Jetguy's Cubify Cube gen 3 experience

1,405 views
Skip to first unread message

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 3:32:08 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
So I got my Cube gen3 from the fine folks at http://www.3dsystech.com/ and I gotta tell you, these are hard to come by before the Holidays!!!

Anyway, So I'm bad, I took this thing apart before I ever even plugged it in.

I have to tell you I am blown away. Proper engineering went into this machine and when you see the pics I'm going to post later- I got my money's worth for under $1k. Obviously, they are subsidizing the cost of the machine into the cartridges. 

The main frame is a massive cast aluminum alloy that is CNC machined all over. 
Precision high dollar linear ball slides used EVERYWHERE.
The Z is belt drive, much like the Weistek

Controller board is as before- PIC based PIC32MX695 512L-801/PT http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/61156H.pdf
There is a 4GB micro SD card onboard in a hidden slot (much like the previous CubeX series)
 Stepper drivers are DRV8811s http://www.ti.com/product/drv8811
Bluetooth module VIPER VDBTLE24   http://fccid.net/document.php?id=2379866#axzz3MNL2Sj5Q
Extruder motors 17PM-K374BN01CN   Sorry can't yet find a match for the exact motor specs
Pulleys XYZ are 14T GT2 2mm pitch
Y belt 390016-00  1024SS  GT2 2mm pitch 6mm wide (need to get teeth count) (slightly shorter than X)
X belt GT534 2MR 6  GT2 2mm pitch 6mm wide (need to get teeth count) (longest of all 3 belts)
Y belt 390017-00  3094SS  GT2 2mm pitch 6mm wide (need to get teeth count) (slightly shorter than Y)
PSU brick is Mango240-0500AY 24V 5.0A


This is one heck of a piece of hardware. I fully get why they chip the snot out of it, put the slicer online and so forth. That is to make sure you buy cartridges to pay for the machine they just sold you.

Seriously, every part is done right, milled aluminum, ball bearings everywhere, linear slides, proper motors.
It's quite a work of art!

No lie, this gives any Makergear 2 a serious run for the money just in hardware!!!

And, we are of course going to unleash it from Cubify!!!!



Jetguy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 4:15:12 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Grr, just when you think you are in the clear and you are all happy with the design you measure and find out the specs of the motors since they didn't match up to any datasheet.


XYZ are 35.5 Ohms 
Extruders are 32 Ohms

That's not ideal IMO, meaning these are high inductance.
Kinda explains the DRV8811s AKA lowpower version of the DRV8825 everyone else loves.

The motors are Unipolar as well, but are run in bi-polar mode. 
So, that means you can't cheat and use both coils to make the motor low inductance externally.
I did pull an endcap if you are really good, you can unsolder the wires that go to the PCB in the motor and reverse a pair and make your own low inductance motor at 8.75 Ohms

On one hand, one could say the axis are so smooth, you don't need tons of power and coupled with low slicer controlled speeds (remember this is closed as it gets) probably get away with this all day long using High inductance motors.

If you want to hack this thing like I'm going to do, well, maybe you want a little more oomph.

TheMakerGuy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 4:21:25 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
A favorable review?
Ok
Who are you and what did you do with Jetguy 


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com.

Joseph Chiu

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 4:22:50 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Just give him time.  He'll find something to grump about. :)

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 4:37:18 PM12/19/14
to joe...@joechiu.com
I already did, the motors, the controller, the locked to an online slicer, the chipped filament.

There are tons of things to hate.

For example, I got the uber cool grey one because #1 I liked the looks VS white, #2 they are rare and I had a chance at one so why not?

That said, now I know why they take longer to get.
ALL are actually white and they paint the grey ones. It's high quality paint and was done right, but it is another step in the process and probably isn't cheap to get them painted, and requires special handling during assembly.

So the bad part about that- any scratch will show white underneath.
I was hoping is was grey molded plastic all the way through.
Sure, it's a minor gripe but if you are waiting for a grey unit (because they are rare) stop and just get a white one.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews@googlegroups.com.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews@googlegroups.com.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 4:40:00 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com, joe...@joechiu.com
Honestly, who else is going to give you a tip like that about the paint?

I've read a lot of reviews, I intend for mine to the real deal where we kick over the stones, flip this upside down and tell you what it's really made of good or bad.


On Friday, December 19, 2014 4:37:18 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:
I already did, the motors, the controller, the locked to an online slicer, the chipped filament.

There are tons of things to hate.

For example, I got the uber cool grey one because #1 I liked the looks VS white, #2 they are rare and I had a chance at one so why not?

That said, now I know why they take longer to get.
ALL are actually white and they paint the grey ones. It's high quality paint and was done right, but it is another step in the process and probably isn't cheap to get them painted, and requires special handling during assembly.

So the bad part about that- any scratch will show white underneath.
I was hoping is was grey molded plastic all the way through.
Sure, it's a minor gripe but if you are waiting for a grey unit (because they are rare) stop and just get a white one.

On Friday, December 19, 2014 4:22:50 PM UTC-5, Joseph Chiu wrote:
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews@googlegroups.com.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews@googlegroups.com.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 5:21:53 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com, joe...@joechiu.com
The guts.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 5:24:01 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com, joe...@joechiu.com

If only it ran Sailfish.......

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 5:26:05 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com, joe...@joechiu.com
Filament drives

Ryan Carlyle

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 6:10:53 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com, joe...@joechiu.com
Tidy little frame there!

I'm surprised at the filament drive being so low-tech. Is that filament knurled along its length, or am I imagining that?

TheMakerGuy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 6:17:02 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com, joe...@joechiu.com
Don't worry jimc could paint it nice and add some fins and a nose cone


To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 19, 2014, 11:10:09 PM12/19/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Ok, so I'm a Cube convert now.

This thing is mind blowing quality on draft at 0.2mm layer height.

Now, I will say this, speed is something to be desired but it's the classic speed VS quality tradeoff. 
Also, I'm not sure I can live with $50 per not even a pound of filament per cartridge. Even on sale, it's obnoxious.


Sure, topfill could be better, sure, it didn't stick to the glue snot they use, but this is the first print after taken down to nearly every screw, the back is still off just for fun. Auto level, auto Z gap and let her rip.
To be clear, I'm not saying this is a perfect print by any means. Just take it out of the box, be the only person ever to tear it down to the nuts and bolts, put it back together and THEN run a first print in draft mode.




On Friday, December 19, 2014 3:32:08 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

TobyCWood

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 1:21:03 AM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
!!!
You took it apart before you even turned it on!!!
Wow! You've out done your self. That's crazy.
Wait a minute...
I recall almost a year ago... when I was at CES... and I wrote about the Cube bots looking awesome... I remember writing about how the 3DSys guys let me not only stick my head into the Pro but also let me prod and grab and yank on things. They had dozens of both all the models printing away non stop with zero issues (although they were all printing a finite set of objects).
I intend to brow beat them into sending me an eval for the podcast.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 10:54:42 AM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
OK, so you guys are looking for more of the typical Jetguy negative review.

I haven't yet found a way to calibrate extrusion, there is no JKN and there are some obvious print artifacts showing some JKN is required (serious corner blobbing).
What more crazy is the slicer they use obviously hops the bed up and down and that too seems to leave some artifacts.
The real kicker though? Speed. It's fine if you print single color or your color change is vertical layers. The problem there is, we can all do layer changes by hand on a single extruder on other printers.
The problem is this system heats the heater blocks individually and does a wipe, and ensures a cooldown of the head on every change.

I'm printing the classic ball and cube http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:22506
That print in 2 color is taking 5+ hours at "hollow" infill, 0.2mm layer height (max allowed)

Your typical Sailfish running MakerBot or MakerBot clone can probably do it in 1/2 to 1/3rd the time, higher infill density, less material cost, and event 0.10 layer height.
It's not that the cube couldn't switch and to 0.07mm layer height on this print, just dear lord, because it waits at least 20 second on every layer change to print one head, then the other, this might take a week to print at such vertical resolution.
On one hand, the method works and leaving one nozzle cold after a nice clean wipe keeps the trash out of the print and doesn't need purge walls. This also helps save expensive cartridge based filament because you pay dearly for every inch.
But again, a MakerBot or clone using Makerware + purge walls is also using filament that can be at low at $15 KG (Fleebay or AliExpress bulk buy)  isn't breaking the bank and does so faster.

So the real answer is, I have to wait 5 hours and see if the print time+ the cost is worth the effort and report back.


On Friday, December 19, 2014 3:32:08 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

Ryan Carlyle

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 11:17:05 AM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
In theory, if you have precise dimensional control over your filament, you don't need to re-calibrate extrusion volume. Good dimensional control means you can use a fixed extruder idler bearing, which means a nearly fixed bite depth. Then add control over your filament composition (hardness, toughness) and drive gear geometry. You really shouldn't need to do any end-user filament calibration.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 11:25:11 AM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Except did you look at print output?
Obviously it needs calibrated.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 11:39:10 AM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Also, FWIW, I think John Abella said something along those lines about minor extrusion volume calibrations when I saw his at Maker Faire.

The weird thing is, On some layers, I've seen the screen door effect (tiny gaps between infill strands) and yet, on this top layer, clear slight over extrusion.

Overall, using draft mode, the prints are easily better than most folks get on other printers out of the box. It's the fine tuning aspect that being locked out of by the software (literally, there are no adjustments, just checkboxes) that some experienced user might find annoying.


