Gents, I cannot stress this enough: Get a fan on that little pcb / motherboard. I built a 3D print that will hold an 80mm PC fan right on it, since I did that, my prints were incredible compared to the crappy ones that made me want to toss the printer as well. It is the singlemost important first thing to take care of, IMHO.

Brien, I am planning on bringing you one (fan holder for PCB) at the A.R.P. at your house on the 9th.

Also, I just made a thread about heating the ambient air with my "Easy Bake Oven" mod. Simply put, a 60W light bulb in the enclosed printing area to heat the bed faster / keep the air warmer.

Also, a major cause of squeaking is the pulley on the X axis / the opposite side of the printhead from the stepper motor. Once I figured out how badly that thing was squeaking, the noise of the machine pretty much DISAPPEARED. A single drop of motor oil or white lithium grease on that pulley's bushing, and your life will change.

Arcadenut, I've been going through similar situation as you (solidoodle 3, basic model, arrived in March), I'd like to ask you a few questions.

My problem is the printer is doing a pretty OK job, with the one exception I've noticed is the top layer is never quite "sealed", as the perimeter has tiny gaps along its inside edge between it and the top inside layer, but this just could be a problem with the slicer I am using (using Repetier-host to slice and repetier-server to print). Other thing is the layers are ever so slightly misaligned, making the outside edges of the print really rough.

Calibrate, Calibrate, Calibrate.  I'm finding that alone is a full time job. 

Go here: http://wiki.solidoodle.com/solidoodle-1

and do the first 4 calibrations.

Yep.  What solved it 99% for me was the Glass bed and Hairspray.  My first attempt at the glass bed didn't go so well because I didn't have the printer calibrated correctly.  After I did that, then it worked way better then the Kapton tape.

Yes, from ACE Hardware.  I would recommend getting it 1/8" larger then the bed size.  The other advantage to the Glass is you can take it off to remove the print.  Wearing something to protect your hands from getting burnt    Otherwise you'll wind up torquing the bed and that will cause all sorts of issues.

I built this:

http://www.soliforum.com/topic/1588/my- … enclosure/

Auqua Net Super Hold (or something like that).

I spray on a heavy coat since I really want the print to stick.  I still get a little bit of curl, but I can live with it.   I think to improve it any further, I'll need to add a fan.

Sounds like your temps might be too high?  There are a lot of threads on here about leaking Peeks.

My problem is the printer is doing a pretty OK job, with the one exception I've noticed is the top layer is never quite "sealed", as the perimeter has tiny gaps along its inside edge between it and the top inside layer, but this just could be a problem with the slicer I am using (using Repetier-host to slice and repetier-server to print). Other thing is the layers are ever so slightly misaligned, making the outside edges of the print really rough.

Those two problems pale in comparison to the warp-age I get on my prints, as the prints curl and bend, most of the prints don't make it a cm up before the print head rubs the warped edge, knocks the print out of alignment, yadayada. So, glass, hairspray and enclosure, to minimize warping and at least get prints to finish so I can start troubleshooting the minor problems.

1) Planning on going to big box hardware store to get some glass, they have 3/32'' thick panels, would this work for me, is this similar to what you used?
2) Planning on picking up a sheet of lexan 0.093'' thickness, cutting into 4 squares, and affixing the panels to the printer with some aluminum tape. Not sure what I'm going to do for the top panel, most likely let it sit. Might buy some foam tape and affix that to the panels so they seal better.
3) And finally, was there any particular brand of hairspray that got better results? How thick of coating do you need, a light dusting, like a first coat of a nice air brushed paint job? Or a real thick globby coating?

I do have some burnt plastic leaking where you can see threads (above the hot end but below the rest of the assembly, some browned plastic oozes down on to the top of the threads you can see, sorry I don't know the terminology of the extruder assembly). Is this bad? I don't want to break my 800 printer already.

Anyways, sorry for the long post, glad to hear you are getting this issues solved, because these are the exact things I need to work out.

if it's edging away towards the back of the printer check your filament roll is free and not causing too much drag for the printhead to pull on.

Yeah, I've had issues with that as well.  I decided to rotate my prints so the longer side goes from front to back to allow it to pull more filament when it it's doing the perimeters.  Seems to be doing better that way.

Getting closer to getting my printer dialed in.

Here are what I think are essential mods now:

1) Glass + Hair Spray.  A bit tricky to get dialed in at first, but after that, WAY better.

2) Thumb Screws on the bottom of the platform.  Holy crap does that make leveling the bed easy!

3) Enclosure.  Keeps temps more consistent.

And you need to calibrate the hell out of the printer.

If it makes you feel better, I'm not having good results, myself. Mine is "skipping" or whatever the term is? Get's about 10% through a print and then decides to edge away from the part. It's maddening. lol. Anyway, that's why I'm here, to see if I can find a solution on the board.

So I got one good print out of it, then started a new one.  It got clogged again, and this time it was about 90% done with the infill.  So I paused it, raised the temp to 205C, got it to extrude again, then resumed printing.  We'll see if it makes it all the way through.

I noticed my filament goes bad sitting on the back of the printer a few weeks. I put the roll in the oven at  195 degrees Fahrenheit for 2hours. The filament worked at a lower temp and extruder quit skipping. I guess the oven brought down the melting temperature of the plastic.
The reel warped a little but I was still able to use it with some spacers on the outside.
Maybe I will find a round Tupperware container to keep it from going stale while on the back of the printer.

Interesting theory.

On the slippage issue, do you clean the wheel often? I use a kids toothbrush. Going to print the mk4 for easier access to the wheel next. I have mine torqued down enough to grip and not slip even enough to warrant cleaning the wheel anymore but not so much that it deforms my filament either. Works fine now.

I think the clog was due to the gear slipping again.  Tightened it down, and I am trying the full size print again.

I can see that's it still slips a little (but no where near what it did before).  I think the gear shaft is a bit worn due to the earlier slippage so it's not gripping very well.   Will have to find something to keep it in place better.

As for the Glass.  I'm a convert now.  I'm getting a lot better results now that it's dialed in.  Once I get the gear issue resolved, I should be good to go.

Was printing beautifully and then it got  a major clog, which I now have to try and get rid of.  ARGH!

makes me wish that there was a flat spot on the barrel that we could put a 5mm crescent wrench on to undo the nozzle, rather than trying to hold either the peek or barrel to get the nozzle off.

Nothing that a Dremel tool, flex shaft attachment and a steady hand can't hack..... erm, fix.

Is Safety glass better, the same, or worse then normal glass in this application?

I'd go as far as to say it's safer in that it won't be as easily stressed and crack as ordinary glass, but for the purposes of printing it's exactly the same.

the solidoodle support people advise against doing this, suggesting that the peek tends to (or at least should) mate quite firmly with the barrel the first time it's heated.

They say that taking the brass out of the peek can ruin the threads in the peek making the part useless.

makes me wish that there was a flat spot on the barrel that we could put a 5mm crescent wrench on to undo the nozzle, rather than trying to hold either the peek or barrel to get the nozzle off.

glass + hair spray isn't a simple solution, I tried this (in the UK) with two different brands of hair spray in varying concentrations of spray and couldn't get the 1st layer to stick properly.

in the end I went back to kapton, I've now got a kapton sheet over the toip of the glass, so I keep the flatness of the glass, an keep the "easy-stick" of the kapton.