My Solidoodle Review

I've had my Solidoodle for 6 days and I figured it was time I posted my review (of sorts).  First off;

Order/Communication:

I won't post more about the whole wait/order process as it has been covered many times before.  My thoughts echo those of the others- Solidoodle Support please tighten up the operations a bit and things will be much better.  Enough said.  Also please ship my remaining spool of filament I paid for

Shipment:

Solidoodle- please do NOT use USPS any more.  Use UPS period.  Enough said on that.

Receipt of goods:

My Solidoodle came packed adequately padded and secured.  The bubble wrap and peanuts did their job very well.  Other that the extruder jammed into the bed- I had no issues (although this may have been what braced it from movement during shipping- who knows)

Setup:

Still running the original firmware with no prob.  Set up according to the solidoodle site and it printed like a champ right out of the box.  The raft material was virtually impossible to remove generated by Skeinforge though.  This things did EXACTLY as advertised- printed well with the recommendations of the manufacturer- no complaints at all for this price-point.

Tweaking:

Extrusion multiplier- Oddly enough I found my printer to be the same as others- 82% for proper amount.

Setup Repetier as per Ians posts and the generic cfg files available.  Followed to the letter and was printing no problem right away.  This brought me to notice other issues when not printing with a raft- Z axis backlash and bed warpage.

Attempted to level the bed and found it is indeed very uneven.  The centre, however, is quite good so as long as I confine prints to the middle- no issues.  Used Ians dial indicator mount to assist throughout. Printed off the thumbscrews from a forum post- although I only let them complete the first few layers- no need for those horribly huge/ugly things.  You only need a tiny amount of force.  Tiny dab of CA to secore and I did not poke a single hole in the Kapton.

Z-Backlash- Printed a cap and added a 5/16 nut to the Z rod- problem 99% gone.  Now my first layers are not extra think and subsequent layers are much better.

Z offset- I don't adjust my Z home right to bed- I simply get is close and add a z offset value in Slic3r.  I really don't want it to impact the side of the bed etc in case the sides warp up worse- although this method isn't perfect either I think it is safest for me. I just adjust by the "look" of the first layer.  The initial 2 loops tell me right away if things are off. Your mileage may vary.

Glass bed- this is next and mandatory due to my bed warpage.

Extruder Loose- Today I found my extruder was rocking in the sandwiched mount- suspect this is due to the thermal cycles of use as everything gets broken in.  Used a socket with just fingers and it snugged right up.  No idea how many prints this has been rocking around.

Kapton- Didn't have a scratch when I got it- still doesnt after 100+ prints.  I print at 195/100 always.  Shut off bed and allow to cool- print always pops right off at 90 so I can fire the bed right up again. One of my first prints was an ABS scraper/spatchula.  I have never used any metal on my Kapton- and have never hurt it yet.

Extrusion- Without any weight on the extruded abs it always curls up to the right.  Not sure if I have a tiny clog, but it doesn't seem to affect the prints- or I have already compensated for it in the settings.

Conclusion:

This machine is every bit of what I expected an more.  I am only priniting at .3mm and have been amazed.  Before it got it I was all concerned about going higher resolution- I am already finding that a dialed it print at 0.3mm is quite amazing.  All the macro shots on the net make it look much worse than it is.

The overall build is sturdy and simple.  Solidoodle hit a winner here.  Although the gear clamps look out of place- the rest has very decent fit and finish.  The alignment/rigiditiy of the structural system makes it far superior to the other designs available (in my eyes).  It is sturdy.

Solidoodle- PLEASE make the replacement part .stl's available to your customers ASAP.  Your overall design is rock solid and will not be easily duplicated.  The parts will be needed by your customers- and will be quickly improved upon by your loyal following.  You could then quickly incorporate the ideas into the production versions within hours- whereby accelerating the Solidoodle evolution 100x.  You can either work with your customers- or they will reverse engineer them anyhow.  Just my 2 cents again.

So far- I love this printer.  It takes up a small corner of my office desk and gives off virtually no smell at all (abs).  I've had it running solid for 6 days and the GF didn't complain about smell once- she actually commented that it was amazing it had no odor.

Originally I puchased the printer in hopes of reproducing item needed for my Learjet 45 flight simulator, specifically the small caps for my switches.  These caps as a whole at cureent value+shipping+duty add up to the nearly the prurchase price of the solidoodle.  I am happy to report- I have been able to reproduce them (an even some custom versions) completing my flight deck as planned.  I haven't even begun to craft other parts yet- need to get a bit more skilled it Sketchup for more custom parts.

Overall- this printer is fantastic.

Cheers All.

Congrats Solidoodle team for producing a great product.