So the real answer, this is marketed at the noob who knows nothing. They could buy this and print just like all the advertising tells them too. Just like inkjet printers, they pay through the nose for cartridges but if it simplifies printing, loading, and general lack of jams, then they gladly pay for the privilege. Since they don't know that one could adjust settings and fine tune out the over or under extrusion, they just accept that all 3D prints "look that way".

It's not marketed to the person who wants to tweak it for absolute best print quality. It's not for the impatient types who want a print in 2 hours.

It's slick looking, sits on a desk, looks right next to a Mac, and generally "does what it's told or else it gets the hose again".

TobyCWood

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 12:31:33 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
and IMO that spells product success. I admit I would not want one... but what about that school teacher that simply wants their students to be able to print their Sketchup attempts or... that Engineer who barely has time to wipe his nose on his or her job and needs NO hassle prototypes. Of course... we have yet to see how well it does with a range of thing complexity and challenges.  However... for the closed source commercial market what I saw at CES 2014 and what Jetguy is saying is definitely on the positive side.
I am hearing that the floor space for 3DP at CES 2015 will be twice as large as last year. It should be interesting!

Darrell jan

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 1:54:55 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Almost 3 years ago I was trying to decide which 3d printer to buy. Came across an interview that was sort of Makerbot Replicator vs Cubify Cube. Prettis vs some lady I don't remember (and I can't find the video now). She made a pretty good case then, same as now pretty much. Both she and Pettis claimed to be selling the "3d printer for the rest of us". Pettis was quite unimpressive. But I wound up with the Replicator when I was able to get it in 3 days, while everyone else was taking months to ship. Very happy with how it turned out, as I learned so much from the community here. Plus, Makerbot support was decent back then. But I wouldn't be surprised to find myself buying a Cubify type printer in the foreseeable future.

Christopher

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 2:32:57 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com

Darrell jan

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 2:45:31 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
That's the one!

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 3:24:40 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Well, the hack this afternoon is to see if we can run external filament into the cartridge feeder and get a print out of this thing.


In other words, step one before all other mods is key to prove that the Bowden extruder drive, the guide tube, the nozzle, the feeder, all can take normal off the shelf 1.75-1.82mm filament without jamming.

And, right now as I'm typing this, it's working so far!!!!

Now, let's be clear, this doesn't help the average user much other than opening the door for some other colors and types of filament not offered by Cubify. What it still does is use the eeprom on the cartridge and any values associated with the original filament. So say you have an ABS cartridge, that defaults to ABS extrusion temp, so you might be able to use HIPS or another plastic that prints around the 230C range.
I'm using a blue PLA cartridge to print clear blue PLA from Makerbot and it's working fine.

FYI, stock filament measured 1.69mm on average and this MakerBot filament is about 1.74mm on average for this spool. So it should slightly over extrude compared to the oem Blue it replaced.

The downside is I'm wasting eeprom AKA emptying the cartridge and thus won't be able to use all this stock blue ever again unless there is an eeprom hack for the Gen3s.
Point being, the first step was just proving the hardware works with alternate filament, If that works, then stage 2 mod is swap in alternate electronics. We already learned in the teardown what steps per mm per axis are (14T pulleys@2mm pitch is 28mm/rev then figure out your driver combo AKA 1/16th stepping is 3200 steps/rev and divide that by 28mm/rev = 114.28571428571428571428571428571 steps/mm) That is true for XYZ.
We know the thermistors are 200k Ohm if we use them. We know the motors are about 0.4A -0.5A max  current based on the previous resistance testing.
We know the system has no limit switches and Z homing is accomplished via a green LED shining on the bed at an angle and the matching photdiode on the right hand side watches for that refection at an exacting angle.
They use a homing offset based from that threshold.
PSU system is 24V 5A
Heater resistors are 15.5 Ohms resulting in about 40 watts each side, basically 38 watts not entirely different than our normal cartridges.
main fan is 12 volts, but the 2 side fans are 5V (on the head). The 2 blowers in the base are 12V.

fredini

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 3:28:35 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
I don't know. I was on the beta for this and have never gotten it to work decently. Its sitting under my desk because I don't have time to waste with it and I hate the cartridge thing. It felt like its the kind of thing that when the software and firmware catches up it will be a decent consumer experience, but I'm unimpressed. I only got one print off before it consistently failed over and over.  I had one cartridge get the gears stripped and had t junk it and waste all the plastic. There's also no way to tell the machine to just extrude in the air so Its hard to tell if the extruder/cartridge is working or not. 
meh.


On Friday, December 19, 2014 3:32:08 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

Dan Newman

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 5:59:18 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
On 20/12/2014 11:32 AM, Christopher wrote:
> Guess thats what you are referring to:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5POu62l_Wo&feature=youtu.be

The original at CNET the folks who did the interview in 2012 at CES,

http://www.cnet.com/videos/the-future-of-3d-printing/

Dan


Jacob Russo

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 8:28:08 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
So, Jetguy, how's it going with printing the classic ball and cube?

Darrell jan

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 9:32:21 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
I always like to see how the bottom of the ball turns out. Even with support, that seems to be a challenging geometry.

3DSysTech Info

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 10:44:01 PM12/20/14
to

By the way, if anyone is interested, we still have ONE (1) White Cube 3 in stock at www.3DSysTech.com .

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 11:12:24 PM12/20/14
to
So a whole pile of print results pictures.

Keep in mind, all of these are done at draft (0.2 layers, hollow infill)

Here's the takeaway:
The hardware inside this thing is just downright solid. You will be hard pressed to by another machine with this kind of quality underneath.
The software even in draft mode is other brands almost best quality. Sure, I know we all can tune better, add fans, prevent overhang droop, lower temps etc.. 
Again, I'm talking about take your favorite printer brand, pic draft or low quality and hit print. 
Best dualstrusion quality with NO trash or drool from other printhead. Only downside is, it takes FOREVER by comparison with the heatup and cooldown of the heads to achieve that result.(I know folks were asking, I was going to do a 2 color zebra vase and decided the cube and ball were "represenative" enough. Dear lord, I don't have the time to sit and wait for that to print. Might have taken 20+ hours.)


A little overhang droop











TheMakerGuy

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 11:12:35 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
All I remembered was her teeth.
Also she wore gloves to shake Bre's hand.

TheMakerGuy

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 11:14:42 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
I think I would rather get that flashforge clone at micro center as it was just 799



On Dec 20, 2014, at 10:44 PM, 3DSysTech Info <3dsyst...@gmail.com> wrote:


By the way, if anyone is interested, we still have ONE (1) White Cube 3 in stock at www.3DSysTech.com .

--

Darrell jan

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 11:38:48 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
It was a 3d printed glove gimmick. Not a good fit to her hand, but unique for the time.
I can't say I favored her or her printer all that much either, but it seemed like the business plan was better thought out.


On Saturday, December 20, 2014 8:12:35 PM UTC-8, The Maker Guy wrote:
All I remembered was her teeth.
Also she wore gloves to shake Bre's hand.



On Dec 20, 2014, at 5:59 PM, Dan Newman <dan.n...@mtbaldy.us> wrote:

> On 20/12/2014 11:32 AM, Christopher wrote:
> Guess thats what you are referring to:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5POu62l_Wo&feature=youtu.be

The original at CNET the folks who did the interview in 2012 at CES,

http://www.cnet.com/videos/the-future-of-3d-printing/

Dan


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

Ryan Carlyle

unread,
Dec 20, 2014, 11:41:35 PM12/20/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
On Saturday, December 20, 2014 10:14:42 PM UTC-6, The Maker Guy wrote:
I think I would rather get that flashforge clone at micro center as it was just 799

Diff'rent strokes.
  • American company with high-quality hardware and a real focus on user-experience, but with closed-source IP and chipped filament
  • Chinese company with mediocre knock-off hardware and stolen open-source IP used in violation of the licensing terms, but cheap and hackable
At the risk of starting a flame war... I think people recommending FlashForge are hurting the industry at this point. FF is doing bad engineering at the expense of users, and raising a big, fat middle finger towards the open-source community. Taking OSHW/GPL designs and making unauthorized closed-source derivatives of them is much, much worse than selling chipped filament.

I respect what 3D Systems is doing here. I don't want to buy a Cube -- I'm not the target demographic -- but I think they're doing the right thing. They're making a genuine effort to produce a good machine, and then apparently selling it at a loss in the hopes of profiting off consumables. Yeah yeah, it's expensive for heavy users who get locked in, but it's also literally subsidizing the hardware purchase for people who don't use it often. And more importantly, it's a big bet on popularizing the platform. If the printer design crashes and burns, they make zilch. That's huge for a company's focus on quality. Compare to Makerbot, who sells hardware they know is shit because every broken unit delivered is cash in the bank. I can't get mad at 3D Systems for following a business model that requires having faith in their product's longevity. 

Taking an up-front loss because you're confident you can get people hooked on 3d printing enough to burn through 10+ cartridges of filament before making a profit isn't evil, it's a company saying "our product is good enough that people will want to keep using it." Heaven forbid.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 12:28:29 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
And I'll say this, Cubify /3D systems is getting their act together compared to older models.

There is NIGHT and DAY difference between the Cube Gen3 and any previous printer. I think (don't know for sure), that the new mainboard might also be the one going into the Cube Pro.
Like I've said before, I had 2 each Cube X Duo's from the local Highschool that they got in their fiasco just trying to get one single CubeX working. 
Even those had really overbuilt hardware, expensive Thomson linear bearings, overbuilt and extruders. But, they cut corners in the mainboards IMO (and a lot of people agree with me on that in the Cube forums).
You look at that mainboard wrong they go pop.

