Looking to buy a solidoodle.

Setup is pretty straightforward.  You do not have to calibrate before every print, or even the first one.  The more calibration you do, the more accurate prints to a point.  There are many factors involved, including changing filament and printing at different layer height.  I have printed many hours without re-calibrating.  Generally, setup the printer, do your calibrations, print some tests and dial in your filament; that should last you quite a while.  You may have to adjust temperature for different filaments, and make some adjustments for different layer heights.

That said I never had any Z wobble, while other have to varying degrees and some have received poorly drilled Z rods.  Prints not sticking to the bed is fairly common and many have installed a piece of glass on top to address this.

Mine arrived in good shape, others were no so lucky.  From what I understand things improved a good bit when they switched to a metal Z-carriage (I have the older wooden one).

For me, easy to clog.  I believe this mostly had to do with advertised filament printing temps being much different from the temps needed to print on the SD.  Due to thermistor placement on the SDs, you need to lower your temps by 20C or so (you also don't want to leave the extruder heated for more than a few minutes when not printing).  Without knowing this, I clogged my hot end multiple times and ended up melting the PEEK while unclogging it (don't heat the extruder without the thermistor in place).  The stock jigsaw acrylic extruder parts are fragile and has cracked for many (myself included).  Many on this forum have printed replacement parts from lawsy on Thingiverse.  Many have also replaced the PEEK hotend with a jhead or E3D.  I haven't had a single clog with my E3D after many hours of printing.

Really depends on what you want to print, but "very large" items take a very long time to print.  It's also more challenging to get large flat pieces to adhere to the print bed during long printing times.  After having used my SD3 for quite some time, I think I placed too much emphasis on the build volume, personally.

The problems I faced with my SD3 could be considered to be my fault in that I printed too hot and clogged my nozzle multiple times.  As a result, I fried my PEEK and cracked my acrylic parts.  I also blew my microprocessor, shorted my thermistor, broke my heater resistor, and fried my Sanguino board.  So my SD3 now has a number of upgraded and replacement parts and is running well (and I've learned alot along the way).

If I (a) printed at the right temps from the start and (b) didn't chase higher quality prints so much, the stock SD3 would probably have met my needs just fine.  I didn't have anything break for no reason.

This forum has been a fantastic resource, and the fact that SDs are open is a big plus.

I was looking for an upgradable entry level printer and the SD3 has been just that.

+1 to 3d-oodler and cckens

I agree completely on what they both have to say.

I would also include that if you do decide to upgrade you will be looking at spending more money then
you may expect.

New board, stepper motor controller, all metal hotend, new heat bed, power supply, linear bearings, hardened rods.

The list goes much further then this.

All are not necessary but it can become an addiction to perfection

Hi Mix3rn from Norway

I got my printer after many month of waiting, but the filament was lost on the way over the big large blue sea. It took me a ton of email to tell the company that is was not my fault that the shipment had been sent without a tracking number. Finally, after many, many weeks of waiting, the filament finally arrived. I unpacked the printer just to find that some parts where rusty due to lack of grease from the factory. It was now more than a year since the printer had been ordered, so it was not covered by the normal warranty.  I tried to print one item and one important part just “killed” itself. Some plastic parts were crunched. I had to send the broken parts back to the company to get new ones even after I had sent those photos.

I have now finally managed to print my very first part – more than 2 years after I ordered the printer. I have rebuild part of the filament feeding system as the one they have from the factory just don’t work – it’s not what can expect from a piece of equipment like this.

Now I have to try to figure out how to calibrate this piece of shit as the layers are not aligned and the items printed cannot be used due the large misalignment.

I feel that I’m a beta-tester for a student project from hell. If you get this printer, you have to love self inflicted pain and love to tinker with the printer rather then printing cool stuff.

Oh man, I’m so tired of this metal box.

Som du ser så er jeg ikke helt fornøyd med firmaet. Selve skriveren er kuul, men du må like å skru og fikse, banne og slenge ting rundt om kring for å kunne like denne skriveren.
Hilsen en annen nordmann.

E3D is one of the best available now.

I bought my E3D from the designer's site:
http://e3d-online.com/

But that was before elmort starting selling it (would have saved me some shipping time and money from the US):
http://www.filastruder.com/products/all … e3d-hotend