Hi everyone, I didn't know this topic existed under my nose all this time until I did a recent search.

Since there are Repraps in Malaysia & Singapore, I am now trying to compile a list of distributors or outlets that provide parts for Repraps in Malaysia and Singapore, the non-printed bits like ball bearings, GT2 belting, linear rods, Arduino, and etc. So if anyone knows a place or two to get these parts at affordable prices, please do share with us in this topic.

In case anyone need Reprep parts, especially the printed plastic bits, I am starting a 3D printing service for Reprap parts once I get my 3D printer by end of April. Please do PM me for 3D printing pricing and etc. My prices are affordable and I charge on a base price + material per gram.

If you need assistance in troubleshooting Reprap printing issues, I am the guy to ask since I have been tinkering and maintaining several reprap for at least a year. PM me for advice.

Cheers.

It seems that the manufacturing of high end industrial sets of 3D printers have finally arrived at Malaysia shores. These things are supposed to be catered to the general public but the price tag seem to be aimed for industries and education centers as the price tag suggested is considered miniscule to them. It was probably design to compete with Makerbot as the specs claimed to be way better than Makerbot Replicator 2. Although the 50 micron layer resolution is a bit of an overstatement as most general prints works fine at 100 microns while saving half the time spent printing. Its better than Makerbot Replicator 2 in terms of build volume but the space efficiency isn't that great while the printer outer dimensions suggest its not very desktop friendly either.

It obviously doesn't look open source from the closed box design and unknown propriety electronics used in that printer. Normally with any non open source devices, these things tend to me a lot more pricier when it comes to keeping it maintained and especially when it breaks down as you cannot fix it on the spot without voiding the warranty. Besides, owning one of these means having to be tied to the company just for the replacement parts and repairs.

Anyway its too soon to judge the printer and company service performance solely on prints made by a single unit, I will just wait it out and look into reviews about this printer.

Welcome to the reprap club, I have not tried out the prusa but its has been around for a long while and has been continuously improved on by many users. I assume you are getting an unassembled kit so you might want to go online and read up on assembling it and also follow some YouTube tutorials on 3d printing.

I don't want to sound discouraging but getting a reprap is a frustrating journey unless you find joy spending countless of hours tinkering with it just to get a decent print.

If you need help assembling or advice, you can pm me anytime.

Good luck tinkering.

Nice blog and congrats on your first build! I am surprised there are more vendors in Malaysia providing kits for the Mendel and Prusa.

There are a few ways to solve stringing and oozing problems during prints.

First of all, you have to find the optimum set temp during print of the nozzle for your hotend which allows continuous uninterrupted extrusion and low oozing problems. For mine, I have set the initial first layer temp to 220 Deg C so I have reliable adhesion to the bed (non heated bed), then bring down the temp to 190 Deg after the first layer. For your case , you might try to warm the bed to 50 deg and print 190 through out the print.

Secondly, after having another look at the the pictures of your hotend setup, if not mistaken, I can guess you have the fan pointing towards the PEEK section of your J-Head hotend. To solve the stringing issue/oozing issue, you might want to get another 12v fan or try to lower and tilt the existing fan towards the nozzle end. This is to allow rapid cooling of the extruded PLA when it is in contact with the print. Also, this helps with bridging, i.e. forming a bridge or mid air crossover between two section of a print. You might want to get a fan shroud from thingiverse, http://www.thingiverse.com/tag:fan_shroud to focus the air flow towards the nozzle.

Oozing normally occurs when warming up the hotend but if its happening during prints then another way is to adjust the retraction rate in the slicer to minimize oozing. Stringing between gaps in prints is also affected by the retraction rate but these strings can be easily removed after the prints have complete.

As for ABS, I have not tried ABS yet but from what I know, it is going to stink up your whole house with the smell of burning plastic. The hotbed temp has to be higher, about 100 deg and hotend should be about 220 deg for ABS but there are values recommended by ABS filament suppliers and you may have to adjust them around those values to work with your printer. Warping for ABS is a really big issue if your hotbed isn't set correctly but you can solve warping by turning on Brim support in your slicer.

Its good that there are people who can thinker and play around with their 3D printers as this is one of the ways to learn and master the technology.

My bad, in part 2 of your blog the picture showing the washer placed on the hotend inlet looks like a J-head with a PEEK insulator from the back, there wasn't an pic of the hotend for my reference. You may have to custom model a shroud that fits your system and likely make an attachment for the shroud.

Your current set temperature of 180 is very low for PLA, anymore lower can cause your extruder drive to slip or eat into your filament because the PLA filament can't melt lower than 170 and can lead to more problems. Also, having the nozzle temp too low will cause delamination issues as the extruded PLA does not stick to the previous layer. I recommend changing the retraction speed instead as the first solution then implement a cooling fan for the extrusion.

This post has been edited by altan: Jun 11 2014, 05:26 PM

Try increasing retraction length to about 3 mm or so. The speed and length are two important parameters which complements one another. The speed tells the extruder how fast to pull it back while the length tells it how far to pull the filament back.My settings for retraction are, speed 40 mm/s and length 3.5 mm. Hope this helps.

Here is one of my recent prints with... well... no stringing . p.s. there it one string at the very top most layer.


This post has been edited by altan: Jun 11 2014, 11:39 PM

Congrats, you can now get very nice prints.