But that's the point, this new Gen 3 is all new. All new firmware, all new software, all new website. 

Not sure if you guys saw, this is also the only head I know of with a real WORKING heater safety device on the extruder heads. That's right, a real device in series with the heaters that if they oveheat or runaway, they will disconnect.
That little device in the middle is that safety cuttoff and wired so that it works for either heater (from the PSU source).


Also, they have this big plastic shield so that only the tiniest bit of the nozzle tip extends for safety.

It is really, really, really hard to burn yourself with this machine. Not saying you cannot, but nothing like any other printer I've seen.

Ryan Carlyle

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 12:39:56 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Huh. Really interesting dual hot block there. Any chance there's a part number on that thermal fuse thing we can use elsewhere?

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 2:03:48 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Let me take it apart, it's pretty hidden but it's just a cutoff

Ryan Carlyle

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 2:19:02 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Like a one-time fuse cutoff, or a resettable bimetallic strip cutoff, or a PTC resistor type cutoff that just throttles current back? (You get a resistance measurement or anything out of it? I'm very curious.)

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 2:26:41 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Here look up the number 
Front and back, you now know as much as I do about it.

Like I said, it's mounted in between the two heaterblock sides. It's mostly there to detect if the fan cutoff or failed, then since all this is tightly enclosed it would get smoking hot fast. At the same time, it's directly mounted to the heaterblocks so if they did seriously overheat in a runaway and if the fan was unable to cool them, the whole thing trips and kills the heat.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 2:53:21 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
http://www.microtherm.de/upload/mediapool/datenblatt__f_en.pdf

Based on the marking guide in that PDF
F20A type (F20 NC-Normally Closed) Since it's in series with the heaters so that makes sense.
12505 response temperature (125°C), tolerance (± 5K) Since it sits in between the heat blocks on the heatblock metal mounting point to the plastic frame, this makes perfect sense for 125C temp.
044C date of manufacture (May 2011), country (C=????) NOTE, this is not temperature!!!!

Mounting shown again.

The pointed metal tab with the hole is what mounts this to the main plastic housing.

Installed here. The nozzles poke down into and seat into the tapered hole of the heater block from the topside.

An then the cover goes over that. It has an aluminum foil heat reflector.

And then the nozzle just pokes through

This fan on the topside is what is cooling the thermal barriers and the space around the heater blocks including the mounting point.

And the air exits out the sides of the head system here just above my thumb but they are all around the backside between the white and black parts too.

Here, you can see the center curved duct that blows the center fan right at the space above the the heater blocks.

With fan

The 2 side fans are mini blowers for cooling the print. Kind of hard to see but they are the slits  below the round nozzle cap plate things and blow air directly at the nozzle tips.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 3:01:04 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
If you notice, the heatblock is one piece but has the finest machined webs that keep it a block but minimize heat transfer from one side to the other at well as the mounting tab point.
This is all part of the system that keeps that nozzle registration (AKA nozzle heigh, AKA nozzle leveling) constant between cartridges.
the tips are all custom machined so they seat down into the block and that results in the nozzles being leveled.

They jig these at the factory- hence the marking
You can see the 2 brass inserts and inside are 2 setscrews that can push against the bearing block, thus making the entire white frame aligned square to the bearing axis.Then the main mounting screws are also loctited which you can kind of see in the picture. Everything else snap fits and locks together making a repeatable alignment. Normal users should never have to take it apart. At best, they would just send it back to the factory since this is so integrated.

Kurt @ VR-FX

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 9:37:09 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Ohm My God - U 2 R Late to the Game by like 6 min - according to the Posting Date/times - as Sir JetGuy already trashed the Ohm levels of the Motors.

But - yeah - I DO Hear Ya - JetGuy seemed TOO Happy in the first posting. However, he's also being honest - and I appreciate that. I LOVED his Last line about Unleashing the machine from Cubify!

Go For It JetGuy!!!

-K-


On 12/19/2014 4:22 PM, Joseph Chiu wrote:
Just give him time.  He'll find something to grump about. :)

On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 1:21 PM, TheMakerGuy <thema...@gmail.com> wrote:
A favorable review?
Ok
Who are you and what did you do with Jetguy 



On Dec 19, 2014, at 3:32 PM, Jetguy <vernon...@gmail.com> wrote:

So I got my Cube gen3 from the fine folks at http://www.3dsystech.com/ and I gotta tell you, these are hard to come by before the Holidays!!!

Anyway, So I'm bad, I took this thing apart before I ever even plugged it in.

I have to tell you I am blown away. Proper engineering went into this machine and when you see the pics I'm going to post later- I got my money's worth for under $1k. Obviously, they are subsidizing the cost of the machine into the cartridges. 

The main frame is a massive cast aluminum alloy that is CNC machined all over. 
Precision high dollar linear ball slides used EVERYWHERE.
The Z is belt drive, much like the Weistek

Controller board is as before- PIC based PIC32MX695 512L-801/PT http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/61156H.pdf
There is a 4GB micro SD card onboard in a hidden slot (much like the previous CubeX series)
 Stepper drivers are DRV8811s http://www.ti.com/product/drv8811
Bluetooth module VIPER VDBTLE24   http://fccid.net/document.php?id=2379866#axzz3MNL2Sj5Q
Extruder motors 17PM-K374BN01CN   Sorry can't yet find a match for the exact motor specs
Pulleys XYZ are 14T GT2 2mm pitch
Y belt 390016-00  1024SS  GT2 2mm pitch 6mm wide (need to get teeth count) (slightly shorter than X)
X belt GT534 2MR 6  GT2 2mm pitch 6mm wide (need to get teeth count) (longest of all 3 belts)
Y belt 390017-00  3094SS  GT2 2mm pitch 6mm wide (need to get teeth count) (slightly shorter than Y)
PSU brick is Mango240-0500AY 24V 5.0A


This is one heck of a piece of hardware. I fully get why they chip the snot out of it, put the slicer online and so forth. That is to make sure you buy cartridges to pay for the machine they just sold you.

Seriously, every part is done right, milled aluminum, ball bearings everywhere, linear slides, proper motors.
It's quite a work of art!

No lie, this gives any Makergear 2 a serious run for the money just in hardware!!!

And, we are of course going to unleash it from Cubify!!!!



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.

Kurt @ VR-FX

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 9:39:02 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
And I am TRULY Enjoying reading it - even though I am a Tad late to the game. But, I shall catch up...

-K-


On 12/19/2014 4:40 PM, Jetguy wrote:
Honestly, who else is going to give you a tip like that about the paint?

I've read a lot of reviews, I intend for mine to the real deal where we kick over the stones, flip this upside down and tell you what it's really made of good or bad.

On Friday, December 19, 2014 4:37:18 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:
I already did, the motors, the controller, the locked to an online slicer, the chipped filament.

There are tons of things to hate.

For example, I got the uber cool grey one because #1 I liked the looks VS white, #2 they are rare and I had a chance at one so why not?

That said, now I know why they take longer to get.
ALL are actually white and they paint the grey ones. It's high quality paint and was done right, but it is another step in the process and probably isn't cheap to get them painted, and requires special handling during assembly.

So the bad part about that- any scratch will show white underneath.
I was hoping is was grey molded plastic all the way through.
Sure, it's a minor gripe but if you are waiting for a grey unit (because they are rare) stop and just get a white one.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews@googlegroups.com.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews@googlegroups.com.

Kurt @ VR-FX

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 9:46:55 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
JetGuy - its funny to read this particular post. Since, I was thinking - this Dude just ripped the whole machine apart. IS he Actually going to be able to properly re-assemble it and have it functioning properly. But - OF Course - that's a STUPID Thought - since, we ALL Know that for you to - re-assemble it is almost a No-Brainer.

Except...

And there is Always a Caveat...

If you are lacking Sleep. Then - Worst case scenario - you swapped some Wiring by mistake - and Blow the Damned thing Up! Now - Luckily my 3Doodler did NOT Blow up - but, Just sayin...

So - I'm super excited to see you got it back together and did a Print.

Saying that - I'm FREAKED By the $50/lb. price of the cartridges - that's Fucked! Hell - I should Calc. the shit and see if it actually comes out MORE Expensive than MY Mojo Cartridges! That would be funny!

Except - in My case - I Pay thru the Nose for the Machine - unlike your Cube - and so they Do NOT have to WAY OVER Charge me for Plastic - since they already GOT ME for the machine...

-K-



On 12/19/2014 11:10 PM, Jetguy wrote:
Ok, so I'm a Cube convert now.

This thing is mind blowing quality on draft at 0.2mm layer height.

Now, I will say this, speed is something to be desired but it's the classic speed VS quality tradeoff. 
Also, I'm not sure I can live with $50 per not even a pound of filament per cartridge. Even on sale, it's obnoxious.


Sure, topfill could be better, sure, it didn't stick to the glue snot they use, but this is the first print after taken down to nearly every screw, the back is still off just for fun. Auto level, auto Z gap and let her rip.
To be clear, I'm not saying this is a perfect print by any means. Just take it out of the box, be the only person ever to tear it down to the nuts and bolts, put it back together and THEN run a first print in draft mode.

Kurt @ VR-FX

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 9:55:44 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
JetGuy - I hear your points. And, I can surely understand why its aimed at the Noobs. But, funny - sounds like its also aimed at me. I personally do NOT like to muck with parameters - I just like something that Prints!

