3D Printer Kit

Introduction

I recently purchased a inexpensive chineese clone of the Prusa I3 printer. ( note this is similar to the Prusa, perhaps more of a "rip off" of the popular Prusa printer than a copy ). As you can generally expect the instructions left a bit to be desired. This page will - when done - fill in some of these voids.

The kit I got was:

Generally it arrived in great shape, complete ( minus a tiny bit of hardware ), and with parts that fit well.

Miscellaneous

Thread Lock

Others have suggested the machine will work itself apart. If it is just loose you will get a bad print, if a position sensor is gone things may be much worse. I used blue threadlock.

Frame Adjustment

You want the machine to be square. I used large calipers to measure both the sides of the rectangles and the diagonals. All pairs should be equal. Mess about untill they are as good as you can get them then tighten the machine up.

Orientation/Cable Routing

It is not obvious from the directions how you should route the wires, nor does the kit come with aids to routing. So I bought some of these xxxx and some of these. The orientation also has an impact or the routing, also not coverd in th directions.

Extruder

This includes a bunch of wires. I used the spiral wrap on all but the Z zero sensor ( maybe I should have included it but the thing seemed fat. The wires then go over the top on the left side. I added a cable tie anchor and used a cable tie to hold it in place. It is a bit of a reach to the controller board but seems ok.

Heated Bed

I looked at a lot of pictures on the web. Most people seemed to route out the front or the back. This brings the wires close to the Y axis belt and mechanisim. I decided that the wires should come out of the side near the power supply. Not sure if the wires should be grouped by the spiral cable wrap, so I used just a bit. Do not want to wrap and cause a drag on the Y axis.