You could try printing replacement parts in PLA for now but you might have to reinforce the joints or thicken certain parts to make it mechanically strong. I recommend printing at 0.1 mm for better lamination strength and at 50% or more fill to strengthen the part. I have printed gears and chains using PLA and so far it is mechanically strong. I don't recommend heavy loads or anything that an create a strong shock to the part. An example is a Z axis coupler I made for my printer in thingiversebecause my printer came with a broken aluminum coupler so have to design and print on another printer using PLA. I am still using it till today and also slowly improving on the design as well.

If you don't mind mixing different materials with your existing hotend then you could get an ABS reel and try it out and let us know more about it.

Looks like you are printing either Kossel or Rostock part. I have a completed printing all the parts for a mini Rostock but don't have the non-palastic bits to complete the build.

If heat is your concern for PLA then you could also look into new materials like Proto-pasta high temperature PLA. I know a supplier who suggested me this material but heat isn't an issue for me so far. I have not tried this material yet but from what I understand is normal PLA would soften and may deform when placed in a car under a hot sun but this material claims it should not soften or deform at all.

Even if you have finished printing the plastic bits for the Kossel, I am sure enough you have to complete the build with the non printable parts. Do you know any vendor that provides extruded aluminum frame and linear rods? I seem to be having a hard time finding any supplier in KL or PJ area.

Thanks for the link, he has a good list of suppliers. Its a good decision to go for the 20x20 aluminium frame as its a more common size and the extra weight can help in the long run. I may want to try making that one day and a few others too.

I was just wondering about dual extruders, won't the doubled weight from the hotend and direct drive stepper motor lead to a much reduced printing speed, say less than 40 mm/s, as the weight would cause severe backlashing at high printing speeds. I know the solution to this is to implement bowden drive but the print quality would severely degrade with the length of the bowden tube while the high hotend temp would lead to poor bridging and slope formation.

By the way, I have ordered some china clone J-head hotends with 0.3 mm nozzle for 1.75 mm filament and direct drive. They should arrive by the end of the month. It comes unassembled but I can easily assemble it with cartridge, kapton and thermistor for you. Assembly is free of charge, just have to pay for the parts. If you are interested and can wait till it arrives, you can PM me for the price.

Since you have a rigid setup using some really thick rails, why don't you try the Kraken, the quad E3D extruder? I want to get that but its way out of my budget.

It will probably be a good try if your controller board comes with extra extruder, heater and thermistor connectors.

Good to hear that this topic is somewhat active again.

You can PM me anything for the hot end, I will be trying out this batch when it arrives and let you know if its worth the money I paid. Frankly, I have used these china made hotends on another 3D printer without knowing about it till a week ago when I was reading it in http://jheadnozzle.blogspot.sg/2013/11/is-j-head-real.html. So far, those hotend did fail several times due to the heater cartridge wire getting burnt out or the PTFE sleeving getting clogged with dirt. As for print quality, I found no problems with the final print.


Another type of hotend you might want to try is the UBIS hotend by Printrbot as I am using it now on my 3D printer. Its a ceramic column hotend with a brass nozzle, doesn't need active cooling and the temp retention is quite good. Its really pricy but its worth it in case you need a more compact and quality hotend.

Japan Pasar is my favourate place for small electronic components... They sells every type of electronic components, just bring the part and show them, they will probably have it in stock unless its an uncommon component. Micro switch is a common component just don't expect to get the exact switch for the printer.

Thanks for sharing the cheapness of china PLA filaments, I was at one time tempted at purchasing some from china through ebay but I found that I can still get them cheaper locally. Also from reviews about filament quality, I do recommend if you can get PLA filaments from known suppliers who understand a quality product and have used them before. There are a few suppliers for filaments in Malaysia as well as Singapore and I would recommend you the suppliers in Singapore. By the way, its a matter of paying more for the sake of getting peace of mind and minimal worries when printing large prints. I am curious to find out what are the defects the china filaments have.

Regarding the jamming, the problem lies with the filament diameter consistency and the cross section shape, i.e oval instead of round. When the diameter of the filament exceed 1.9 mm, there is a good chance of jamming the extruder and I had experience that problem for a particular spool which I got for free. The stringing cannot be avoided when printing at 220 deg because the molten filament is liquid enough to seep out of the nozzle even with retraction. I don't know if there are ways to shape the filament, or scrape the excess diameter down to 1.75 mm but if you want to utilize the spool to its full potential and minimizing failed prints then you should try smaller prints instead, less likely to fail a print.

If you need a nearby local distributor, checkout @storm88 post http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopic=2862182, though I have not tried theirs yet, but If you need any below RM 100, then Qwikfab from Singapore supplies PLA filaments too. I bought some of their filaments but have not tried it yet as I was busy leasing my printer for some events but visually it looks good.

This post has been edited by altan: Jun 20 2014, 02:20 PM

This just proves the likelihood of the filament causing the extruder jams. The average diameter for the china filaments are way above the average 1.75 mm diameter, the ideal average values for most extruders. If its consistently less than 1.75 mm, it is still acceptable but may have to adjust the filament diameter size in the slicer to get acceptable extrusion volume.

That's very thoughtful of you. If you can try out some GID filaments, post up a pic and let us know how it goes.