Perfect Prints

You're one of the lucky ones, Mark.  Take it and run...

The fact that you've been lucky is in your favor.  Just do yourself a just-in-case favor and do a few prints of some of the replacement parts.  It'll only take a little plastic, but an ounce (or gram) of prevention is worth a whole lotta headache down the line when something finally does go south.

You aren't trying hard enough. Most of the improvements that I have done to my machine are quality related. Maybe it's just that you are happy with your current quality of prints? Either way, I hope you have spare parts on hand 'cause you may have just done yourself in.

It's great to hear people about people getting perfectly boring success rates.

I have printed a 200 x 150 x 3mm object with no curling. And I am in the same boat. All stock parts. But I do have an enclosure and mirror on my bed.

I have also printed out all of the alternate parts in case of future failure. I have also purchased all of the upgrades, but choose not to install them. Instead, I have been building a completely new printer since all of these upgrades are more than half of what it takes to build a printer from scratch.

So, in my case, I have no banding, perfect circles, and pretty much zero lifting.

I do have the moire effects (can only be solved by replacing motherboard or extrusion method like bowden+gear reducer).
I also have curling issues when printing anything greater than 45 degree overhang (could be solved with a fan).
And there is an occasional hickup with 0.1mm layers (I need more experience with the settings).

Whioe it may sound like bragging, I believe Mark and I have received what was originally intended to be delivered. Mind you, my machine was no-where near this performance until extensive calibrations.

No problems here with 155x100x35 , 4mm walls, 4-lower 4-upper, solid infill hollow-box w/ lid. (that's a 60mm fan snap-fitted into a 5mm recess if it helps with context, and an awful awful lot of molten plastic during prints of the first 10 layers )
The one next to it is 120x95x35, 4mm walls, 4-lower 4-upper, solid infill hollow-box w/lid - snap-fit that snaps and fits.
I'd offer up copious other examples, but those two happen to be on my desk right now.

Both of these have been printed 'unenclosed' with no love or attention given other than selecting the correct filament type for the filament at the time, and hitting 'print'. If I had cared, i'd have set z-height a bit better to get a nicer surface finish on the lid, and then I wouldn't have pointed a heat gun when doing some heat-shrink at the lid of the box on the right (which is whats caused the feint deformation on top) - But I wasn't printing these other than to be functional, and I still got what is in the pic. Mark - you got any idea what I'm doing wrong either ?

If I had to make one general observation about those dealing with "problems" generally on the forum it would be (directed at no specific individual or otherwise so don't bother with a flame war) - stop over thinking it. A fair amount of hand wringing around here is spent dealing with perceived problems/problem source vs actual problems/problem source and their established solutions (and yup, cherry picking from that list of fixes when a genuine problem is identified isn't applying the fix... its over-thinking it again by assuming there is a shortcut to be had  ).

Either way, isn't the inherint joy of 3D printing learning wonderful new stuff? If you wanted instant satisfaction (with caveats ) with ignorance to the process theres always shapeways

There is no good reason to upgrade when everything works. Just keep the upgrade components on stand-by until the stock parts fail and upgrade then. Gives you longer life of the machine.

Amazing! I should actually try printing on the kapton again now that I have a dial indicator mount that seems to finally allow me to level the bed accurately (being really level seems like it does indeed dramatically improve my success).

Now you can replace the wall plate you have the Solidoodle plugged into :-).