Solidoodle 4: What improvements would you like to see?

Wow... to me that's an odd little request list. I haven't been around here much longer than you it seems but I'm not sure those are all really things for an upgraded version.

1) unpainted keeps the price down. Why not paint your own any colour you like?

2) huh? What did you do to the poor things, I've never destroyed a hex head bolt in my life, and these have needed all of one adjustment when I calibrated the printer.

3) Yes, and enclosure. It's certainly seen as mandatory by many here, but I have seen Solidoodles in the wild printing happily with one. So it depends on materials and such as to whether this is entirely needed. perhaps an optional extra.

4) Agreed. The aluminium plate is too prone to warping and surface irregularities. Perhaps the issue here is heat transfer to the glass though, get that licked and it could be a worthwhile feature. ( I love my glass bed, but it wasn't exactly hard to implement myself)

5) I never really noticed this being an issue. Does it vary considerably amongst machines?

6) back here again... how tight are you making this? It shouldn't be so tight that anything bends!

7) You're right, the forum here is excellent. In fact it's a big part of why I bought a Solidoodle. Finding a way to distill all this knowledge and stuff into a single wiki or website is a good goal.. but... and I'm being pedantic .. is nothing to with a new version!

8) Warping. Warping isn't a printer problem as such. There's stuff you can do with the printer t minimise it such as enclosures, temp control, heated beds etc but in the end you're talking about a fundamental characteristic of the material you are printing with. As it cools, the plastic shrinks. Knowing this you can look to incorporate design elements in your models that will minimise shrinkage, or tension along those axis. All materials have properties that need to be accounted for in the design process, and to blame a printer for a design issue is a bit rich. Of course some shapes just cant have the problem designed out of them, and in those cases using other techniques to ensure a flat print is warranted. ABS glue is a great solution, bonding the print very well to the surface.

Ok.. enough ranting, I'm sure there are some great ideas that would be practical and not deviate too far from the Solidoodle vision that could be incorporated in a future updated model.

I'd probably look at things like the hotend (all metal), auto z-calibration, improved Z-axis, and Bowden feed.

needs for solidoodle 4;

1. ALL- METAL hotend.  inDimension printers' heads are $249 and handle up to 410C extrusion temperatures. i would love to be able to print in PEEK, PEKK or Nylon 918. I would have MUCH stronger cellphone cases to make for friends (amongst other things that ABS is way insufficient to make things out of in regards to strength).

2. extrusion cooler. ( this will eliminate warping) a small fan with a duct surrounding the extruder tip to speed cooling so that the ABS exerts less tension by cooling instantly. completely solid prints will be benefitted the best by this

3.  bearings.  we need linear bearings for the sliders and roller bearings for the rolling masses. this will increase accuracy and increase the life expectancy for the motors and the printer as a whole because the need for grease that attracts dust will be all but eliminated.

4. bearing supported fan coolers for the motors.  the cost of a bushing fan is $3. the cost of a bearing fan is $5. think about it, seriously. 

5. mirror or glass bed attached to the aluminum bed.  i picked up a mirror for $8 and it works great. it's cheaper than a 8"x8" piece of kapton tape and is infinitely smoother and more durable, especially when using metal tools to extract the prints.

6.  round-tooth pulleys and belts to eliminate backlash and increase accuracy.

7. 0.05, 0.025 and 0.01mm z-depths as well as an optional 0.2mm nozzle.  i understand that the propensity for clogging will dramatically increase with a smaller nozzle, but savvy customers will be able to cope.

8. filament cleaner attachment. this could be simply done with a bracket with a foam sponge going around the filament before it enters the extruder to eliminate debris entering the extruder to reduce or eliminate clogging related to debris.

Nah, I hate warranties and guarantees, what I want is something so reliable it doesn't need a warranty :-).

Aside from half the price I would choose a Raspberry PI or BeagleBoard or something on WIFI running OctoPrint or something so I do not have to have my POS XP notebook on or near my bench to just to dump gcode to the thing and run it.

These are some interesting ideas but try to put yourself in Solidoodle's position.  Paint, warranties, glass beds,  more people in customer service all increase the costs that would have to be passed on to the customer (if they want to stay in business).

