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I’m trying to do a very large print without success. My horizontal radius is fine, I checked it yesterday; I played with it a bit, and concluded that it was fine where I had originally set it. I’ve checked a lot of hardware related stuff, but I know theirs is still more to check. However I’m starting to get the sinking feeling that I spent $1K and 30 hrs. of my life on a false spec, that is, a 11” diameter print volume. The popularity of the smoothie board calibration thread, and the posters here whom I’ve read just gave up and sold their printer is certainly not encouraging. I do recall being able to print the bed leveling aid when the printer had just been assembled. But now the outer circle dips near the towers and raises in the space between the towers, even though horizontal radius is fine when checking the four “touch points”.

There are many threads on these issues and I know there is still hardware stuff I need to check, but I don’t know, if being able to use the entire bed is this fleeting (I only have about 7 days of print time), I think claiming a 11” print diameter is a bit of a stretch. So I guess what I would like to ask is the following:

Are there any users on this forum who regularly print near the print volume edges? Does anyone here print batches of “production” parts that go near the edges of the bed? Or do you all just buy another printer “for the big stuff”, since it is simply too much of a hassle or nearly impossible on the Rostock Max V2? Are consumer-grade deltas mostly a gimmick, more fun to watch printing than a Cartesian, but severely limited in terms of print volume? C’mon level with me.

I blame the effects of humidity changes on the melamine construction. Living in Michigan, it gets dry in my house during the winter, and humid during the rest of the year, as I don't have central air conditioning. I've fiddled around with a dial indicator mounted to the effector plate, and changed the tower rotation values in the eeprom to get a flat print. Now that spring finally arrive, I'm looking at recalibrating it again. I'm in the process of building a Max Metal printer, and look forward to doing a side by side comparison with the Seemecnc.

I live in the tropics; it doesn’t get more humid than this. My printer is stored in a closet inside the driveway. I do have one of those large silicate dampness remover thingies which I need to change every month. (It gets expensive). In any case, fearing the melamine/humidity combo, when I built the printer I did a little test: I submerged some of the leftover melamine cutouts in a glass of water. That glass sat for about three or four weeks and I never saw any indication that the melamine had sucked up any water. So I figured if submerged melamine did not soak up water, then ambient humidity should not be such a large issue. Even so, I painted all my edges to be sure. So even though the humidity theory makes a lot of sense, I’m not convinced given the precautions I’ve taken and the little test I did.

Another new variable is the PEI I installed to the build plate (best mod ever!), but I don’t think that’s it either. Actually I can test that easily by clocking my build plate differently. I will try that over the weekend.

I would love to hear of people doing productions runs that nearly touch the edges of the build plate. I'm kind of losing hope.

EL Cuajinais wrote:I think claiming a 11” print diameter is a bit of a stretch. So I guess what I would like to ask is the following:

Are there any users on this forum who regularly print near the print volume edges? Does anyone here print batches of “production” parts that go near the edges of the bed? Or do you all just buy another printer “for the big stuff”, since it is simply too much of a hassle or nearly impossible on the Rostock Max V2? Are consumer-grade deltas mostly a gimmick, more fun to watch printing than a Cartesian, but severely limited in terms of print volume? C’mon level with me.

11" diameter is bogus, unless you want to accept that ~10.5 rounds up to 11.

I regularly print to the edge of a 10.5" diameter area. One production run involved repeatedly printing a plate layout with six objects that had to print sequentially, so everything was spread to the limits so layer fans had clearance.

Consumer grade anything is not up to the task of set-and-forget production. A Max is very capable in stock form and makes a great learning tool. I haven't seen anything else that approaches its value. But getting it to the level of reliability/quality/consistency needed for production requires a very careful build, better power supply, better fans, a heater cartridge, and careful calibration. Moving past PLA and ABS, it needs modification or replacement of the EZstruder and a different hot end.

I was going to make these upgrades to my RMV2, but decided to build 2nd printer instead. It uses some RMV2 pieces and sure looks like one of the family. Not done yet, but goal is to be "better" in that it has slightly increased build diameter and faster/smoother/quieter movement.

Thanks you very much for your reply. Hey I’ll take a 10.5” diameter any day! I agree 3D Printing is not for production, I guess that was my way of asking if printing near the edge of the plate is possible and consistently repeatable. It sounds like you have achieved this. On building a second printer, I can see where you are coming from. Personally I refuse to upgrade my printer by replacing perfectly working parts! I already paid for a hot end, a control board, delta arms, etc, etc. My upgrades have been of the additive kind: PEI on top of glass, LED lights, WiFi CAM, etc. If I’m going to purchase so much upgrades to replace the parts I already bought, I’d rather sell the whole printer and buy a new one with all the upgrades.

So if you’re building a new printer, why did you go with a delta? I’m beginning to think deltas are not worth the hassle. Extreme build height, but questionable build width/length. More like the artist’s printer rather than the engineer’s printer. I’m also questioning the value proposition, which is why I purchased it: If in practical terms the build area ends up being only a 8” circle for most people, (and I’m probably being generous), that translates into a 5.66”square, so the value isn't there anymore.

Your post reminds me of why I am glad I did this. http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=7808

EL Cuajinais wrote:So if you’re building a new printer, why did you go with a delta? I’m beginning to think deltas are not worth the hassle. Extreme build height, but questionable build width/length. More like the artist’s printer rather than the engineer’s printer. I’m also questioning the value proposition, which is why I purchased it: If in practical terms the build area ends up being only a 8” circle for most people, (and I’m probably being generous), that translates into a 5.66”square, so the value isn't there anymore.

The level/flat/calibration issues that many people experience is what push the RMV2 kit out of consumer grade territory and squarely into the hobby/tinker/learning camp. Whether it is luck, skill, karma, or planetary alignment, my RMV2 does not exhibit those issues.

Why another delta? Because I don't have any hassle. I just wanted to make some changes to the RMV2 design without taking my first machine out of service for weeks. Deltas are faster. I do a lot of iterative prototyping and speed is priceless. I print the occasional large object. When I was narrowing down the choices for my first printer, it came to a decision between the Taz4 and the RMV2 as the large volume contenders.

Even for those RMV2 owners who have build plate issues and only use the middle, the full diameter (10.5"+) is available once you are up off the plate. You can't print a 10" bowl in a 6" square.