Should I ???

PEEK hotends are not very forgiving.  After a couple clogs, I upgraded to an E3D and haven't had a single one since.

I have no regrets purchasing an entry level prebuilt 3d printer (SD3).  But I probably would have upgraded the hotend after the first clog had I known better (or perhaps I never would have had a clog if I was more careful about not leaving the extruder at temp for more than a minute); would have saved me some time in the end.

I haven't had any parts break where I didn't play a part by doing something that you're not supposed to do.

I also had the stance going in that if/when issues arose, I would take the opportunity to upgrade parts, and I've learned along the way.

My impression is that all printers in the consumer category have similar designs made from commonly available similar parts.  ALL will clog or otherwise malfunction from time to time.  For this reason, I've personally modded my printer to use cheap hot ends that I can easily swap out (knockoff jhead hot-ends, custom quick-release tension arm, mk5-style extruder, coax connectors), but I don't know of a commercial printer that comes this way.  If you are going to get a 3D printer, I'd expect to experience some pain no matter what model you buy.

From my experience, expect to have decent prints out of the box.  But you will probably not be able to achieve more challenging prints without calibration, possibly quite a bit.

If you don't print too hot or leave the extruder idle at temp for anything more than a moment you should be OK as far as clogs go.  That said, there can be quite a variation between materials and even manufactures, and dare I say material lots.  So it takes some trial and error to find the proper printing temperature.

The thing that got me is that the thermistor placement on the stock hotend causes the temperature to read lower than actual (around 30C less).  So when I was trying to print PLA at 190C+ (as stated elsewhere), it was actually getting much hotter.  Eventually my PEEK softened (from my cavalier efforts to unclog it) and it was downhill from there.

You won't find this information in your single page Solidoodle documentation that comes with the SD2; and you can't get it from general 3D printing forums.  But it's all here on this forum, if you know what to look for.

The Soliwiki is a good reference as well: http://www.soliwiki.com/

This forum had a lot to do with my decision to purchase an SD, and it made it worth while.

Just to add some experience with the Soli 2,
Bought mine about 4-5 months ago, it's had it's ups and downs but in the end it's produced a hell of a lot of wonderful prints with very little modification.
I spent the months preceding it's arrival learning everything I could about repairing and modifications.
My machine is mostly stock save for the glass bed and a few minor little bits and pieces.
At the very least, I'd be prepared for a week or two getting to know the printer and it's engineering principles.
You will encounter hick ups, but they are usually easily solved through logic, the trick is not going completely insane...

For the money, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a system of equal quality, not to mention the wonderful community here(Although a Soli product isn't needed to be a part of it).
That said, I always recommend saving a more and looking at something a little more solid such as an Ord Bot Hadron or MendelMax 2.

This is a crowd funding thing that I'm running: http://www.gofundme.com/bvi140 It's for pretty selfish reasons

I suffered the same fate as someone else here - that the thermistor moved and the hot end got too hot and melted the peek.

now I have a traditional J head.

I find these of a worse design than the original solidoodle hot ends where clearing clogs in concerned.

with the original printer you can easily heat the nozzle, and then remove the brass nozzle.

to quickly and easily clear a clog hold that nozzle with some pliers and get a blow torch, heat the nozzle to a dull red, then let it cool. then give it a swift poke with a wire brush just to clean it up a bit...

the Jhead, all in one type design can't be cleaned in this way since heating up the nozzle to that hot would just melt the peek again.

-I've considered buying a bunch move nozzles so that I can have a nozzle soaking in acetone and a nozzle in the machine at any one time. but this seems an expensive solution -buying whole hot ends, rather than just buying a few replacement nozzles.  but in the end I'm probably going to drill out my jhead and add threaded rod and original nozzles so that it's more like the original solidoodle design. (or I might drill and tap the JHead to use makerbot nozzles.

my advise...
treat the hot end carefully, it's an annoyingly expensive part of the machine considering what it is.

Make sure you regularly check that the thermistor is secure, -if it comes off the hot end can heat too much and effectively melt itself. at the black bit (peek insulator)
-to be honest it doesn't matter where in the machine the thermistor is regards nozzle or heater block temperature, just that it measures at the same place, -i.e don't get your printer working at 210 then move the thermistor to somewhere else and still expect it to print the same...

don't try to remove the nozzle whilst the hot end is cold, it's all full of plastic, and is effectively welded together with plastic.
thats a great way to break the peek, of the threads in the peek or the brass barrel.

turn the machine on, let it heat up (to around 180) and then loosen the nozzle.

hold the threaded brass tube with some pliers (very gently -don't crush it) and remove the nozzle with either pliers or a spanner/socket etc. -you can then do a short extrusion to push most/all plastic out of the barrel. (but that's probably not necessary.)

For cleaning it (the nozzle) you have a choice of soaking it in acetone for as long as it takes.
or heating it with a blow torch as described above, I prefer the heat method because I'm impatient.

If you want to use the acetone method and leave the nozzle soaking overnight, it may make sense to buy some spares when you buy the machine.
http://store.solidoodle.com/index.php?r … duct_id=77

Basically, there is no reason it should be a money pit.
it's annoying when a nozzle clogs mid print, but you should be able to either cancel the print (annoying and wastes plastic).
or pause the print, mode the bed down so that you can get access, and clear the blockage, before moving the bed back and continuing the print.

The trick is to be calm and careful.

I hacked in all the lawsy carriages with the linear bearings and I run at up to 200 feed rate with no belt chatter.
Aside from that I have another puzzle extruder and hot end ready to bolt up, mainly because I clogged it running the fillastruder product every single time. I think I need to add the screen mesh to that POS while making that stuff and then run it as cold as possible since it cooks off so quickly. The octave filament can sit at 200 C indicated over night and not cook off, though white tends to get a bit wavy that hot.