Folgertech FT-5 (Page 3 of 4)

looks good from My house LOL
Tin

I tried to hook up a part cooling fan over the weekend. Got the wires run through the cable chain, all nice and neat. printed up the mount & shroud on #1 got it all installed on the printer. Looks pretty good.

Make the connection on the controller board to D9 - the spot the reprap wiki says to hook the fan to - which should make it automatic g-code enabled... except it doesn't work. At all...

The firmware for this thing is a "custom" revision of Marlin. And I knew there were some strange things done with it because right rear is not only home, it is also 0,0 (instead of left front being 0,0 as most host software dictates). This is not a huge deal, it simply means that everything is rotated 180 degrees from what is seen on the computer screen.

But after I started poking around a bit more and comparing it to the version of Marlin I have on both of my SD4s, I have discovered that entire sections have been completely removed!

this is the file list for the SD4 version of Marlin:

and here is the file list for the FT-5 version...

Now I can understand removing stuff for your own personal use, but not when this is supposed to be a public release for a kit printer. The makers of the kit have no idea what the end user is going to want to do with a kit - such as upgrading various components like hotends, beds, adding things, etc...

One of the things I noticed missing were several thermistor table references - WHY? That makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever!
The firmware for this printer is so butchered I don't even know where to begin.... I do not understand the thinking behind what was done to this.

My thinking at this point is to make a copy of my SD4 firmware and set it up for the FT-5 - seems to me this is going to be the easier route for me to take to get things the way they "should" be...

Rant over...

before you do anything - unpack and do a complete inventory of all parts - including the hardware. Sort the hardware into either a plastic parts box - the kind with dividers - or even egg cartons work. You will save yourself a lot of headaches during assembly if the hardware is sorted and labeled before you start.

If you find anything missing or damaged, email Folgertech right away - pictures of damaged items are very useful to them and will speed up the process.

Barring any missing or damaged parts, the kit can easily be put together over a weekend if you are fairly handy, and actually be printing before the weekend is out if you dont have anything else to do...

as for actual hours spent? I honestly have no idea. it was a little here, a little there - run into an issue, ask questions about said issue, wait for responses... and so on...

The biggest issue with this kit is the so called "build guide" - it is very rough, and there are some confusing pictures (things oriented one way in one picture, and the opposite way in the next one). Things are being corrected, but not very quickly...

there is a spreadsheet on Google docs that was set up for users to comment on things that they found either confusing, or just plain wrong and at this point, it is a rather useful additional tool when building.

The wiring section of the build guide is the worst part, and I took some time (a couple of days actually) to put together a wiring schematic to try to help others with that aspect of things. I have been told by those that have used it that it is "invaluable", lol. Even the owner of FT has asked if he can use it in future revisions of the build guide.

If you do decide to get one, make sure you have a stable, solid, space to put it - it is HUGE! approximately 2 feet wide x 2 feet deep x 2.5 feet tall (not taking into account space for a filament spool holder somewhere... side... top... where ever) and weighs in somewhere in the 40-45 pound range. I can pick it up and move it, but it is an armful and I don't go far with it!

In stock form, it works fine, but yeah, the stock firmware has really been hacked to bits and is pretty useless if one wants to add things to the printer - like a layer fan - this should be simple, but isnt.

the good news is they are working on a better version - in fact, I tested it this morning and am much happier with the new version, altho it is not exactly to my liking either, LOL... nothing terrible, mind you, just not what I am used to.

and I actually have done very little calibrating of this printer.

First thing is to get vref set close to where it needs to be so all axis move smoothly (can be fine tuned later) and then make sure the extruder steps/mm are right - ask it to feed 100mm, you get 100mm.

then get the bed leveled properly (that can be interesting with a bed of this size). I actually bought a 3/16" plate of aluminum to stabilize the PCB bed heater (kind of flimsy on its own - but I think they have changed to a different bed heater now than what I got)

since I have multiple printers, for filament it was a simple matter of selecting the spool of filament I wanted to use from my existing profile list (i have lots to choose from that have already been calibrated) and the darn thing prints great - right out of the starting gate - at 80mms a sec print speed. (just about double what I run my SD4s at) and that is just my chosen starting point. It is supposedly capable of a lot more speed

Now that I have better firmware installed that will allow me to make changes without producing errors, I will be proceeding with the E3D volcano and titan upgrades to make better use of the speed capabilities

Wiring is not my favorite task either. I hope you get it all sorted and working again. I have looked at getting one of those machines but it is just too much to get it shipped up here to Canada. Oh well, I haven't totally sorted the one I have at this point.

Well, my partner and I pulled the trigger and ordered one last night along with 6k of ABS. We're going to get another extruder, build an enclosure, heat the enclosure, and probably put a borosilicate glass bed on it. Exciting! I'll probably start a thread for it when we get started in order to document our troubles, solutions, and modifications. Heartless, I'm hoping you'll be around when we get stumped and cry out for help.

i will see what I can do.

it is supposed to be 160mm (16cm)

Extruders have subjected me to the most frustration in all 3D printing.
FT-5 no different.
Very erratic extrusion from the FT-5.
Can't really calibrate the extrusion.
Tried different filament, and disassembled extruder many times
lots of grinding going on in there!
Very free feed from spool above.
Any suggestions before I mount a E3D Titan on it.
May try a wire feed gear I have around here?
Should work out of the box?

finally got the E3D Titan and Volcano installed on the FT-5 (aka The Beast) today... running its first calibration cube right now...
it is going to take some getting used to working with the larger nozzle sizes.

Also running it from a new to us laptop that was given to us -  a quad core HP Pavilion running Win7 Home Premium. seems to be working pretty well after a few days of cleanup and clean out (OMG - the garbage that was installed on this thing!)

To be honest, I have not really had time to mess with it much after getting the Volcano & Titan installed - way too many other things going on.

Hoping to get back to it soon, tho.