However, for me - I want to print Bigger things - which, for me - is also about making things from Parts - and then Re-assembling. But, at High Plastics costs - that's not Viable for me! For instance - my Dragon. I'd love to print it again - and use a Bot that's Accurate - so I Would NOT have some of the problems that's in the current Dragon. But - I would NOT Want to do it - and have it cost my like $500 to $1000 to print it! No WAY! That would be NUTS. Only Exception - if someone Commissioned me to do it - and was will to Pay me like $3-5K for it. At that point - then $1K cost to print it would be a No Brainer!

-K-



On 12/20/2014 11:39 AM, Jetguy wrote:
Also, FWIW, I think John Abella said something along those lines about minor extrusion volume calibrations when I saw his at Maker Faire.

The weird thing is, On some layers, I've seen the screen door effect (tiny gaps between infill strands) and yet, on this top layer, clear slight over extrusion.

Overall, using draft mode, the prints are easily better than most folks get on other printers out of the box. It's the fine tuning aspect that being locked out of by the software (literally, there are no adjustments, just checkboxes) that some experienced user might find annoying.


So the real answer, this is marketed at the noob who knows nothing. They could buy this and print just like all the advertising tells them too. Just like inkjet printers, they pay through the nose for cartridges but if it simplifies printing, loading, and general lack of jams, then they gladly pay for the privilege. Since they don't know that one could adjust settings and fine tune out the over or under extrusion, they just accept that all 3D prints "look that way".

It's not marketed to the person who wants to tweak it for absolute best print quality. It's not for the impatient types who want a print in 2 hours.

It's slick looking, sits on a desk, looks right next to a Mac, and generally "does what it's told or else it gets the hose again".




On Saturday, December 20, 2014 11:25:11 AM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:
Except did you look at print output?
Obviously it needs calibrated.



On Saturday, December 20, 2014 11:17:05 AM UTC-5, Ryan Carlyle wrote:
In theory, if you have precise dimensional control over your filament, you don't need to re-calibrate extrusion volume. Good dimensional control means you can use a fixed extruder idler bearing, which means a nearly fixed bite depth. Then add control over your filament composition (hardness, toughness) and drive gear geometry. You really shouldn't need to do any end-user filament calibration.
--

Kurt @ VR-FX

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 10:01:32 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Hey!


On 12/20/2014 12:31 PM, TobyCWood wrote:
and IMO that spells product success.

Generally speaking - I Totally Agree. Solid product - looks good - does solid prints Consistently - it DOES Spell Success. But...


I admit I would not want one... but what about that school teacher that simply wants their students to be able to print their Sketchup attempts or...

For this scenario - I gotta say - its a problem - because of Plastics costs. Now, if the school was willing to pay lots for plastic - then its NOT a problem. But, for Most Public schools - this is NOT The case. Everything is in a Budget. So - they budget for Printer - and let's say 10 Spools of plastic - but, even that is already like $500 of plastic. But, what if actually starting to use the printer - they run out of plastic in like 1.5 months. Then they are Fucked! And - they will have kids that are Pissed!  That's the problem as I see it. And - for Sure - a School - they are NOT going to Hack the Bot - as JetGuy may be getting to - since then it would Void the warranty - and a School is NOT Going to do that. Except if its like a Tech High School - that may be the only caveat.



that Engineer who barely has time to wipe his nose on his or her job and needs NO hassle prototypes.

Yes - for an Engineer at a co. - this DOES Sound like the perfect solution - especially as its Way cheaper than a Mojo!

-K-



Of course... we have yet to see how well it does with a range of thing complexity and challenges.  However... for the closed source commercial market what I saw at CES 2014 and what Jetguy is saying is definitely on the positive side.
I am hearing that the floor space for 3DP at CES 2015 will be twice as large as last year. It should be interesting!
On Saturday, December 20, 2014 8:39:10 AM UTC-8, Jetguy wrote:
Also, FWIW, I think John Abella said something along those lines about minor extrusion volume calibrations when I saw his at Maker Faire.

The weird thing is, On some layers, I've seen the screen door effect (tiny gaps between infill strands) and yet, on this top layer, clear slight over extrusion.

Overall, using draft mode, the prints are easily better than most folks get on other printers out of the box. It's the fine tuning aspect that being locked out of by the software (literally, there are no adjustments, just checkboxes) that some experienced user might find annoying.


So the real answer, this is marketed at the noob who knows nothing. They could buy this and print just like all the advertising tells them too. Just like inkjet printers, they pay through the nose for cartridges but if it simplifies printing, loading, and general lack of jams, then they gladly pay for the privilege. Since they don't know that one could adjust settings and fine tune out the over or under extrusion, they just accept that all 3D prints "look that way".

It's not marketed to the person who wants to tweak it for absolute best print quality. It's not for the impatient types who want a print in 2 hours.

It's slick looking, sits on a desk, looks right next to a Mac, and generally "does what it's told or else it gets the hose again".




On Saturday, December 20, 2014 11:25:11 AM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:
Except did you look at print output?
Obviously it needs calibrated.



On Saturday, December 20, 2014 11:17:05 AM UTC-5, Ryan Carlyle wrote:
In theory, if you have precise dimensional control over your filament, you don't need to re-calibrate extrusion volume. Good dimensional control means you can use a fixed extruder idler bearing, which means a nearly fixed bite depth. Then add control over your filament composition (hardness, toughness) and drive gear geometry. You really shouldn't need to do any end-user filament calibration.

Darrell jan

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 11:19:39 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Nice looking fan arrangement. I wonder why the underhangs don't come out better.

Darrell jan

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 11:25:00 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
with history as our guide, the following could happen:

-educational discounts for plastic cartridges sales to schools
-unapproved refill kits/chip patches

The filament cost has always been an annoying point with the Cube. I remember for months they were too cute in dancing around the question of how much plastic was in the cartridge. Their belated worthless answer was in units of "typical models".
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

Kurt @ VR-FX

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 11:38:03 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Hey JetGuy - thanks for letting us know about the heating cutoff device! Kudos to them for that - as I mentioned this recently - if 3D Printers can burst into flame - or just Start Smoking crazy & cause Smoke damage in a Home - it will be the end of 3D Printers in the home for Joe Shmoe Consumer. You put in a Proper safety measure like this - and I think it will really change things!

-K-
--

Kurt @ VR-FX

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 11:40:32 AM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Hey Darrell,


On 12/21/2014 11:25 AM, Darrell jan wrote:
with history as our guide, the following could happen:
-educational discounts for plastic cartridges sales to schools

Agreed - and its possibly the ONLY Way that they will Truly get entrenched in American schools is to do Discounts!


-unapproved refill kits/chip patches

YEah - we ALL Know THAT will definitely happen!



The filament cost has always been an annoying point with the Cube. I remember for months they were too cute in dancing around the question of how much plastic was in the cartridge. Their belated worthless answer was in units of "typical models".

I too remember that stupid wording - of typical Models. What BS that was...


To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 12:30:54 PM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
I agree, I was hoping for better overhangs.

It goes back to default temps that seem non-adjustable
The expectation I should have hit the checkbox for using supports
In general, it turned out better than a very similar print from my Mini using it's 0.2mm layer height settings

First, I was taught by James Armstrong that you tune temp by how shiny the finish is. High gloss = too hot for PLA. You print a test cube and using Sailfish to lower the temp during the print, you go until it turns to a dull finish and maybe skips a step or two, then increase by 5-10C to get right into the sweet spot for that color/roll. That results in the best overhang performance bar none.

As to comments by Kurt about build size:
Remember, this is the ENTRY model to the lineup.
152 x152 x 152 build volume, ABS or PLA, 2 nozzles, touch screen, usb stick (instead of SD card printing) Wifi that actually works, and the board even has Bluetooth that they might enable or maybe is and I missed it? ALL for under $1k

Next up is the EKOCYCLE  PET version of the exact same printer. Only difference I can tell is the labels maybe firmware to allow for PET?
$1200 but everything else the same as cube. It follows the "green moron mentality" that I'll pay more so I can say I'm saving the environment but not actually pay attention to science and note all I'm doing is paying more.
"EKOCYCLE Filament Cartridge contains 25% of posts-consumer recycled materials, using an average of 3 assorted recycled 20oz PET plastic bottles"
Hint, the same bottles would be recycled anyway into more bottles. 25% post consumer content is the normal. You aren't changing anything for anyone. You sure as heck ain't saving the planet with more 3D printing of objects off of thingiverse or Cubify's site.
This is all marketing and posturing to one up MakerBot in marketing. Cubify is green, MakerBot is not (if you believe any of this advertising BS)

So again, what you really paid for is $200 more expensive firmware because the cartridges all have the nozzle and an eeprom that sets the temps for that plastic. It's just that I don't think you can slap a PET cartridge into the normal Cube as it might reject it.

Next is the Cube Pro which is the same old Hardware as a Cube X series, but in a new enclosure, and I believe all new controller (the same one used by the new Cube gen 3 above).
285 x 230 x 270 mm
Between $2800- single nozzle, $3400-dual, and $4400- 3 nozzles

So, they do sell sizes in all the right price brackets to compete with MakerBot and even your Mojo

I'm not trying to sell anyone on one of these. Overwhelmingly, the mere thought of chipped filament threw everyone in this group into a fit.




Point being, moronic uninformed folks, activists, and other blithering idiots will gladly buy into anything that says "green" and Cubify will gladly send them the Prius of 3D printers for $200 more.

