My Robox Development Thread

[gaffman @gaffman]

Hello Robox Community! My name is Sean and I just received my Robox here in the US, and today was the first day I attempted prints. I bought this printer as a personal-use tool, something to have some fun with. I’m running AM on a MBP running Mac OSX 10.10 for reference. Also, I’m a degreed Mech. Engineer with experience in 3D printing, but not enough where I know what I’m doing - just enough to be dangerous!!! LOL

I read some of the threads on here prior to my first print, but decided the best way to evaluate the Robox was to simply open it up, turn it on, install AM, load material, and print. After all, that’s why I bought the Robox: it was advertised as a turn-key printer for the ‘masses’ and since I don’t really have 3D printing experience (but well-versed in Engineering and testing principles) I’m one of the ‘masses’.

First, some thoughts on the unboxing/getting started process. The Quick Start Guide is ok, and I followed it verbatim for my first print. However, the guide is not specific enough in my opinion. CEL/Robox need to have a fool-proof 10-12 step process for making your first print. The Quick Start Guide is like an outline, but once I was through it, I found myself asking “what should I print? what settings should I use?” These should be spelled out for the new user in the Guide, or at least a “suggested first print” setting and design imo. Get everyone off on the right foot with a successful first print which would inspire confidence. I say this because my first print was successful in that it printed the design (Robox sunglasses) but the result was lackluster and I found myself asking “what next?”.

I remembered reading about the warped PEI board and flipping it, so I checked mine, and yep, it’s warped (and had a outline scratched/etched into it from the factory??? images in my shared album, taken prior to first print). I flipped it, then proceeded to calibrate the machine. Speaking of calibrating, it’s a huge oversight by CEL/Robox to not put “Calibrate Machine” as Step One in the Quick Start Guide. Don’t even bother printing unless you’ve calibrated the nozzle flow rates and the nozzle heights, you’re wasting material and time.

So throughout the day today, I did 4 total prints of the same part, the Robox sunglasses included on the USB sent with the Robox. The prints got slightly better, although I’m still not very impressed on the overall quality. I’ve seen proper printed models before and these just aren’t there yet, but I feel like they could be with some tweaks on the settings and possibly material (all my prints done with ABS Chroma Green shipped w/ Robox).

Please feel free to browse my photo album of my prints, as well as the weird outline/etching in the PEI board which was on it from the factory. The print settings and details can be found in the photo description. If you have issues viewing the photos please let me know. I’m looking forward to getting some feedback and direction on how to make these prints better quality because I feel like the hardware is there it just needs a little tweaking.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

[gaffman @gaffman]

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-c27Oj6zbY4cXJtQ00xakZiWnM&usp=sharing

• This reply was modified 1 week, 6 days ago by  gaffman.

[René @3dnerd]

Hi gaffman,

welcome to the Robox world ;-).

Which print settings did you use? Draft?

[gaffman @gaffman]

You can view the settings used for each print by clicking on the lowercase “i” in the upper right hand corner when viewing each picture, then reading the descriptions. Prints 1 and 2 were Normal setting, prints 3 and 4 were Fine setting.

[StreatSi @streatsi]

@ gaffman that outline is the head retaining clip that is printed by the factory and is their test print before shipping. re calibration yes it should definitely be a major to do before any printing and even if you move your robox it is worth re calibrating

[René @3dnerd]

Hi gaffman,

sorry but I don’t have any ‘i’ in the upper right corner. Neither in Safari (Mac OS X) nor in Chrome.

In the upper right corner is just an ‘x’ and a magnifier to zoom.

[Rob @bespokeproductdesign]

Hi @gaffman, couple of tips that may help:

1) leave the door closed when printing, let thin parts like this cool slowly with the door closed before you remove them, helps reduce warpage.

2) when you calibrated nozzle opening, did you hit yes at the signs of the smallest amount of filament popping out? Seems like you have a bit of blobbing from excess material on the nozzle.

 

 

[gaffman @gaffman]

Thanks for the replies guys, good advice. We tried switching to PLA and the results seem to be a bit better. We’ll also try re-doing the nozzle flow calibration as it does seem to be flowing material when it should be off. Does anyone know if there’s a specific object or model I can print that will give you an idea on what you need to work on or adjust with the printer settings?

Here’s one of my test prints, it’s the Robox Sunglasses at 75% size with the following settings:

Test Print #4, increased model size to 75%, changed settings to Fine, fill still at 50%. Less warping at edges but still present, not sure why. Printing around Robox letters seems to have issues in corners, but less than when printing the model at 50% size. No brim.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 2 days ago by  gaffman.

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[Rob @bespokeproductdesign]

@gaffman, no specific test model as yet. I expect the nozzle calibration will help with the blobbing. Not sure what to suggest on the warpage though, perhaps try increasing bed temperature slightly. I also wonder if your head is set a little too close to the bed, keep an eye on your next print to see if the head is ploughing through the first layer, you can manually tweak the height in Nozzle offset calibration - adjust nozzle offsets, if it is.

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