Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

I've had the Rostock Max since mid 2013. Other than adding one fan to the hot end, and one onto the board it is pretty much stock. It had been running pretty good as is for years. The calibration could have been better, and the slicing could have been easier to setup. But for the most part the prints we good enough for what I needed. Now the hot end is messed up with a clogged nozzle that resulted in the lining melting and tube connector breaking.
I have a choice to make. Replace just the broken parts, recalibrate, and go.
OR
Do the updates that I have been meaning to do anyway.

My 3 objectives are
1. Get a working printer again in a short amount of time. Use parts on hand, standard software configurations, easy calibration.
2. Keep the setup in a supportable configuration. No odd ball parts just to make it work.
3. Keep the cost the down. With the Max v3 at $999 and 10 hours of build time, the upgrade should be reasonable. ~$300


For an upgrade, I am looking at
$39 Carriage set https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... rriage-set

$39 Ball-cup kit https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... ta-arm-kit

$135 HE280 https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... eter-probe

$25 Hotend Whip https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... 2529876676

~$240 and 5 hours of work?

Simple replacement costs would be
$9 .35mm Noozle https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... ine-nozzle
$4 4mm Quick Connect https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... tc-fitting
$5 PTFE tubing https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... d-x-4mm-od
OR worst case scenario
$65 Bowden Hotend https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... den-hotend

~$20 -$65 and 2 hours of work?

So what do you think, is it worth it do upgrades on the older system for better printing, or save the cash and time to buy a V3 later?

Personally, I would replace the carriages, arms, tube connector, and hotend liner. It gets you a lot of the benefits of the V3, while keeping your hotend the same so you don't need to redo all your profiles. In addition, the HE280 wants the rail style power supply, which would be a pain to put in a V1. The power supplied by an ATX supply is alright, but it seems that ~13V is more like what an HE280 behaves best with. There's also the question of how well the bed mounting will behave, since the V3 has a much more rigid bed platform than a V2, and I believe the V1 is similar to the V2 in that way.

The print bed is a good point. The 480 w power supply may not be enough to supply new hotend. The cold end is still on the side of the machine. I don't even see the parts to move it to the top on the site. That might end up being a custom relocation step. I was hoping to save time on the calibration steps, but if that is lost to the new profile setup, it might be a wash.

I took the advice of the simple repair with carriage and arm updates. Are there any firmware updates, or software updates recommended after the repair?

When I say I have being this machine for a long time with a need to an update, I really meant it! It is currently running RepetierMAX0.80. I guess I had it dialed in so nice I never felt the need to update it.
As the instructions state
"This new arm upgrade has significantly changed the geometry of the printer. Because of this, you'll need to recalibrate. In order to do this successfully, you'll need to change your Horizontal Radius to 140 (if you haven't already) and the Diagonal Rod length to 290.8."
It would appear that is time to update to 91.
In Config~.h I have set:
#define DELTA_DIAGONAL_ROD 290.8
#define CARRIAGE_HORIZONTAL_OFFSET 27.075 // 27.075 is calculated for new molded carriagges
#define PRINTER_RADIUS 198.25 // 198.25 for older v1 machines.

I see Horizontal Radius once in the Communication.cpp. But no where to set in the Config file. Is this setting the same as Printable Radius found in Repetier-host > Printer settings > Printable Radius? @geneb

Printable Radius describes the radius of the build plate.

g.

geneb wrote:Printable Radius describes the radius of the build plate.

g.

Thanks Geneb. I found the eeprom setting for Horizontal Radius thanks to your calibration guide. I got it dialed in last night. I'm not too sure about 91S firm ware yet. I think I'll have to post a quick video on the funny behavior when running the scripts. The machine kind of hiccups going down after the homing call G28. It runs smooth after that. The calibration print seems to be ok too. I might be worrying about nothing. But on .80 I didn't see the behavior.