I'm not saying these are bad ideas and I'd bet they have discussed all these internally many times. They might eventually adopt a few. However, I'd rather they stay focused on a low cost creation of a quality product and not start creating a Cube or Replicator clone.

Here is a fresh perspective:

My Stock SD3 with new motherboard ...... works just fine. I have no need for all of these improvements honestly. They are all 'upgrades', not needed replacements.

But I will restate this one thing: The ****ing printer arrives with a single sheet of paper that gives next to nothing for what you should do. Instead, lets all read the internets for a couple of days to finally get all the right information (and hope your not one of those who just clogged thier nozzle by reading the wrong information) from 2 wikis, a forum that keeps saying 'all the information is in the wiki (which one again?), and lets not forget Solidoodles main page (outdated) that is more of a blog.

A few printed pages would go farther than anything else.

I know you seasoned guys believe the right information is well structured and easily obtainable, but from the 'new owners' standpoint, it downright sucks. Especially when most of the best information doesnt even come from the actual people who sold you the printer.

Paper does cost money, but then again so does support. I had a manual draft a while back, but other priorities came to the forefront. Maybe we shall do a manual for next time. However, we may have a different idea of what a good manual would be than the community does.

One of our ideas has always been to make sure users aren't overwhelmed by information at the start of the process. This philosophy conflicts with the idea of giving a full explanation of the printer. 

If you absolutely had to pare things down, what would you include?

View our basic set-up procedures as a prototype of sorts. What would you like included?

Breakdown of the parts and their names.

Glossary of terms.

Lastly: Dont suggest or gloss over calibrations. I have said it before: Publicly state they are mandatory. Currently your website says this:

-Install software.
-Connect printer
-Change filament
-Print

You should be saying:

-Install software
-Connect printer
-Manually move head
-Home Z
-Level bed
-Set Z
-Change filament
-Calibrate extruder steps/mm (include a paper ruler they can cut out to help)
-Print test cube with 1 wall for extruder calibration
-Check X/Y belt tension
-Print 20mm cylinder (or another filament spool holder)

Considering my personal experience where my bed was way off, Z height was over 2mm out, X/Y belts were mis-aligned and unevenly tensioned, and I changed my steps/mm for my extruder by more than 30%, I dont think these steps are in any way extraneous. If I had been told up front, I would have wasted much less time and filament getting to where I am now. It would have been a better 'out of the box' experience.

I would also like to note:
-My printer arrived in one piece and clean, no broken parts.
-My printer works great as stock and I have even less issues than most of the seasoned people have had.

The reason why I harped on this particular thing is that I spent so much time learning everything, and choosing what did NOT apply to me, it got frustrating. For starters, I had downloaded the newest version of RH, not the SD version. I followed outdated guides to setting up RH that made prints badly (they were outdated because I was using the wrong RH and the guide was for the original migration to RH). The wikis were still new, and they both had conflicting information. Even today, as I read through them, they are still confusing. One Wiki focuses more on Sanguino SD2's with wooden beds. Um, that helps me not at all. And if someone with an SD3 with printrboard goes there, he will either be confused, or mess up his printer. That is why I dont like the wikis right now. They are poorly structured (each page should be broken in half whenever model type or motherboard versions make a difference, not just omiiting non-included information), there are 2 of them, and there is nothing distinguishing the one thats officially supported.

For instance: 3 times in the last week, people on the forums who have recently purchased a Solidoodle have had problems getting good prints and believed their nozzles were 0.35mm. Currently concensus of everyone is that if you got yours 'within the last 4 months' you have 0.4mm nozzle. It would have been really nice to have received something written by the manufacturer stating that your particular unit came with these particular specifications.

Even my toaster came with a 7 page manual.

I am not being sarcastic but I find this funny because when I got the printer I was OVERWHELMED with not knowing what to do or where to go. It took me 3 weeks to have a first decent print and a month a half to actually print something useful, and I am a mechanical engineer and a pretty handy person! Imagine if I wasn't mechanically inclined!

What I would like is a SINGLE webpage that directs me step-by-step, in clear, correct, and concise details what I need to do from A to Z to be able to have a decent print. Because so far there are websites, links, videos, tutorials, forums, and e-mail addresses all over the place! I wish someone had said "Don't use Skeinforge" with red letters so I wouldn't waste 2-3 weeks trying to print a decent part that's sliced by it!