in the world that can achieve this awesome feat. Only it is not reliably verifiable. Who here has ever printed to a layer height of .0125 on their RMAX V2? Raise your hand please. Do we see a certain pattern here? I see a pattern of intentional deceit.

It takes balls to do what they did

No doubt about it. I’d be too scared about class actions to try to pull this Spec Sheet stunt. It was deliberately and unnecessarily deceitful. No excuses. They could have competed honestly and fairly with the other up-and coming "experimental" 3D printing companies. They simply chose not to.

[stonewater]

Did you contact seemecnc about ANY of this? they have returned all my phone calls, my requests for service, got the correct parts to me when something broke, and all parts have always shipped quickly. I have nothing but respect for these guys. better customer service for me than some companies 3 times its size.

edit nevermind I seeyou did speak to them...


Tom C

[bot]

Meh. The value does not decrease significantly to me because of a few mm discrepancy...

[TFMike]

There are people who have printed to the absolute edge, have you consulted them?

This guy did it: http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... 580#p25580

[Nylocke]

That doesn't say "Highest quality" or "Lowest layer height" like most printers advertise, that says "Max Z resolution" so thats not a lie. It very well can move the effector up .0125mm at what the firmware considers the z direction. And you could print at that if you had a small enough nozzle, as demonstrated by people on the Ultimaker Forums, and I think Generic Default made a really tiny nozzle to print M6 threads.

Max heated bed temp is the safety margin, the bed can safely reach that temp without catching fire. On most kits that can't reach that temp, its not the bed limiting it, its the power supply. Unfortunately, that one is a little more difficult to quantify, but I'm not disagreeing with anyone that SeeMe should include a much more capable PSU with their printer.

Comparing the Rostock MAX to the Ultimaker is honestly kinda unfair. Consider the age of their product, and the location. Ultimaker is based in the Netherlands, much closer to the heart of the RepRap project, and their Ultimaker has existed since 2011 (if Wikipedia is right on this one, which I sort of doubt in this case since the mentioned Darwin and 2011 to be around the same time period, when Mendel/Huxley was closer to that time period). Theres been a lot more people to pick up on that design and improve it considerably. While the Ultimaker "original" (as its called now) didn't undergo many significant name changes (besides loosing the protobox after a few revisions, and then adding the Original thing once the 2 came out) it underwent several significant design changes during its lifetime (at 5 years and still counting). Thats a lot of time for a design to develop and mature, especially considering location and size of the community. The MAX has been with us a year less, which is arguably not that long of a time period, but again considering location and community, which SeeMe is at a fairly significant disadvantage here, is quite a bit of time.

To add more factors in the mix, the Delta design is still a fairly "experimental" design for the RepRap community, while a cartesian design is pretty simple and has existed since the beginning (though parallel kinematics is a bit different). As many strides that we have made in advancing Deltas, they will be at a significant disadvantage until Smoothie based boards are more popular, due to their more complicated nature for the controller.

I would say $1000 for the kit is pretty reasonable, considering that even if you were to take the shortcomings in the max x-y positioning, this thing still blows the Ultimaker out of the water, not to mention that the pre Original+ Ultimakers didn't have heated beds, and they were MORE expensive. For what you pay for, its really pretty reasonable, because even after the Original+ kit came out, its still more expensive than a MAX kit.

I have nothing against either Ultimaker or SeeMe, I'm just using each as an example. I have both a MAX V2 and an Ultimaker and I love both.

The 11" thing I don't really have anything to say, maybe they were thinking it averages to around an 11" diameter (it can do a sort of rounded triangle shape), maybe they just rounded up. It seems to be the practical build range is something like 10-10.5" if you build your printer correctly. I can't get out to that range because of reasons that aren't in SeeMe's control. To name a few, this Kraken seems to make my printer a little more clumsy, and I didn't have a digital angle gauge to properly (and accurately) square the towers like KAS, but if I were to solve these issues I'm sure I could get out to the magic 10". Again, not the fault of SeeMe that I assembled my printer with birch ply and an old and rusty framing square.