Jacob Russo

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 1:51:38 PM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Hey Jetguy,  I didn't see you cover the fact that the Cube includes the ability to do a Firmware Update via WiFi (or USB) directly from the LCD control panel.   Compare THIS to the typical Firmware update on most other machines.  I remember when we did the Sailfish update on our Wanhao D4S following your very complete  instructions.  We still managed to miss a step so we then had to re-do the whole thing.  What an adventure it was.  But on the Cube, we simply touch "Settings, next, next, next, Firmware Update, WiFi", then get a cup of coffee and come back to a new firmware.  Pretty slick, if you ask me.

Granted, the Cube does have some minor failings.  But every new release of their Cubify software and Firmware provides some pretty noticeable improvements.

Enginwiz

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 2:04:45 PM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
I remember Jetguys Cubex Mightyboard hack on a printer the local school never got running.
They had two or three dead Cubex printers and spent around US$ 10,000 without success.

You can buy three Cube 3 printers and more than 150 cartridges for that amount of money.
And print, print, print ...

My wife is a school teacher. In class you don't have time to fix an unreliable printer.
It gets a piece of furniture nobody wants to touch after it failed several times.

I really appreciate that 3D Systems finally brought a kidsafe, hasslefree 3D consumer printer on the market.
This is a huge step forward and will set the standard for future consumer printers.

How much filament is actually inside one cartridge? On the Cubify website I found a
useless number of 10 to 12 prints per cartridge.

Did you already try out high resolution at 70 micron layer height?





Jacob Russo

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 2:46:22 PM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
EnginWiz, we printed a part for a friend at 70 micron in Blue PLA.  It was designed in AutoDesk Inventor.  He said it was "fantastic" and "fit perfectly" on their prototype.  Please note that the "hooks" at the top were printed with NO support.  The little "blips" were very easy to clean up.  Also, we've printed way beyond what 3D Systems states for each cartridge.  Since there is hardly any wasted material, we get a lot of yield.  We hardly ever print with heavy infill, unless we really need it.  And, FYI, www3DSysTech.com also offers Educational discounts and special packages at various levels and are always willing to negotiate custom packages.




Jetguy

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 6:31:22 PM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Nice prints.
Have you tried one of the new EKO PET printers are cartridges?
How well does ABS work?

Some more hacking today
Kicking over more stones and more built in safety.

So the thermistors inside the heat are interlocked so that there is a switch that can see when a nozzle tip is inserted and properly locked. Otherwise, the thermistor is open circuit.
I'll have some pinouts later.

Jacob Russo

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 6:59:53 PM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
We have not tried their EKO things yet.  We tend to agree with your assessment of the "green" issue.  

But their ABS is pretty good.  Even considering the bed is not heated.  The lessons we've learned with the ABS cartridges are;

1. Make sure you don't have a cold blast of air blowing into the printer. It took us a couple of tries before we realized that the office A/C unit was shooting frigid air directly into the print area.  So the corners being hit by the A/C draft kept curling.

2. Use LOTS of their Glue.  Preferably at least two (2) layers.  The glue lasts a heck of a long time.  After all the prints we've made, we have barely used 1/8 of the bottle.  This glue does a pretty good job of keeping the parts from warping.  We've printed small and very large objects perfectly.


Jetguy

unread,
Dec 21, 2014, 8:01:30 PM12/21/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Ok, so some more details.

#1 I put in thermocouples into the heater blocks along with retaining the OEM thermistors 
From that, I know the printing PLA results in 200C extruder heatblock temp and, FYI, the idling (not printing side) block reaches about 140C just from heat transfer from one side to the other.

#2 Working out the head wiring now. A minor issue that affects using other controllers is that as wired stock, through the connector board, the heaters are sharing common ground and that ground is also shared for other items like the fans and LED sensing circuits in the head. Most RAMPS, Mightyboard, etc.. all use common 12-24V power and the FETS ground the returns. Again, this system is using common ground and switching power (AKA P channel MOSFETS VS N channel MOSFETS).

I think I know enough right now to make this work, the other problem is mounting endstops- since there are none.
From what I can tell, they simple reduce the current and tell the axis to move a known distance = the axis length and just let it skip against the mechanical stops. Crude but effective.

Sailfish and most other firmware don't like it if you don't home.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 2:28:39 AM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Finally, IT LIVES!!!!!

Wow, what a lot of work to make all this work as intended. 
So, I was going to use larger Kysans but then I couldn't fit the covers on. That resulted in plan B and this is just downright sick, opening each of the stock motors and taking them from series to parallel coil wiring.
The mod in and of itself isn't so bad, but I know I'm like the only person on the planet crazy enough to actually do that.
Point is, stock they were wired for 35 ohms meaning for sure they were high inductance. But it was also a Unipolar wiring meaning there were 2 coils per phase at about 17.5 ohms each. What I did is disconnect the center tap and connect the leads so that the coils are now in parallel roughly 8.75 Ohms. The logic here is that the oldschool cupcake motors were also 35 ohms or so. They are rated at 0.4A. New proper MakerBot motors are rated at 0.86A.

Point being, I cut the inductance in half and now run the motors with stock botsteps and Vrefs with NO issues. Z was untouched because a stock MBI z motor is 35ohms anyway.

I'll have to show all the limit switch locations and such but a quick test cube. Yes, I got tired of the stupid glue and just used tape for PLA.


UGLY with the covers off but I'm working that.

Feeding external filament

So I got tired of trying to work around the head interface termination board and just made my own harness using some plugs from old printers.

I can return to stock with little hassle.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 2:32:14 AM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Might as well share a Rep-G config file.
Note, just choose Cube gen3 under "Other Bots" at the bottom of the menu.
Cubegen3-sailfish.xml

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 2:37:19 AM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
I'll get a Dualstrusion print going here soon and compare the same Ball and Cube in the same colors and see what we get.

I will say this, I pushed her to "accelerated defaults" in Rep-G and she printed 10 times faster than she ever could have with Cubify.
And, the joys of non-chipped filament..........

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 2:51:43 AM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Just as an example and no, I'm doing it in two colors yet but the 3D knot example is going to print via Sailfish in 57 minutes @ 0.2mm layer height, 10% infill (VS hollow in Cubify) and 2 shells.
Cubify took almost 5 hours and again, that was draft quality, the absolute fastest you could possible make the machine go is 5 hours to do the same print that takes 57 minutes via Sailfish and even crappy Rep-G as a slicer for these first runs.

Again, the 3 biggest changes here are:
Changed the motors to cut inductance in half
Running using a controller using Sailfish firmware.
Using Default Replicator Dual profile in Rep-G  as a slicer.

Everything else is just required by that change (adding limit switches, adding Thermocouples)

I'm using the stock PSU and because some fans are 12V, I using a buck regulator and also I needed some 5 volt for the print cooling blowers and using a separate 5V reg for those.

I would have liked to have used the stock LED retroreflective Z axis homing method but my concern was, the LED only should turn on during homing. I'm afraid of accidental triggering of Z endstop during a print from reflections.
I know enough I could make it work, but for now, I simply used a mechanical Z switch and added an adjustment screw that hits the switch from the Z stage (typical Reprap style).

Need to run this with S3D one time quick.


On Tuesday, December 23, 2014 2:32:14 AM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

TheMakerGuy

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 8:07:44 AM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
I think you may have voided the warranty


--

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 10:18:49 AM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
You mean the 90 day one? Yes, I think in the first 5 hours that was all but gone.


FYI Nozzle spacing is 20mm

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews@googlegroups.com.
ReplicatorDual.json

geneb

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 10:43:30 AM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
On Tue, 23 Dec 2014, TheMakerGuy wrote:

> I think you may have voided the warranty
>
Not so much "voided" as "put it against a wall and shot it". :)

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 10:59:15 AM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Hey, I have a perfectly working "spare" mainboard and LCD spares now. Oops, also forgot I have the entire wiring harness and the extruder head interface board "spare" as well.

Ryan Carlyle

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 12:51:32 PM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Nice!

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 23, 2014, 1:02:35 PM12/23/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Hmm, Need to dial in some more retraction and not completely 100% happy with Makerware, need to crank out some S3D

Yes, the stock Cubify did dualstrusion a little better but this was first attempt with default slicer settings. The only thing changed was nozzle diameter to 0.3mm
Again, need to dial in retraction and extrusion multiplier.




On Tuesday, December 23, 2014 12:51:32 PM UTC-5, Ryan Carlyle wrote:
Nice!

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 24, 2014, 6:09:42 PM12/24/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com, joe...@joechiu.com
Ok, so some further details - potential hacking points.

The stepper drivers current is set by this DA converter http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/22187E.pdf

The stepper drivers DRV8811s are aligned like so:
             X    Y     Z    A    B  C
Dac       A    B     C    D    D   D

So all the extruders are tied and get the same current.


This chip http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/22285A.pdf  is used for driving the LEDS 2 Cree super bright ceramic packages. on the left and right hand sides.
24V Input, 1A/2A Output, High Efficiency Synchronous Buck Regulator with Power Good Indication


They are more than just a FET. They detect open circuit and other faults.

On Friday, December 19, 2014 5:24:01 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

If only it ran Sailfish.......








On Friday, December 19, 2014 5:21:53 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:
The guts.












On Friday, December 19, 2014 4:40:00 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:
Honestly, who else is going to give you a tip like that about the paint?

I've read a lot of reviews, I intend for mine to the real deal where we kick over the stones, flip this upside down and tell you what it's really made of good or bad.

On Friday, December 19, 2014 4:37:18 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:
I already did, the motors, the controller, the locked to an online slicer, the chipped filament.

There are tons of things to hate.

For example, I got the uber cool grey one because #1 I liked the looks VS white, #2 they are rare and I had a chance at one so why not?

