The 3D printers have made up at least 50% of my tool use at the Hive. I would be sad to see the Gigabot go, especially since it’s on the verge of being upgraded. The price is certainly the crucial figure though.
Regarding a reliable 3D printer: we should get one, if we can find such a magical beast. The Polar3D has been pretty reliable, but has some limitation in filament type and build size. I would love for us to have at least 3 printers with at least 2 functioning at all times. Maybe a UV resin printer?
BTW, huge thanks to Ivan (and Jim, Jon, Bill, Ryan…) for all their work fixing and upgrading the Gigabot in the last few months, however this turns out.
I’m in agreement with Mike and Jim here. When the gigabot was working it was in constant use. Considering the number of people who used it I think it would be a good idea to try and work out a deal with John.
He said he wanted to sit and think on a price based on what we have done to it. He says he paid $4k for the machine (I think new they sell for higher than this now though) and off the top of his said said $2500, but he wanted to think on it. He seemed to be open to discussion as well.
Slight tangent, but we were at the new Xavier Innovation Center opening last night and one of our guys talked with Frank (president of Makerbot) and he said they are close to shipping new materials - wood, ceramic, and stainless steel. They will probably need to ship new printheads with each spool due to wear and tear of the new material.
I don’t know anything more than that, but I figured it may be good info if we’re talking about purchasing printers. Could be really cool.
Now that the Gigabot is ours, all put it back on the radar for my time. I just emailed Roy… asking about our replace daughter-board, sent and never received.
What is the gigabot status? I could potentially work on thermistor calibration this weekend if that’s the next step, but don’t want to just bumble in blindly…
Mike
Now that the Gigabot is ours, all put it back on the radar for my time. I just emailed Roy… asking about our replace daughter-board, sent and never received.
I’ve reached out to RE3D and it seems they are going to send me a new shield w/thermo support. The one I sent to panucott … got uh lost… and or Panucott failed to exchange the item as indicated in email. Hopefully RE3D comes through.
Status wise, the bed needs leveled and the thermocouple likely needs a custom look up table generated for it. Realistically we need the new board with thermo shield to keep working on it, it maybe possible to put the old one back it but I doubt it will perform well with the thermistor in the hot-end. It has no USB, so we couldn’t program a custom look-up table. I would like to wait, and I’ll keep after RE3D/Panucott until we have something.
The saga continues!
A thermocouple shield has arrived! I'm glad it made it with its address error...
I'm busy this week into next, but I'll try to drop it off asap!