[radicaldev]

Affordable, entry level printers haven't been around very long at all. 3D printing is very much in the early stages of development. A person with more free time than myself could probably classify 3d printer manufacturers in terms of computer manufactures, and also by operating systems.

Seemecnc strikes me as more of an Arch Linux sort of deal, while makerbot might be Windows.

[Dale Eason]

I just tried a 280.4mm x 10 mm strip 1 mm high in PLA. It printed it just fine on my stock machine. So yes it can print something the full 11 diameter. I just can't print a circle of that diameter unless I modify the machine slightly. So I don't think the spec is a lie.

Any chance you want to post your model you are trying to print so others could try?

Dale

[artexmg]

I did that like 1 year ago, using a V1. I have to increase the current for the step motors not to "fall" when printing very low. Cannot recall for sure, but I think I had to mount the hot end below as well.

Printed using my "old" V1 printer, never tried in my other 2 new, V2 Rostocks yet.

So, I think technically you can say that it can print even further than 11".

BTW, this is the final result of this print http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... 898#p45301

Cheers!

[Jimustanguitar]

So, I've drawn this up in CAD... If the 3 towers are 200mm OC from the bed center, the carriage offset is 35mm and the effector offset is 33mm (per the firmware, not actual measurements), and the arms are 269mm... You get a Reuleaux triangle shape that can fit a 274mm circle inside of it. Divide by 25.4 and you get 10.787".

So by the numbers in the firmware, it's a touch shy of 11".

Any change in geometry (Trick trucks being thinner for example, or different hot-ends causing z-height differences that don't allow the arms to go fully parallel before the carriages hit, etc.) would decrease this maximum circular print area.

[KAS]

So SMC rounded up a little. That's a lot better than the MPG on the sticker for my JKU and Tundra...

I never tried to stretch it out that far with the the stock skates. It appears that the trick trucks hit the base before fully extending out between towers. Wondering it 1/2" spacers under the bed would help.

[TFMike]

Throw the file up that you are trying to print and I will give it a shot, I have an advantage in that I have my hotend mounted 2 inches below the effector on my rostock max v2.

[EL Cuajinais]

Thank you for volunteering guys. I will post the file when I get home tonight.

Wow that speaker thread is insane! I will play with the current of my steppers to see if that does anything. This printer is really amazing. I’ve printed a few things after my 11” diameter meltdown and since I can’t print large, I figured I’d try printing fast. I was used to printing 20mm/s - 30mm/s per the Tips & Tricks thread. I’ve now printed a few things at 60mm/s and it is STUUPID fast, but more importantly, I have not noticed a change in accuracy. I need to print two identical parts one a 20mm/s, the other at 60mm/s and look at them side by side. They have to have SOME difference in quality, but for right now, is has not been obvious. I do use S3D which I think varies the speeds differently than other slicers but man, this printer is pretty insane! Sigh…

If only it could print to the 11” diameter…

And the PEI… oh my gosh. On the video I posted on this thread, you can see I’ve removed the layer fan. The plan was crimping a nice little connector to make the fan and shroud easily removable so I could put them back in only when needed. Well it’s quite possible they will never go back in. Who needs PLA when you have a PEI bed? PLA strings a lot more, feels cheap to the touch, LOOKS cheap, and you can’t easily remove the smears on the PEI bed with acetone. With no glue stick required for ABS now, I don’t see myself using PLA ever again.

On a side note, I tried going to 120 ºC on the bed last night. It topped at 107-108ish, and my printer is inside a closet, where the ambient temp never goes lower than 85 ºF. Max bed temp of 120ºC? I highly doubt it.

Hey you know what would be interesting? We could exchange gcodes of a test part sliced with different slicers, all set to the same layer height, temps, infill, etc. and more importantly, all set to 60mm/s. This way we can see the effect of the slicing on the quality of a fast print. We would need to time each print with a chronometer, because I think the time of print will vary considerably, even with all the slicers set to 60mm/s.

[artexmg]

Thank you for volunteering guys. I will post the file when I get home tonight.

