My first printer, here we go........

[rockpopandchips]

The wife said owning a 3d printer is like owning a van, everyone wants to use it for the weekend and they never refuel it after they have used it.

 

So small print size has gotten me looking at larger printer, just.like owning a larger van.

 

Look at second hand elegoo Saturn 2 at £125 or an Anycubic 6ks, from them at £150, any thoughts?

[PeteH1969]

13 hours ago, rockpopandchips said:

The wife said owning a 3d printer is like owning a van, everyone wants to use it for the weekend and they never refuel it after they have used it.

 

So small print size has gotten me looking at larger printer, just.like owning a larger van.

 

Look at second hand elegoo Saturn 2 at £125 or an Anycubic 6ks, from them at £150, any thoughts?

Good deal.

 

Why are they selling the machine?

 

How many hours have they done have they had any major components replaced and if they have you need the receipts so you can prove they were changed for the parts warranty in-case you have troubles with the machine.

 

It's not a question of cost it's quality yo will get from second hand or new? 

 

Pete 

[rockpopandchips]

Well looked what turned up this morning, I just hope it's reputation is not as bad as the Internet makes out. I will not be using it for speed print and I will carry on using the Sunlu resin, and we will see how I get on.

 

Anycubic Photon Mono M5s

 

If anyone has any proper experience with the printer I would love e to know how your getting on with it.

 

 

It's only done 17 prints and was used a proof of concept prints.

[PeteH1969]

3 minutes ago, rockpopandchips said:

Well looked what turned up this morning, I just hope it's reputation is not as bad as the Internet makes out. I will not be using it for speed print and I will carry on using the Sunlu resin, and we will see how I get on.

 

Anycubic Photon Mono M5s

 

If anyone has any proper experience with the printer I would love e to know how your getting on with it.

 

 

It's only done 17 prints and was used a proof of concept prints.

Mike @bootneck Here's your que to advise ?

[bootneck]

54 minutes ago, rockpopandchips said:

Well looked what turned up this morning, I just hope it's reputation is not as bad as the Internet makes out. I will not be using it for speed print and I will carry on using the Sunlu resin, and we will see how I get on.

 

Anycubic Photon Mono M5s

 

If anyone has any proper experience with the printer I would love e to know how your getting on with it.

 

 

 

It's only done 17 prints and was used a proof of concept prints.

Hi rpac,

 

I have two of those machines and think they are great.  I am not at home at the moment; however, send me a pm to connect up and I'll try to help later.

cheers,

Mike

[rockpopandchips]

Oh well, not going great for my first print test, looks like the centre screw is wobbling and needles to say the print didn't work. Stuck to the bed thought, so there's a start.

 

 

 

[bootneck]

If you are lucky then it may be just that the plate holder needs the centre screws tightening up.  If not, and the long screw guide is warp, you will need to purchase another. 

Before starting another print or test, check that no debris has fallen into the vat.  The check can be done by 'very gently' sliding the plastic spatula along the FEP [ the opaque plastic sheet in the vat] but do not apply any pressure on the FEP itself.

I regularly do this check after a print, whether it was good or a fail, as any debris will damage the FEP.   When a print starts, the build plate moves down to the FEP leaving no gap between the two; therefore, if there is any debris, the plate will push the debris into the FEP and cause a puncture.  This would then leak resin onto the printer plate below. 

If you do not have a protective sheet [similar to a smartphone protective sheet] on the glass printer plate, you could end up with an expensive replacement to deal with.

 

cheers,
Mike

[rockpopandchips]

1 hour ago, bootneck said:

If you are lucky then it may be just that the plate holder needs the centre screws tightening up.  If not, and the long screw guide is warp, you will need to purchase another

I take it that the centre screw should not move about at its base or were it enters the base of the machine?