That said, now I know why they take longer to get.
ALL are actually white and they paint the grey ones. It's high quality paint and was done right, but it is another step in the process and probably isn't cheap to get them painted, and requires special handling during assembly.

So the bad part about that- any scratch will show white underneath.
I was hoping is was grey molded plastic all the way through.
Sure, it's a minor gripe but if you are waiting for a grey unit (because they are rare) stop and just get a white one.

On Friday, December 19, 2014 4:22:50 PM UTC-5, Joseph Chiu wrote:
Just give him time.  He'll find something to grump about. :)
On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 1:21 PM, TheMakerGuy <thema...@gmail.com> wrote:
A favorable review?
Ok
Who are you and what did you do with Jetguy 



On Dec 19, 2014, at 3:32 PM, Jetguy <vernon...@gmail.com> wrote:

So I got my Cube gen3 from the fine folks at http://www.3dsystech.com/ and I gotta tell you, these are hard to come by before the Holidays!!!

Anyway, So I'm bad, I took this thing apart before I ever even plugged it in.

I have to tell you I am blown away. Proper engineering went into this machine and when you see the pics I'm going to post later- I got my money's worth for under $1k. Obviously, they are subsidizing the cost of the machine into the cartridges. 

The main frame is a massive cast aluminum alloy that is CNC machined all over. 
Precision high dollar linear ball slides used EVERYWHERE.
The Z is belt drive, much like the Weistek

Controller board is as before- PIC based PIC32MX695 512L-801/PT http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/61156H.pdf
There is a 4GB micro SD card onboard in a hidden slot (much like the previous CubeX series)
 Stepper drivers are DRV8811s http://www.ti.com/product/drv8811
Bluetooth module VIPER VDBTLE24   http://fccid.net/document.php?id=2379866#axzz3MNL2Sj5Q
Extruder motors 17PM-K374BN01CN   Sorry can't yet find a match for the exact motor specs
Pulleys XYZ are 14T GT2 2mm pitch
Y belt 390016-00  1024SS  GT2 2mm pitch 6mm wide (need to get teeth count) (slightly shorter than X)
X belt GT534 2MR 6  GT2 2mm pitch 6mm wide (need to get teeth count) (longest of all 3 belts)
Y belt 390017-00  3094SS  GT2 2mm pitch 6mm wide (need to get teeth count) (slightly shorter than Y)
PSU brick is Mango240-0500AY 24V 5.0A


This is one heck of a piece of hardware. I fully get why they chip the snot out of it, put the slicer online and so forth. That is to make sure you buy cartridges to pay for the machine they just sold you.

Seriously, every part is done right, milled aluminum, ball bearings everywhere, linear slides, proper motors.
It's quite a work of art!

No lie, this gives any Makergear 2 a serious run for the money just in hardware!!!

And, we are of course going to unleash it from Cubify!!!!



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews@googlegroups.com.

Jetguy

unread,
Dec 24, 2014, 10:18:33 PM12/24/14
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Working S3D profile and GPX ini

Just copy the GPX ini to your Simplify 3D directory where GPX is found.


Obviously, this only works with a modified 3rd gen Cube running a mightyboard and Sailfish.
gpx.ini
cube.fff

Brad Hopper

unread,
Jan 4, 2015, 8:32:13 PM1/4/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Nice looking machne! The extruder is kind of skinny looking and seems to be inserted into whatever heats it? Maybe this was covered in a different tear down, do you have a link or care to post how the extruder is put together?

Ryan Carlyle

unread,
Jan 4, 2015, 8:39:37 PM1/4/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
It's a pretty simple Bowden system, where the motor is inside the filament cartridge. Everything in the filament feed from the nozzle to the spool is disposable. The nozzle clips into the (permanent) heater block. 

1) This is nice in that you get a fresh extruder every time you change cartridges
2) This significantly reduces the user's ability to hack in non-chipped filament, because you need the nozzle and extruder drive along with the filament itself

Jetguy

unread,
Jan 4, 2015, 9:16:10 PM1/4/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Sorry guys that work on this stopped over the Holidays due to travel and so forth.

That said, Yes, you can reuse the tips and Bowden tubes, even the filament drives too if you want.
Be warned, they are a PAIN to load. The fixed pinch of the gear coupled with the unguided length between the gears and filament bowden entrance makes loading your own filament a royal pain. It pretty much guarantees the gear biting into your filament makes it curve and fail to "hit the hole" thus a royal pain.

Long term, I'm likely to either revert back stock- and that is painful buying chipped filament but insanely easy to use and gave good results. So you get what you pay for.
OR
I'm going to dump the square drive motors, dump the stock filament drives and just retain the bowden in a normalish Replicator 2 style upgrade extruder
It would seem pretty easy to me.

Overall, I left for the holidays with a working converted printer on the table in an ugly state. I did a lot of trial test fits and jamming a mightyboard in there is going to be a task without cutting.
I could have jammed RAMPS, Rambo, maybe an Azteeg 5X or smoothie.
Even considering taking say the controller from a Flash Forge Dreamer and jamming that in there and that gives me a touch LCD as icing on the cake.


It's one of these Love to Hate it printers again.
If I was the average consumer, it would be a knockout stock. Right build size, sleek as can be, easy to use, and reliable from what I can tell.
The under $1k entry price is a steal and obviously subsidized by filament cost.

The question is, does jailbreaking it make sense???
Or does the low cost justify stripping it for parts?

IMO, it is every bit as good as an Maker Gear M2 if not outright better
While not insanely pretty, the bare frame is as good as any Prusa I3 and i would say on par with a lot of home builds
And it's far more precise than what most guys rig up.
I've already proven you can treat the extruders like any other Bowden extruder and they simply work.
They even work with external filament (somebody said that wouldn't work but I've proved that wrong).

So what I'm saying is, you really get an impressive piece of machinery for under $1K no matter how you look at it.

Jetguy

unread,
Jan 4, 2015, 9:24:21 PM1/4/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Nozzle tips are pretty simple and 0.3mm diameter (guessing and testing say that is pretty close).


The pointed metal tab with the hole is what mounts this to the main plastic housing.

Installed here. The nozzles poke down into and seat into the tapered hole of the heater block from the topside.

An then the cover goes over that. It has an aluminum foil heat reflector.

And then the nozzle just pokes through

This fan on the topside is what is cooling the thermal barriers and the space around the heater blocks including the mounting point.

And the air exits out the sides of the head system here just above my thumb but they are all around the backside between the white and black parts too.

Here, you can see the center curved duct that blows the center fan right at the space above the the heater blocks.

With fan

The 2 side fans are mini blowers for cooling the print. Kind of hard to see but they are the slits  below the round nozzle cap plate things and blow air directly at the nozzle tips.

Brad Hopper

unread,
Jan 4, 2015, 9:43:27 PM1/4/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Oh, thanks for the details, pretty interesting.  Seems like a lot of extra work goes into trying to make the filament be *not* user supplied.

On Sunday, January 4, 2015 9:24:21 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:
Nozzle tips are pretty simple and 0.3mm diameter (guessing and testing say that is pretty close).....

Dan Newman

unread,
Jan 4, 2015, 9:48:45 PM1/4/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
On 04/01/2015 6:43 PM, Brad Hopper wrote:
> Oh, thanks for the details, pretty interesting. Seems like a lot of extra
> work goes into trying to make the filament be *not* user supplied.

On the flip side, if you want to make a printer which is truly plug-n-play and which
has a very low support cost for the manufacturer, then greatly restricting the filaments
used makes sense (provided that the filament is of good and consistent quality).

Dan

Jacob Russo

unread,
Jan 4, 2015, 11:25:37 PM1/4/15
to
Yes, the idea of having a "controlled" environment prevents users from many of the sins of 3D printing.  And their filament quality has been impressively consistent.

1. It is extremely difficult to "bend" the filament in a way that would prevent it from loading.  It just loads every single time.  And the LCD guides you through the process.  It is so easy that we end up changing filament types and colors often.
2. As mentioned before, you get a fresh head with each cartridge.
3. It intelligently detects if the bed should be Auto-Leveled and suggests Auto Leveling and Z-Gap adjustment.  But both can be adjusted manually too.
4. It knows what material (ABS/PLA) you have loaded and what colors.
5. It will NOT allow printing with PLA if you have configured the print job as ABS, and vice versa.
6. It will warn you if you have a different color filament loaded than the one the job was configured for.
7. It automatically adds minimal infill if it detects that a "hollow" build will be impossible without it.
8. The print bed lighting is superb with powerful LED's.
9. The filament lasts a lot longer than they say it does.  We've printed like crazy just to try to run out.  And it takes a heck of a long time.  This is mainly because there is very little waste.  
10. Firmware updates can be done extremely easily  via WiFi or USB with a couple of touches on the LCD screen.
11. Their WiFi works flawlessly every single time.  Both the LCD and Cubify software show the print progress graphically.

Anyway, I could go on... but just be aware that this is a truly stellar machine both in design and functionality for people who just want to print.  My partner and I were so excited with this machine we decided to resell the 3D Systems Cube and CubePro machines as www.3DSysTech.com .  As Jetguy said in his extremely honest and candid review;

 "I have to tell you I am blown away. Proper engineering went into this machine and when you see the pics I'm going to post later- I got my money's worth for under $1k"

I will admit, for the record, it is not "perfect" and does have a few minor issues.  However, each version of the Firmware and Cubify software improves on these.

Wishing everyone a Healthy, Happy and Prosperous New Year 2015 !!!