Wow that speaker thread is insane! I will play with the current of my steppers to see if that does anything. This printer is really amazing. I’ve printed a few things after my 11” diameter meltdown and since I can’t print large, I figured I’d try printing fast. I was used to printing 20mm/s - 30mm/s per the Tips & Tricks thread. I’ve now printed a few things at 60mm/s and it is STUUPID fast, but more importantly, I have not noticed a change in accuracy. I need to print two identical parts one a 20mm/s, the other at 60mm/s and look at them side by side. They have to have SOME difference in quality, but for right now, is has not been obvious. I do use S3D which I think varies the speeds differently than other slicers but man, this printer is pretty insane! Sigh…

If only it could print to the 11” diameter…

And the PEI… oh my gosh. On the video I posted on this thread, you can see I’ve removed the layer fan. The plan was crimping a nice little connector to make the fan and shroud easily removable so I could put them back in only when needed. Well it’s quite possible they will never go back in. Who needs PLA when you have a PEI bed? PLA strings a lot more, feels cheap to the touch, LOOKS cheap, and you can’t easily remove the smears on the PEI bed with acetone. With no glue stick required for ABS now, I don’t see myself using PLA ever again.

On a side note, I tried going to 120 ºC on the bed last night. It topped at 107-108ish, and my printer is inside a closet, where the ambient temp never goes lower than 85 ºF. Max bed temp of 120ºC? I highly doubt it.

Hey you know what would be interesting? We could exchange gcodes of a test part sliced with different slicers, all set to the same layer height, temps, infill, etc. and more importantly, all set to 60mm/s. This way we can see the effect of the slicing on the quality of a fast print. We would need to time each print with a chronometer, because I think the time of print will vary considerably, even with all the slicers set to 60mm/s.

Señor Don Cuajinais

I know your pain and the disappointment feeling, I was about to get rid of my V1 as well. I thought in buying something more "reliable" and stuff. It was my first (ever) printer and my expectations were, well, not realistic as per the current maturity level of the technology. I learnt that the hard way.

But then I started playing more and more (and more) with my rostock, and getting to know many other printers. Then I realized that ALL printers (I've know so far) fail. Some for one reason, others due to other reason (duh!). Then, I realized that, thank to the knowledge you gain with the Rostock, you can understand other's printers problems faster and, also, fix your printer more easily. AND the community is GOLD!, you cannot find something similar easily!. And I consider the community as part of the Rostock, it is a adde value

A company asked me to buy one of my Rostocks builds (I still miss that one!) to replace a MakerBot Z18, as they were not able to get reliable print. Yes, the Marekbot Z18 cost is around $7K, and was replaced by a Rostock Max .


Marketing/specifications aside, the Rostock was (still is) one of the best printers in the market IMO, not for the faint of heart, I do agree.


I really recommend you to do some mods: get the E3D, and carbon fiber arms (I have the trick laser), and you will get even better prints

Happy Printing! (or should I say, Cuaji-Prints? )

[EL Cuajinais]

Oh my, I just lost a lengthy post just before pressing "send!!!"

Anyway here are the files. I'm too mad to write again. Guess we'll talk more tomorrow. Thanks everyone.

[radicaldev]

Whoa... That print taught me a lot about ABS... I could actually watch the warping going on real-time. Needless to say, that's a tough print for any FDM machine.

[Polygonhell]

IMO it'd be close to impossible (I'm sure someone will prove me wrong now) to print that piece in ABS on an FDM machine without a heated chamber and I'm not sure even then. Acute outside corners like that are the absolute worst case for warping, if you had enough additional space you could add mickey mouse ears to the model or a massive skirt, both MIGHT let you get away with it. The sharp outside corner focusses the warping forces where as radiused corners tend to diffuse them somewhat. Having said that even a circle that size is challenging.

You could probably print it in PLA or PET, but even there it would be challenging. I've printed flat square pieces a little over 9 inches in PLA, but I was only getting about a 50% success rate. I gave up on printing the vertices for a Kossel in ABS because of the warping and they are probably only 6 inches long.

[TFMike]

I may have to print this on a different machine, I can use polymax high strength pla, normal pla, Taulman t glase or a polyflex (felixbile) filament as well as blue nylon trimmer line. Let me know what you want me to try.

[Nylocke]

Kossel vertices in ABS? I did those on mine with PEI at 95C. I had a plate of stuff with the vertices even. Granted they did have the mouse ears on them.

