As Carl said.. RESEARCH! take the time to learn about the machine you are interested in.. read reviews, read forum posts, find out what other people's experiences have been. Then find a REPUTABLE place to purchase from. They ARE out there. You might pay a few dollars more but it may actually be worth it in customer support down the road.
Ebay - eh, whatever - research the seller at the very least.
Gearbest?? seriously? OMG no - they are fine for some things, but printers? hell no..
AliExpress, alibaba, and any others like them? Again, Hell No!
I currently have 5 printers... 2 used SD4s, 2 kit printers from Folgertech (had a 3rd one but sold it) and I have a beta tester machine that is a higher end unit.
For the price, the Folgertech kits are not bad. They are not perfect but they are not bad. Better than some of the crap being sold as "assembled" units.
I got my CT'c Duplicator Dual on ebay and it has been the best machine I own. Granted I got rid of the crappy Makerbot (closed source) clone logic it had and I swapped the extruders for the next years model. But other than that the machine works great.
]]>Carefully bend the end stop back in to position.
Get some of your common or garden variety of cyanoacrylate, you will know it by many names, some very well known, truth is that you may only need to get some from the dollar store and while you're in there, grab a tub of baking soda.
Once the switch is in place, fill the void between the switch and the board.
Make sure you apply plenty to wick up along the edges, then sprinkle on some baking soda, add a fair bit and then gently agitate with a finger.
This should have actually set the cyanoacrylate of any strength in to something harder than concrete but not as hard as steel.
The chemistry I believe to be a simple case of the baking soda having the ability to provide micro-sites for crystallisation to happen rapidly. Unless the cyanoacrylate is extremely weak, the bonding with the addition of baking soda should result in an instant set bonding of parts that is rumoured to be 20 times stringer... I'd say you'd destroy the part before it became unbonded.
I am sure that you will find this tip on youtube somewhere, a cheap alternative to paying $$$$'s for something that is just a liquid version of baking soda.
that's what I did to get the machine printing for now
I used plain ca glue to hold the rollers to the bearings (finished a 14 hour print and still holding)
and for the end stop I just drilled holes and installed screws like the other ones on my other machines
still going to have them send me replacements for the parts. my new printer should not have glued parts from the get go lol
also someone mentioned buying from ebay is the problem , then where should I buy my printers gear best is as bad if not worse on qa, the crappy ctc anet a8 clone I bought that was junk came from amazon (prime seller )
the dedicated 3d printer stores sell the same machines and mark them up from gear best or ebay price , so where is better lol
im not buying crazy high end machines
my 2 original anet a8 printers(130$ from ebay) are work horses and with the e3d hot end and some stiffener mods print as good as my buddies luzbot he paid 1500 for
the crappy ctc anet a8 I bought from amazon is the first crap printer I ended up with and it would have been ok but the frame was only 4mm and the bearing blocks are plastic with bearings in them that are to small
my 3 monoprice select mini that I bought used off ebay (2 v1 , 1 v2) work great and have been great out of the box except having to do the bed rewire
my only store bought machine is a powerspec I3 mini and its ok but not any better than the monoprice machines
then I have a crappy xyx mini maker I got on ebay but its crappy because its a xyz printer lol
]]>Get some of your common or garden variety of cyanoacrylate, you will know it by many names, some very well known, truth is that you may only need to get some from the dollar store and while you're in there, grab a tub of baking soda.
Once the switch is in place, fill the void between the switch and the board.
Make sure you apply plenty to wick up along the edges, then sprinkle on some baking soda, add a fair bit and then gently agitate with a finger.
This should have actually set the cyanoacrylate of any strength in to something harder than concrete but not as hard as steel.
The chemistry I believe to be a simple case of the baking soda having the ability to provide micro-sites for crystallisation to happen rapidly. Unless the cyanoacrylate is extremely weak, the bonding with the addition of baking soda should result in an instant set bonding of parts that is rumoured to be 20 times stringer... I'd say you'd destroy the part before it became unbonded.
I am sure that you will find this tip on youtube somewhere, a cheap alternative to paying $$$$'s for something that is just a liquid version of baking soda.
]]>Got any pictures? You know, a picture speaks a thousand (or more, as the saying goes) words...
this is the y end stop
it bent up like that after one auto home cycle
on my other printers that use the same style end stop, they actually have 2 small screws going through the microswitch holding it to the pcb
as for the roller guides not much to picture the bearings were just so loose fitting that they would fall out of the roller
that caused the print bed to wobble while moving , and same for the print head
a fun note it was very rough treated in shipping the filament roll included showed up like the pic lol
]]>CTC and CT'c although both Chinese companies. CTC is an umbrella name made by several resellers that sell several Chinese clones by different names under this name.
The real CT'c company is very real and sell some nice mid to high end filament based machines as well as several SLA machines as well.
]]>Personally, I gave up on ebay years ago.. way too much garbage.
]]>well the seller is sending some replacements
(also sending some end stops as so far 2 have failed after printing a calicat and benchy)
for now i used some super glue to hold the rollers to the bearings and it seems to be working as a temp fix (12 hours into a print and still holding )overall not very happy about the purchase tho
ebay listing listed it as a cr-10s , and only after re reading the listing 3 times did i find in really small print ctc
the day after i bought it ebay sayid the listing was "updated by seller" and now includes ctc in the titleif i would have seen that it was a ctc i would have ran and hid lol
i know from exp ctc is total crap
i bought a knockoff anet a8 listed as another brand but showed up branded ctc and it was total junk frame only 4mm , plastic bearing carriers , bearings only fill half the carrier , it was a messnot like i cant fix all the problems its just a pia . and im guessing the replacements will take forever to get here , the printer took almost 3 months
Got any pictures? You know, a picture speaks a thousand (or more, as the saying goes) words...
]]>overall not very happy about the purchase tho
ebay listing listed it as a cr-10s , and only after re reading the listing 3 times did i find in really small print ctc
the day after i bought it ebay sayid the listing was "updated by seller" and now includes ctc in the title
if i would have seen that it was a ctc i would have ran and hid lol
i know from exp ctc is total crap
i bought a knockoff anet a8 listed as another brand but showed up branded ctc and it was total junk frame only 4mm , plastic bearing carriers , bearings only fill half the carrier , it was a mess
not like i cant fix all the problems its just a pia . and im guessing the replacements will take forever to get here , the printer took almost 3 months
]]>every single rubber roller guide is so loose that the bearing falls right out
am I correct in saying that this is not how it should be (my first printer that uses roller guides )
should they not be a press fit
want to confirm this (even though I already pretty much know the answer ) before I raise hell on the seller
]]>