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Merry Christmas to me!

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Kim:
Over in my Pennsy A3 Switcher build thread, I talked about another project that was taking my time.  It just happens that this isn’t a domestic project, but building my new Christmas present!

My wife asked me what I wanted this year and I told her I wanted a 3d printer!  So she ordered one (using me as the conduit to select the printer and actually place the order  :naughty:).

We ordered it early since I’ve heard the lead time can be long. I was ordering directly from Prusa, which is in Prague, so I was worried the shipping could be quite long – not to mention, they have a fairly significant backlog of orders apparently.  Anyway, we ordered in early October and 3 weeks later it arrived (that would be, on Monday of this week).


How cool is that?

And you can’t just let it sit for 2 months in the box, now can you?  What if there’s a problem of some kind, right?  So, clearly, I had to assemble it!

Here are all the parts that come in the kit.  I ordered the kit version – you can order it fully assembled for additional money, but why would I want to do that?  And let someone else have the fun of building it?!?


And a few days later, here’s the completed printer.  It wasn’t too difficult to assemble, but there is a lot to it. The instructions are quite good.  Very complete.  And they have an online version of the instructions (which is what I used) that have comments from many people who have assembled the kit.  By the issues in the comments, it’s clear that many people building this printer have had very little to no experience in building things.  But there is good help there.  And by looking at the comments I could tell where some of the more troublesome spots were and get people’s input before running into that same problem.  So all in all, it was quite a good experience.  I would highly recommend it!


And after completing the printer I had to print some things.  The printer works great!


Here are the three things I’ve printed so far.  The first one was the Prusa logo below. And the other two are “Benchy” which anyone who’s done any 3d printing probably knows about.  The one on the right was my first attempt.  It was going great till the very end when it detached from the bed and the smokestack became a little bird nest blob.  After diagnosing my issue (I didn’t clean the bed! :facepalm:) I re-ran Benchy and he came out great the second time.


I’m quite excited about the new addition to my shop.  I don’t have any specific plans for it, but I’ve always wanted one.  And the more I see what people do with their printers on this forum, the more it was clear to me that I needed one too :)

Thus begins a journey down another rabbit hole!
Kim

Dave Otto:
Nice present Kim, I'm sure that you will enjoy, it and now that you have it you will find lots of things to print.
I don't have one at home, but do have pretty much unlimited access to the ones at work, FDM, MJF and SLA. If that wasn't the case I would be shopping.  ;D

Dave

crueby:
Nice present!!




I got the same one a year or so ago, am printing some RC model parts as we speak. Well, type. Nice machine, I also learned early on to wipe down the print bed with alcohol, while its cold, before every use. So far only have used PLA, works great. Also did the kit, fun to assemble, the printhead was tricky. I was impressed with the diagnostic it ran first power up, it detected and told me about two swapped connectors. Their most recent slicer app now takes  .step files from the CAD, no need to save meshes anymore.




Enjoy your new toy, try and keep your shop elves away or they'll print their own pub (trust me, I know)

Jo:
Nice present  8) You will learn a lot when you are allowed to use it... after Christmas  :mischief:


My cheap as chips is still sitting there in case I need a quick jig or something printed  :)

Jo

simplyloco:
I bought a Prusa a few years ago now. After learning some Fusion 360 during an initial flurry of excitement, it now sits on the shelf akin to my vacuum cleaner: gathering dust! :stir:

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