Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

My background.

I had a Mendelmax Prototype, which I made several upgrades to, and it never seemed to have the precision I wanted it to have. Had a bunch of spare parts, sold it all the other day. (So I am not a total noob. I know the general things about printers.)

Decided I want higher precision and less "messing with stuff", so I am really leaning towards an Orion, and then possibly building another printer if I really feel I need a second one.

What concerns me is the small build are on the Orion. Has anyone run into things they could not print on this machine?

Thanks.

Lasivian wrote:My background.

I had a Mendelmax Prototype, which I made several upgrades to, and it never seemed to have the precision I wanted it to have. Had a bunch of spare parts, sold it all the other day. (So I am not a total noob. I know the general things about printers.)

Decided I want higher precision and less "messing with stuff", so I am really leaning towards an Orion, and then possibly building another printer if I really feel I need a second one.

What concerns me is the small build are on the Orion. Has anyone run into things they could not print on this machine?

Thanks.

I think that there are many things that I would want to print that would not fit on the Orion. There are things that I wanted to print that would not fit on the Rostock Max.
I feel the most important thing is that each user decides what he would like to print the most of and will those objects fit on the printer. Some of our users are into tall vases
and they need the Max. Other users don't get into printing anything that tall or wide and that's why they went with the Orion. Only you know what you plan on printing and
knowing that you can decide. I don't want to sound like a smartass but it is true. It is not an easy decision especially when we are talking about a significant amount of money.
I also understand your concern about building another kit, but the cost of most prebuilts are ridiculous. The Orion represents one of the best values in the prebuilts. I do not
envy you because I had many sleepless nights deciding what to buy, if I should buy etc.

So I ran into this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi_395ofG70 that shows the Orion and mentions some of the parts and ways the Orion is an upgrade fromt he Rostock.

Is this still the case or have these changes gone to the Rostock as well>

Thanks

It is still the case. The arms on the Rostock Max have been improved though so all the sanding that used to be required is not necessary now.

Personally, I didn't see any of that as a great improvement over the Max. The under-glass LED may show up if/when the new Max bed comes out but that's extremely minor IMO. More important will be the new design of the heating traces which will help equalize the heat effect across the whole bed. The other things Gene mentioned are mostly cosmetic and, for me, do not offset the loss of build volume on the Orion.

Well, primarily the bowden troubles me, and the fact that I do not understand the extruder motor and gearing on the Rostock one bit, heh.

Lasivian wrote:Well, primarily the bowden troubles me, and the fact that I do not understand the extruder motor and gearing on the Rostock one bit, heh.

The EZ Struder is quite simple. http://seemecnc.com/collections/parts-a ... ld-end-kit it's direct drive, so there's not technically gearing anymore.

The Bowden you will find many opinions about. I think it's a great thing for print speed because it lowers the inertia at the head, but it does require some tuning to get retraction just right. Every setting requires this tuning though, so it's really no different, people just tend to focus on it because other printers don't have one.

IMO, the biggest advantages of the Orion are that 1 man has built every single one of them (he's got it down to about 3 hours too) so they're consistent, and the improved heated bed circuit traces are great. I wouldn't worry about the print area, it's not as common as you think to build huge parts. For me and the guys that I print with locally, either machine has plenty of build volume.

Jimustanguitar wrote:it does require some tuning to get retraction just right

Yes, something I know I am not so good at