When will the ROBOX be ready for serious use?

[Baz Leffler @bazinoz]

The fact that THE BASE PLATE MOVES when the print head hits a BLOB indicates that it has adhered to the base plate quite firmly.

NOW today’s problem - very low to NIL flow from the small print head. So far this week I have spent TWO full days trying to get this thing to work.

Who can I charge for my time? I guess the whole thing is going back - never to return. AND I will be warning others of this pre-mature released product.

 

Incidentally, can anyone point me to ONE positive forum member? When ever I find someone extolling the virtues of this product, in some other posting they have problems.

CEL have to remove this product from sale, refund everyone their money and go back to the drawing board. REALLY!

[BHudson @bhudson]

@bazinoz

Low flow from the .3mm nozzle can be from a couple of different points. The first thing to try is a full purge. The purge function is accessible from the maintenance tab on the Advanced pullout, accessed by clicking the three dots on the divider in the center of the AutoMaker program window. If you have a successful purge, the problem is not with the .3mm nozzle being blocked. If the purge does not succeed and you still experience low flow, you should hear the extruder clicking also. This indicates a clogged nozzle, a bad nozzle calibration or an incorrect material profile value.

Are you using the default profiles? What material are you using? If you have a custom profile, try the default profiles for both material and quality. If that does not fix the problem, try to recalibrate the nozzle openings. If that fails, follow the directions here: https://robox.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/1000074670-manual-purge to clear the nozzles of blockages.

If none of those work, please post again.

As for your one positive forum member, I think I am a pretty good example. I have been working with the Robox and CEL for 6 months and will shortly have three of the units. I have many successful prints with several different materials. I have found shortcomings of the design and CEL has addressed every one of them. They have and still respond in a timely fashion and have supported every issue I have had. I would like everyone to have the same experience, so I have been trying to help as much as I can on the forums. Please feel free to let me know if you have questions or need assistance and I will do my best to help.

Every 3D printer I have seen on the market requires some form of maintenance and knowledge of 3D printing to operate for more than one or two prints. If you are printing your own designs, perhaps there are some adjustments that need to be made to make them more printable. If you are printing downloaded models, they often get corrupt during download or upload and need to be fixed. There are several threads on the forums about how to fix them and how to verify your G-Code before printing.

@darthmac

If the filament is not sticking to the bed, the first thing to do is clean the bed between each print to remove buildup. I use isopropyl alcohol and a microfiber cloth. Then check that your bed is seated correctly and clipped in. I read that you had already done this, but you didn’t say how. I have noticed that any skin oil on the bed is detrimental to adhesion. I always clean the bed after re-installing it.

Do a nozzle height calibration and use a piece of printer paper. This should set the head a little closer to the bed and help push the filament into the bed and stop the adhesion issue.

Open the advanced tools and set your head offsets down .05. Repeat until you get good adhesion, but don’t run the nozzle into the bed. You should always be able to slide a piece of paper between the bed and nozzle. .01-.02 inches seems to be a good first layer height for difficult prints.

These steps should stop your adhesion problems. If not, please describe when and how the print comes off the bed. Please also post pictures of the prints and when they fail to adhere. Sometimes large, top-heavy prints with small bases are not printable with default settings because the surface area of the model being printed is too small to support the force of the nozzle as it lays down filament.

 

[Chris Moorehead @darthmac]

I’m going to run through the calibration, repeat cleaning then give it another try.

I’m trying to print a 1″ square object, it starts going to the right (as I see it), then back, then as it moves left it starts pulling the second side with it and everything descends into a wadded mess after that. It seriously fails within a few seconds of starting.

[David @dmullerdesign]

I initially had problems with bed adhesion, calibration and stringing. All these problems seem to be down to too much backlash in one of the axes. The unit was repaired by the cel team and, touch wood, is printing very well now, even on draft.

I quickly realised that bad model geometry is often the cause of many bad prints, air printing, sstringing etc. Some of the models on thingiverse may also not actually print very well or require repair or realignment in order to print correctly. Be wary of models that don’t have an actual photo of a successful print alongside.

Be careful with your own models and check that there are no holes, hidden surfaces, flipped polygons as these can cause serious problems with the print. It’s worth reviewing models in a secondary app to check for issues before printing.

I always clean the bed with kitchen roll and IPA before each and every print. I’ve not cleaned the rail as bhudson suggests but I’m not ruling it out either, in the future it may be necessary.

I only print ABS, I don’t switch between materials and get, at the moment, consistent results.

Finally, sadly, I agree that as yet there isn’t a 3D printer that is truly maintenance free, but the Robox is pretty close to it. Some of the other designs, when you do a little research, have their own unique problems. Many cite the makerbot as the pinnacle of home 3D printing, I looked at one as an option but upwards of £1500 to only print PLA didn’t seem like great value to me.

If you can get your nozzles to correctly calibrate without errors I think you have every chance of getting a successful print, the first layer height setting is crucial in my limited experience. Failing that, raise a ticket.

Good luck.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 5 days ago by  David.

[Don Colley @doncolley]

Sorry to repeat myself,if you try printing a large area just two or three layers thick after cleaning bed, leave to cool before removing it then don’t clean the bed just scrape the edge of a credit card over it to remove any small bits left, I find the prints stick so well you have to wait untill the bed is nearly cold before the object comes off easily. this works for me with ABS I only cleaned the bed once before the very first print. It works for me give it a try.

[Zach @darthviper107]

I’ve never had problems with the actual printer, the only problems I’ve had is the software, which should hopefully be updated soon. By the way, there’s a new software version, not sure what changed.

[Chris Moorehead @darthmac]

Well things are getting worse now and I feel like venting.

I tried to get the machine to run the gantry calibration and the print head calibration, but what I get is a non stop avalanche of B Axis Errors. I hit continue and it seems to continue but then does nothing. None of the calibrations seem to have done anything.

After seemingly having run the calibrations I thought I might try running a print again, ha ha. The print bed warmed up then stopped, the extruder never attempted to heat - AND I can get it to cancel out of the print. Restart everything and now things are worse.

The bed runs all the way to the back and makes a grinding sound then stops, the print head moves all the way to the left and grinds into the side till I manually turn the machine off. Restart again.

I try to tell the print head to move right, but all buttons are non responsive. Amazingly the filament eject button seems to be the only one that works!

Turn off the printer and I try to fill out a support ticket, ha ha. I fill out the entire form serial numbers, mailing address, every bit of information they are requesting, but I keep getting a error message on my email address ‘Please enter a valid number’, I don’t even have a number in my email address - now clearly the web programmer has failed to alter the field validation copied from the phone number field to the email address, but this on top of the evening I’ve had with this machine really made me quite upset.

I purchased a Robox 3d printer under the allusion that this might be close to a ready for home use 3d printer, without requiring hundreds of hours of tinkering and trouble shooting. Yes, I knew there might be a problem here or there, but nothing major. I am a busy father of two that does not have time for endless trouble shooting, I dumped Microsoft for this exact reason over a decade ago.

Might I also add that the printer I ordered arrived with a UK cable, not a big problem, but when I contacted support they told me to source my own cable stateside. Not exactly stellar customer support.

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