Idk if you are interested. A printerbot simple and a mono price select mini. I’m not bidding on them. Cheers!
https://bid.bidfta.com/cgi-bin/mnlist.cgi?schooliii36/HQ655742
https://bid.bidfta.com/cgi-bin/mnlist.cgi?schooliii36/HQ655739
I have the original simple, I may watch that one.
I have a simple metal and am super happy. I’ve done lots of upgrades and modifications to mine, which I enjoy doing. It’s really easy to work on, fix, change, experiment with… Can’t recommend it enough. Metal frame is nice.
I have the components of their old printrbot plus maker series, think it was a 1412 or some such as it’s all built of wooden parts. Though I got it at auction too but due to being store in a damp area the bed had warped so could never get it to print right reliably. So it’s currently in a bit of a limbo state while I’m rebuilding the frame out of aluminum with a carbon fiber foam laminate deck and glass bed. Might bid on one of those just to speed up the build process of the other perhaps.
Lorin,
Is something like this of interest to dehydrate the filament coils?
https://bid.bidfta.com/cgi-bin/mnlist.cgi?newport767/MC504451
Mike wants to build a vaccine dryer for wood… and we currently have a couple nice vacume pumps that may or may not be used for something else (vacuformer) Would a vacume dryer for fIlament be too nerdy? It could have some other uses too…recovering a wet phone, etc… a true freeze dryer setup has all sorts of possibilites,
A heated desi cabinet would probably work well to dry out filament in a pinch. Small air pump supplying air through a desiccant dryer and into a box with a panel heater on the inside of said box. Though we don’t use a heater for the ones at the plant they get the humidity down low enough to register beyond our .25% accuracy humidity probes. Add a heater and they will dry out fairly well. Or build a box large enough to throw the whole printer in would be a thought too.
Just on another note for printers on recycling filament if there’s a filabot up for grabs someplace that could save a bit long term for prints. Can build an extruder of course with a few available parts and a melt pot.
Ryan,
Did you get it? Looks like the price shot up to over $100.
Joy of sniping.
Brad
Nope, he didn’t. That was me who won the bid. Was hoping it wouldn’t go that high but oh well. Trouble is though I was going to head out of town this morning but failed to look at the “Removal details” for the auction. Trip thusly postponed. Probably for the best though considering my lack of ability to sleep right now.
Nope. I was keeping an eye on it, but the bidding began to exceed the retail cost of the parts I wanted to salvage from the printer. And considering that the box appears to have been curb stomped by an angry cage fighter, salvage was my only interest.
At present, there are two open box wanhao duplicators available at microcenter available for less than the final bid for that Simple Metal.
- Ry
Despite the box looking like it was a victim of a street fighter scene the printrbot was a new unopened unit still in factory packaging. Wasn't missing anything. So good find on the auction 
Glad to hear it. As you’ve probably gleaned from the thread, a few of us have that exact printer. Printrbot’s documentation is easily followed, but do let us know if questions arise during setup.
- Ry
glad to hear it! i got an Alumnar 3d prussa i3 printer brand new in packaging recently.
Regarding drying filament and stuff:
I print a lot of nylons and started getting serious about best practices – aka the filament is so easy and excellent if it is bone dry. Desiccant pellets are good for shipping, okay for storage. Though, you need heat to actively remove moisture or lower the ambient moisture effectively…
When I did forensics work we used the Nesco Snackmaster food dehydrator to dry out plastics (film, audio tape, etc). It is the only machine that has a 13" wide compartment which will fit reels of film, tape, or filament. This is what I use now. Prints will fail miserably, then 2 hours of snackmaster later – perfect. It’s like magic. I’d just fork out the $50 and get the snackmaster.
I designed a ring to adapt the snakmaster to a 5 gal bucket. I haven’t printed it yet due to not having time to deal with gigabot. However, I do have that Taulman TechG material down at hive to print it with… Snackmaster can use an absurd number of “expanion trays” so even 2 5-gal buckets would be doable or more…
The desiccants are good for storage, but every time I need to dehydrate, I also dehydrate the desiccant to recharge it.
The other approach I was thinking for hive would be:
Buckets with halogen bulb at bottom & fans mounted in lid. It would be a good solution for a lower wattage “dry box” for storage. It could dry out wet filament too, but slower.
PLA - Your filament is wet if you need to dial up the temp a lot… Also seems does not stick as well when wet. Layer bonding suffers.
PETG absorbs water more slowly, but when it gets wet, it gets WET, and prints like hell. The polymer chains get too sticky in presence of too much water and heat – they sort of frizz and you get a hairy, cloudy, goopy mess. I think most peoples’ issues with PET come from having moist filament.
ABS - who cares. ABS is gross, warps, is known carcinogen, ick. There are way better alternatives now with new nylons, pet, and hips.
My 2 cents – get a nesco snackmaster and never look back. A cheap dehydrator is $30. Spend another $20 for a Nesco, and it’ll work 10x better and not break when you try to have it dry out a larger space.
Lorin
I have sample prints I did to compare wet and dry filament. I can bring them down. It’s very noticeable.
Also, I fixed the latest ultimaker snafu. I’ll post another thread. Ultimaker is operational now.
Lorin,
I think a talk on best practices for 3D printers would be super cool. Perhaps you could bring in your samples and share your journey.
good times,
Brad