Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

Hello everybody,

I'm a Mechanical Engineer in the Denver area. I just got a Rostock Max V2 for my birthday! The difference in scale between it and my old printrbot is pretty staggering - I'm looking forward to putting this thing through its paces.

First question: my hotend does not have a hole/port for the thermistor. Is that intentional and I should just paste-and-tape the thermistor to the side of the hot end, or should I drill a little hole for the thermistor?

Build progress so far

If the hot end is missing the thermistor hole, you need to contact support ASAP to get it replaced.

g.

After talking to SeeMeCNC support and getting dimensioned drawings of the hotend, I'm just going to drill it out myself. I don't think it's worth the time and money to get it replaced.

I would like to thank you for joining the forum.
Anytime you have a question about your Rostock Max 2 we will be here to help.
I hope that you enjoy your new printer now that you have the thermistor installed!
Happy Printing!

If you're already doing some work, may I recommend tapping the hole for the thermistor, so you can put a screw in one in?

I hadn't thought of that. What's the advantage? Do the thermistors tend to fail and need replacement?

if the capton tape fails they can work out of their hole slowly and in a long print the heater keeps trying to keep up with the resulting dropping temp signal and you melt the PEEK
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Modular-Screw-I ... 1864058883
is the one you want he is using a higher temp epoxy so it s good to 280c with a an all metal hot end I expect you have the needed set of quality 3mm .5 taps but just in case here is another quality eBay source http://www.ebay.com/itm/230940886917?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Thermistors can fail if taken over temperature (~300C), the leads could harden and snap, or they could break off at the head. I also personally have terrible luck potting them (I've broken 2 potting them in the silicon, and another wiring it in the printer). I also am not a great fan of using the silicon when you could put it in a brass standoff, put some thermal paste around the bead of the thermistor, and then use a high temp epoxy to top it, which gets you an easier unit to handle, and better thermal transfer in theory.

Thanks Xenocrates and Windshadow for the responses!

And thanks to Eaglezsoar for the welcome!

I'm planning to upgrade to an E3D hotend down the road, and right now I'm excited to start printing, and don't want to wait for an threaded thermistor to ship from eBay. So for now I'm going to go with a stock build and do the threaded thermistor when I install the E3D hot end.

Thanks in particular to Windshadow for the links - that was very helpful!

Thought I'd finally post an update:

Here's my completed printer, "Weaver":
I've been printing for the last week and a half, which mean it took me two months to complete the kit - that's a reflection on me and my free time, not the kit itself. Very happy to have it working now, though!

I've been maintaining my build photo album: https://goo.gl/photos/3CPAMDvZ3xq8GHQZA

Right now I'm playing around with slicing settings, and I've ordered parts and downloaded .stls to build a heated chamber.

Couple highlights:

That nut and bolt you printed looks fantastic!
You must have done an excellent job in calibrating your printer!

So I (evidently dramatically) over-tensioned a belt last week, and this morning I woke up to this:
Is there any way to splice this? Or do I need to order a new one and wait for it to ship out?

I had planned to spend most of the weekend printing, but if I have to wait, it's not the end of the world.

Wow. Just wow.

The amount of force it takes to snap one of those belts is pretty high. I'm amazed the machine even moved.

g.

It actually moved fairly easily. I'm wondering if I shifted something that made it abrade. I'll be checking when I get home from work.

You might want to change your nick from "cleansweep9" to "BeltTerror".

g.

Haha, if I take out a second belt, I'll give it serious consideration

In your shoes if the broken belt does not show a flaw that night have caused the problem and you are fairly sure you had it too tight then I would call SeeMeCNC (well use the chat button to tech support in the lower right corner of any of their main web pages) I bet on a new machine they will just send you another one if there is any hint of a fault .... if you actually did break it you might want to buy a new set of 3 just incase the other two have been over stressed.

did it break where you had it clamped in the cheapskate? if you and you did not trim the excess when you clamped it you might be able to just clamp what is left if it broke in a area that spent a lot of time working the cog check for a sharp burr in the area of the base of the tower where the belt path is (look for rubber crumbs) Same at the top of the tower in case it snapped up there only about a foot of the belt gets heavy use and its in those 2 areas.

It snapped (tore?) at the base of the tower. I've got 5 meters of belt due to arrive on Monday. I'll look over the belt path for any burrs or sharps spots this weekend.

Thanks for the input!

Well, I found the problem. The gear on the stepper motor was out of line with the pulleys:
Totally my fault. Not sure what I was thinking when I installed that stepper. There was a ton of rubber dust in the base of the printer. I checked the other belts, and they were fine. I replaced the broken belt.

So far most of my build mistakes can be attributed to quality work done after 1:00am. Possibley the same issue?

Haha, ever since I had a kid, my cutoff for good work is around 10PM, but yeah, probably the same issue