 

Thanks Brian

[bootneck]

The centre guide screw should not move off its vertical axis at all.  Only a revolving motion should be detected, as the plate travels up and down.

cheers,
Mike

[rockpopandchips]

51 minutes ago, bootneck said:

The centre guide screw should not move off its vertical axis at all.

Cheers Mike, this is very is vert sloppy then....

 

 

[rockpopandchips]

It looks like the lead screw and motor are one part, so I have order a replacement, I should arrive Tuesday next week.

In the meantime I will check if the auoto levelling is working, is there anything else I should check?

[rockpopandchips]

Well I have found the problem the entire motor and lead screw have come detached from the body of the printer, time to pull up the big boys pants and get to this....

 

 

[rockpopandchips]

The guts of the inside of the M5s.

 

And it's all back together without any spare parts...😆 it all looks to be working so I will run a print later. I think the self leveling function saved this printer from pushing the print bed through the screen, but equally if anycubic used a bit of threadlock this would never have happened, the allen screws all have very short threads in them, worth checking them regularly I think.

 

[PeteH1969]

I thought going by your first post the Anycubic machine was NEW or was it second hand?

 

Pete

[rockpopandchips]

54 minutes ago, PeteH1969 said:

I thought going by your first post the Anycubic machine was NEW or was it second hand?

 

Pete

Second hand, but it's only done 17 prints before I got it.

[dnl42]

I hope it's just a matter of bolting it back together.

[rockpopandchips]

21 minutes ago, dnl42 said:

I hope it's just a matter of bolting it back together.

Well it's all back together now and it look right to me, running an RERF print now, using the standered resin settings.

[rockpopandchips]

OMG it's working.....not great but it's a start and I'm hopefully @bootneckwI'll have a bit of free time to guide me through how to improve these tests.

 

I need to fully understand the RERF print to work out my next exposure starting point.

 

[bootneck]

I don't have that much available time currently, for reasons that I have explained; however, there are plenty of members here who know about the tests and should be able to advise you.

cheers,
Mike

[rockpopandchips]

13 minutes ago, bootneck said:

I don't have that much available time currently

Totally fine Mike, keep well.

[dnl42]

There are some YT vids on how to use the various print tests.

 

You might see if Anycobic has some test files. Elegoo certainly does (it's a chess set; they provide STLs).

[rockpopandchips]

14 minutes ago, dnl42 said:

You might see if Anycobic

Cheers yeh they do but I kind of know what I'm doing with this basic one.

 

I was confused by the first results above but now I have checked the manual it makes more sense. Basically it's backwards to what I was expecting.

So I thought upper left was position 1, its not thats in upper right. S position one is the standard exposure of 3s and it turns out it far off, I will slice the file starting at 1.25s and each test will increase by 0.25s so ending at 3s. I suspect 2 to 2.5s will be good, for my needs.

 

[rockpopandchips]

I take it all back the printer is a bag of pants.All I did was add a raft and suports and reprinted it....what a bloody mess. All the raflfts printed, suports and others parts didn't, normaly I would relevel at this piont but this printer  can not. I checked the levels using paper and its not bloody  self leveling. The front corners are, but the back corners are not self-level. 

 

Looking up how to level this printer brings up nothing....HELP!

 

[rockpopandchips]

I have been digging and it looks like Anycubic now sell a build plate with screws for levelling these printers. So I wanted to ensure the printer would work before ordering the £50 replacement build plate. So back to basics and just going with the files that anycubic supply with the printer.

 

So this is printed in the center of the build plate.

 

 

I would say it's overexposed, but at least it's a complete print, which gives me a bit of hope in getting this working properly.

 

I have started Anycubics' own RERF test print, which takes the full build plate. We will see how it turns out. Before I started the print, I tested the level again with paper, and the two left corners and front right were fine. Only the back left was still not level. I have no idea what's going on with it.

 

[rockpopandchips]

I will clean these up, but on the plus side, they have printed. None of them looks to great, so I have ordered a new build plate, with levelling screws.