Jacob 


Jetguy

unread,
Jan 6, 2015, 12:26:17 AM1/6/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Oops, your link is broken. Missed a "." after www.
http://www.3dsystech.com/

On Sunday, January 4, 2015 11:25:37 PM UTC-5, Jacob Russo wrote:
Yes, the idea of having a "controlled" environment prevents users from many of the sins of 3D printing.  And their filament quality has been impressively consistent.

1. It is extremely difficult to "bend" the filament in a way that would prevent it from loading.  It just loads every single time.  And the LCD guides you through the process.  It is so easy that we end up changing filament types and colors often.
2. As mentioned before, you get a fresh head with each cartridge.
3. It intelligently detects if the bed should be Auto-Leveled and suggests Auto Leveling and Z-Gap adjustment.  But both can be adjusted manually too.
4. It knows what material (ABS/PLA) you have loaded and what colors.
5. It will NOT allow printing with PLA if you have configured the print job as ABS, and vice versa.
6. It will warn you if you have a different color filament loaded than the one the job was configured for.
7. It automatically adds minimal infill if it detects that a "hollow" build will be impossible without it.
8. The print bed lighting is superb with powerful LED's.
9. The filament lasts a lot longer than they say it does.  We've printed like crazy just to try to run out.  And it takes a heck of a long time.  This is mainly because there is very little waste.  
10. Firmware updates can be done extremely easily  via WiFi or USB with a couple of touches on the LCD screen.
11. Their WiFi works flawlessly every single time.  Both the LCD and Cubify software show the print progress graphically.

Anyway, I could go on... but just be aware that this is a truly stellar machine both in design and functionality for people who just want to print.  My partner and I were so excited with this machine we decided to resell the 3D Systems Cube and CubePro machines as www3DSysTech.com .  As Jetguy said in his extremely honest and candid review;

Jacob Russo

unread,
Jan 6, 2015, 12:53:27 AM1/6/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Ooops!!!   Thanks Jetguy!   I corrected my post to www.3DSysTech.com .  Sorry if I inconvenienced anyone.  By the way, in case anyone is interested, we have only ONE (1) Cube 3 WHITE left in stock.  And have no clue when our next order will arrive.  

Oh, and I just realized I forgot two more items, though we have mentioned them before.

12. The "Print-Pad" is NOT heated.  It is made of perfectly flat, coated aluminum and uses their specially formulated glue stick that sticks like crazy.  Yet comes off relatively easily... most of the time.  And when the object is stuck hard, a little water will loosen it up.  The print pad pops off the magnets and washes off very easily with water.  No fear of breaking it like glass.  But, as Jetguy said, you can also still use masking tape if you don't want to mess with the glue.

14. [for the superstitious ones ;) ]  It uses two "bins", one on each side, to collect the extruded filament before prints instead of spitting filament all over the print bed.  Each bin has a "wiper" that cleans the extruder before it touches the print pad.

Jay Raxter

unread,
Jan 9, 2015, 12:01:57 PM1/9/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com


Jetguy...

Something that I haven't seen addressed....

The Cube V3 initially listed nylon as a filament. It was on their pages and verbage for the new cubes...it was in the store (listed as 'coming soon') and had 3 or 4 different colors...

...then..>BAM!<....it's not listed anywhere anymore for the Cube (but is for the Cube Pro)...

The nylon cartridges were brilliant...I can get printers to easily print ABS and PLA....but you have to adjust them so far out of whack to print nylon that you're basically setting the machine up all over again every time you switch. Having it be drop and print in the Cubes was going to be bad ass....

Know anything about that?

And yeah...if y'all remember I had a Cube V2...which should have made me swear off anything 3DS.......

Cheers!

Jay

Jetguy

unread,
Jan 9, 2015, 1:07:33 PM1/9/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Well, Unfortunately, I had loosely followed the Cubify developments prior to this. Sorry they just weren't on my radar other than I knew way back when I first got my Netfabb engine with the Ultimaker UM1, we all kind of waited and waited for USB printing and then I saw the BFB printer Netfabb engine did work over USB and the BFB had the color touchscreeen and multiple extruders. So for a long time I wanted to get my hands on a BFB controller and LCD and use it since I have access to the Netfabb engine (all engines were licensed the same, so if you had one, you could use the other). So only when I new that Cubify basically turned the BFB into the CubeX and the local Highschool got one, did I begin to kind of follow- with not a lot of interest since I witnessed no less than 3 dead CubeX machines due to mainboards blowing left and right+ the annoyance of chipped filament, etc.

Sorry for being long winded, just saying, I hadn't seen any promise of nylon, and since it was chipped filament, not followed the Cube3 either. I saw John Abella's at Maker Faire and honestly kind of changed my mind.
But what really sold me was I had no idea they were under $1k for a dual.

Now that I've had the covers off of one of these- coupled with how I saw it print out of the box, coupled with ease of use, coupled with initial cost of the machine, I'm kind of blown away.
Is it the best printer on the market- maybe not, but that's subjective.
It is a reliable and prints well out of the box
I'd say the software is easy to use-and with limited settings, keeps the noob out of trouble.
I could honestly give one to my mother and she could get a print on the first try.
Initial cost is actually very hard to beat in the market.

More in line with your question, they have the PET model and it's unclear to me a few facts about that one. Like I think it can also print ABS and PLA and PET, or is it locked to PET only.
Can my model (which is the normal Cube 3) accept a PET cartridge (to my knowledge, nothing changes except the data on the eeprom in the cartridge??
I guess I should just spend $50 and get a PET cartridge and see.

I guess if you read my long experiment here, it's serving multiple functions
#1 showcase the real hardware in the machine and yes, It's top notch for $1k price
#2 jailbreak the machine from chipped filament
#3 in doing #2 also show alternate slicer and firmware running the hardware and what print output looks like- that really helps showcase #1.

And, everything I'm doing is designed to be able to return back to stock if I want to go that route. That's the kind of cool thing about these cartridges, they are a bulk of the extruder. All the printer does it heat the block the tip slides into and turn the filament drive.

This is a message to Cubify.
Since these are like at best a 1lb cartridge, a $30 price is a lot more in line with consumer expectations. Even that's high, but I'm being generous and realistic here given 2.2lbs of PLA can be bought for average of $30-$35.
Saying that, lets say the consumer is getting $10 worth of plastic today, the cartridge is another $15, and $15 is going to "fund" the machine cost. That's highway robbery in my book. The user buys plastic, not the rest of it. Ratio of plastic to other costs is simply way out of whack.

Quite literally, I think that is where the line is crossed. Consumers might be OK with chipped filament IF it was reasonable. Otherwise, they simply won't buy the machine.
And I get the "inkjet" model with paying for the printer via cartridges, but again, this isn't an inkjet printer for $50 at Walmart.

Finally, what really hurts Cubify is bad previous reputation on the earlier machines. Simply put, folks got tired of that nonsense quickly.
So again, I'm trying to show the hardware is all new and really is a good machine and not like the older ones in any way.
Another gripe is they just cannot seem to keep up making the new machines IMO. Everywhere is low stock or backordered. 

If you lock the machine to cartridges and the consumer cannot buy them or has to wait- that gets old really quickly and breaks the "inkjet" model too.

Enginwiz

unread,
Jan 11, 2015, 12:17:04 PM1/11/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Did you already try out the 70 micron layer height
high resolution printing mode on the Cube3?

Jetguy

unread,
Jan 11, 2015, 3:32:21 PM1/11/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
No, unfortunately I didn't.


I'll try to get around to it. I expect it to be perfect since every other test I saw was. Slow, but perfect.

Jetguy

unread,
Jan 16, 2015, 12:25:36 AM1/16/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Sorry I've been slow on the update here on this one.

Some late night numbers:

The stock board uses DRV8811 stepper drivers. I was able to tracing things out and noted the current sense resistors are labeled R270 and that crosses to a 0.27Ohm 1% tolerance resistor.
So, the current output is using this formula Vref/(8 * 0.27)= Current in A.
I measured the voltages coming out of the digipot device that drives these.

X and Y are 0.85V  
Z is 1.15V
and both extruders are 0.95V

Since I measured the motors and new they were high inductance they are all rated about 0.4A to maybe 0.5A for the larger extruder motors.
Using the above math:
X and Y are 0.85V/2.16V= 0.3935A
Z is 1.15V/2.16V= 0.5324A (slightly driven over rated I think)
A and B  0.95/2.16= 0.4398A

Basically, it's pretty much in line with what I would expect given the motor specs and usage case of each motor. Z is under high load and is heatsinked well to the massive aluminum frame so it's OK to drive it a little hard.

That said, my plan is to now use the required motors which have cut the inductance in half meaning I need to increase the current by 2X. So I also found empty resistor pads where the current could be set by fixed resistors if I disconnect the Digipot. Since I cannot easily hack the firmware and to my knowledge, no way to crack via print code either- it's a manual hack.


On Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 3:32:21 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 6:32:12 AM2/3/15
to
Slacking lately so here's more of the show-n-tell. I went back to stock, not because I couldn't make Sailfish work or a new controller work, it simply came down to form factor.
Yes, I could use external filament. Yes, you can use a stock cartridge in a way to feed external filament. The system does work. But, from a UI perspective, there isn't a touch LCD for MakerBot mightyboard. The mightyboard cannot fit into the frame with the covers on. It's a shame to cripple the optical assisted leveling and homing.

So I put it all back stock (which honestly, was not that bad of an operation as I was extremely careful when I went doing the mods in the first place.
No wires cut or anything, 

Folks were asking about 0.07mm fine layer height prints.

WARNING NSFW

As Borat would say- Very Nice!!!!!