[Polygonhell]

Kossel vertices in ABS? I did those on mine with PEI at 95C. I had a plate of stuff with the vertices even. Granted they did have the mouse ears on them.

I got one out of about 4 tries within acceptable tolerances in ABS, one of the legs would invariably break loose even with the ears. I can't remember if the PEI sheet was on the printer at the time.
In the end I just printed them in PLA, 100% success rate, the only reason I was using ABS in the first place is I prefer it for structural parts and I liked the color of the ABS I had on hand.

[Nylocke]

Mine all turned out great, even when using the red Octave ABS (which I always had more difficulty getting to stick on PEI)

[Dale Eason]

Oh my, I just lost a lengthy post just before pressing "send!!!"

Anyway here are the files. I'm too mad to write again. Guess we'll talk more tomorrow. Thanks everyone.

Ok, now I'm confused. Your rant was that you could not print that because of mechanical issues with your printer that you suspected were inherent in all Rostock Max printers. Yet I see a picture of it printed in this post. What is the issue. Maybe that was in your post you lost.

Dale

[HumanLiberty]

Jumping in to add my voice to that of EL Cuajinais.

People here are saying "meh" about "a few millimeters at the edge" or (or something like that."
People are saying the RMV2 can print out beyond the 11" line in places. Yes, it can.

If that's what you need, it's all good for you.

I bought this machine for one reason only: to prototype an invention including two 10.7" diameter 4" high circular parts.

The unmodified RV2M cannot do this. You can demonstrate this to yourself;
Just lower the nozzle to the plate directly across from any tower.
You will see the cheapskate cannot go low enough to extend the nozzle past about 10.6", as
it is restricted by belt tension and the base of the machine.

So the specs are untrue, because they clearly mean this machine can fully function in an 11" circle, and I specifically asked sales support to confirm this before I bought.
Engineers are supposed to be precise, right? to a fault? So there is not way this 8mm discrepancy in build are diameter opposite the towers is acceptable

I'm now 5-months and countless hours in, and still no finished prototype.

To solve this machine's intrinsic flaw, I have been experimenting with raising the print bed onto 2" stainless steel hexagonal spacers. It is totally level and stable, but for some reason, prints are still all failing.

I will now try to lower the travel speed per Earthbound from 300mm/s to 150: http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... dge#p73067

I will also attempt RollieRowland's auto-calibration technique:
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... dge#p72789

I can post pics of the print bed on stilts, and failed prints, if anyone wants to see/help.

[HumanLiberty]

[quote="KAS"]
"Yes, I have the typical upgrades; Trick trucks, arms, and E3D v6."


Would you mind sharing where you got your Trick Trucks and Arms? If those arms can be like 1"-2"
longer than standard, it should solve the insufficient print-diameter problem...

[KAS]

"Yes, I have the typical upgrades; Trick trucks, arms, and E3D v6."


Would you mind sharing where you got your Trick Trucks and Arms? If those arms can be like 1"-2"
longer than standard, it should solve the insufficient print-diameter problem...

http://tricklaser.com/

They are the exact same arm length. The trucks have a different offset value.

[U.S. Water Rockets]

I have some unusual requirements and needed the largest print area I could get without an infinite budget. Even at 10.8" diameter, the RMV2 is not big enough to print everything I wanted to print. I went in with the understanding that not everything I would ever need to make would fit on the bed. How can I make the printer print a larger model?

1) Radical mods to the printer.
2) Buy a larger printer.
3) Redesign the model so it will meet the requirements and still fit on the bed.
4) Split the model into smaller sub-assemblies and assemble them after.

I've done #4 many times with spectacular results. I have devised a lot of nice joints that are strong and better than a single part. I have come to prefer this method over making a single huge part.

Smaller prints are less time consuming.
I can make the joint lines along overhangs and make designs that need no support.
By eliminating support I get smooth surfaces with great cosmetic properties.
I can make multiple colored assemblies.
I can orient the layer lines for strength in places where they would otherwise be in the weak orientation.

I feel that this method is always going to be a useful tool because there will always be something that I need to print that is bigger than my printer even if I had a huge printer area.