To give you a sense of scale to kind of justify the tiny artifacts and leftover support material marks here's the cube glue bottle next to it.

Ok, so the support material left some marks but remember at was scale and resolution is here 0.07mm layer height.

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 7:03:45 AM2/3/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Again, sorry if someone is offended by the content, this is an adult forum.

The point is, I was worried that with the support material this was just not going to look great. I can tell you removing it was a royal pain.
The good thing is, the 3DS filaments are special. This is PLA but unlike any other PLA I've ever used. It's not brittle. If nothing else, it really reacts more like ABS other than temps.
So it's low shrinkage and that's good, not brittle at all, and comes out stronger than I ever expected and this was done with Hollow infill setting.

Again, sorry if it looks that way, I wasn't trying for shock factor or lewd poses- that's just the model. The point is, yes, I printed with support material and it looks bad from the bottom side. However, support material wasn't excessive and did it's job. When you stand the model up, other than a few tiny marks here and there, it's largely not ever even seen on this model.
So I had to show you the bad parts and I'll say it's bad, I wish I could print with no support. I even had to use raft due to the model's pose because the only parts that touch are the knees and the tips of the toes. I tried a few times with no support and no way was this ever going to stick.

So, If anyone from 3DS is paying attention- the online slicer  sucks. Seriously, I'm already regretting going back stock. This is just short of retarded. I'll even deal with the lack of options but damn if I'm going to upload every model I print to the "cloud" then watch painfully as the worst UI chokes and pauses and freezes like hell trying to talk to "the cloud" and then the part that insanely pisses me off is printing in general. The workflow is stupid.
You have to go to your library and select the stl to print (remember, you had to upload that to their servers first and there also is a file size limit I hit with a few models already 50mb max) Then you click print now- which is badly labeled because it means take this to the slicing section- not actually print. Then you get your massive list of setting and options and again, the simple UI simply sucks, at which point, the only option I see or know about is print now. Since it's more or less nearly mandatory to connect this printer via some kind of network- the only option the UI allows is transfer the instant it slices over WIfi. If any luck- that will then crap out for you and then and only then, you go back to the library where in that menu, now you can save the sliced file (marked with a printer icon is the only way print VS STL).

Again, sorry but this is epic fail time. I mean really, if the goal was to make it easier, this is the most effed up pain in the @$$ software I have ever had the privilege of using.
The Cube Gen3 is a wonderful and amazing piece of hardware. It can churn out stellar prints with very little effort by anyone- novice or expert. But, if you've ever used any other 3D printer, You are an artist and you don't want to upload your designs to "the cloud" (private my @$$), or you want print somewhere and don't have internet- you are about to be 6 ways of pissed off.

Sorry for the rant but this is well deserved. It would be one thing if cloud slicing made sense, was insanely fast and worked well. This doesn't, and it exposes the worst of the worst. Quite frankly, I watched the videos of 3DS trying to sell how the user marketplace could made so much more sense and I think there is a huge identity crisis here.
Seriously, from a couple of searches, nearly everything I found I needed to pay them to print it at 3DS and mail it to me. So all this content argument is crap.
The user buys the printer, they want to design offline, they want to print offline. For the couple of morons who think this is OK, you just left out a huge market segment of folks who will not put op with this literal shit interface.

Again, watch this video starting right at 11 minutes in exactly.  http://www.cnet.com/videos/the-future-of-3d-printing/  3D Systems and the commentary and then use this god awful interface and you'll see holy shit, they missed the mark.
Not even on the same planet as the rest of us. .


On Tuesday, February 3, 2015 at 6:32:12 AM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:
Slacking lately so here's more of the show-n-tell. I went back to stock, not because I coun't make Sailfish work or a new controller work, it simply came down to form factor.
Yes, I could use external filament. Yes, you can use a stock cartridge in a way to feed external filament. The system does work. But, from a UI perspective, there isn't a touch LCD for MakerBot mightyboard. The mightyboard cannot fit into the frame with the covers on. It's a shame to cripple the optical assisted leveling and homing.

So I put it all back stock (which honestly, was not that bad of an operation as I was extremely careful when I went doing the mods in the first place.
No wires cut or anything, 

Folks were asking about 0.07mm fine layer height prints.

WARNING NSFW

As Borat would say- Very Nice!!!!!


To give you a sense of scale to kind of justify the tiny artifacts and leftover support material marks here's the cube glue bottle next to it.

Ok, so the support material left some marks but remember at was scale and resolution is here 0.07mm layer height.









On Friday, January 16, 2015 at 12:25:36 AM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

TheMakerGuy

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 7:24:21 AM2/3/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Looks fine to me



On Feb 3, 2015, at 6:32 AM, Jetguy <vernon...@gmail.com> wrote:

Slacking lately so here's more of the show-n-tell. I went back to stock, not because I coun't make Sailfish work or a new controller work, it simply came down to form factor.
Yes, I could use external filament. Yes, you can use a stock cartridge in a way to feed external filament. The system does work. But, from a UI perspective, there isn't a touch LCD for MakerBot mightyboard. The mightyboard cannot fit into the frame with the covers on. It's a shame to cripple the optical assisted leveling and homing.

So I put it all back stock (which honestly, was not that bad of an operation as I was extremely careful when I went doing the mods in the first place.
No wires cut or anything, 

Folks were asking about 0.07mm fine layer height prints.

WARNING NSFW

As Borat would say- Very Nice!!!!!


To give you a sense of scale to kind of justify the tiny artifacts and leftover support material marks here's the cube glue bottle next to it.

Ok, so the support material left some marks but remember at was scale and resolution is here 0.07mm layer height.









On Friday, January 16, 2015 at 12:25:36 AM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com.

Jacob Russo

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 2:33:06 PM2/3/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Hi Jetguy,

1. The Cubify software does the slicing locally.  The upload to Cubify cloud is simply to "synch" your stuff as a backup and to allow you to print the same objects via the Cubify iPhone App. If you Log-OFF of your account, it will no longer "synch" your stuff and will be much faster.  For the iPhone App, the slicing IS done in the cloud.

2.  As for the Wi-Fi / Network issue, they do allow "Saving" your objects as "*.cube3" files to any USB drive.  And it must be an ALL LOWER-CASE extension... it IS case sensitive... as we found out the hard way.  3DS sent us a Z-GAP Calibration test as a ".CUBE3" and it would NOT show in the LCD panel.  We noticed that all the other files were lower-case, renamed it and it showed.

3.  We have found that the Cube's ABS layers do have a tendency separate if we print a single wall that is too thin, like less than 6mm.  Other than that, it seems to be pretty good.  

Have you printed with ABS yet?

Best regards,
Jacob

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 3:29:11 PM2/3/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Printing ABS glow in the dark today. It came out and then stress cracked between layers. :(

OK, and so here's a fine example of a UI issue.
The machine is printing right now. I want to test out this offline slicing.
I followed your advice and signed out.
I see no method of telling it to disconnect from the printer and it's currently printing now. Basically the goal is to demonstrate the workflow you just said.

What i'm getting at is, if you connect this thing one time it wants to find that printer. Then from the print preparation you have one button= print..
Sure, you cna vew what firmware and details of the connected printer- heck try to tell it to update while it's printing. No disconnect button I could find.
If your printer is seen and on the Wifi- bam it's going to attempt to send that file over Wifi- except that is dirt slow (especially for large files created at 0.7mm layer height) and it's either going to take 1/2 hour to transfer or it fails.
I guess the option here is let it start the transfer and then stop the transfer via the cancel button and then you can go back to "My Shelf" pick the now sliced file and save. 
Then this next problem (and I'll admit, could be this laptop) is the ONLY location shown is the desktop to save the file to. So I had to make an extra step to make a folder on my desktop and save there, then manually copy to the thumbdrive.

I get it, I might have been wrong about being tied to cloud slicing BUT, the rest of this is insane.
Application error handling is unbelievably bad.
If you lose internet connection and you just happen to be signed in- program locks up.

Sorry, I know you want to defend this and again, OK so it can slice locally but it's still horrible. The UI is just unbearable. You have no options anywhere. I see no way short of turning off the printer or disabling wifi to "break" the automatic connection of the software to the printer. Again, it's conceivable a user might be printing, then maybe with the big file, they specifically want to save without immediately attempting to print.

Other insane joys. So let's say it doesn't immediately find your printer on Wifi. You use the specify IP address dialog. You see it starts with all 0s in every block. You clock on block 1 and try to enter 192- except because the 0 is there it goes flips out and puts 255. I know, that seems petty but it's annoying especially if you had a novice. Then, when you click add after dealing with entering the IP it suddenly loses application focus and buries the entire app behind whatever other application you might have open (Browser, PDF, whatever). Why would it leave application focus????

Then yes, let's talk about this "My Shelf" system. Most slicers, you simply import or open an STL. Oh no, not here. You MUST import the file you intend to print from the location up to the "My Shelf" whihc is basically double copying every file on your drive into the "My Shelf" folder of this app. Then let's say you want to do dualstrusion. So you select 2 STLs and then hit print, that imports them into the print slicer section. Oh great- no options so now "auto arrange just thrw off the perfect alignment of the parts.

You could say this is expectation from how other slicers work- except, I can find no reasonable alternative in Cubify. On one hand I understand limiting options so kids, novice, old people, very young people, middle age tech challenged people can use this BUT, they cannot use it because things that should be easy are nearly impossible.

Again, let's take an OK idea- My shelf. Now fine, a nice way to organize files. To me, it's a bit counter intuitive to have to ADD every single file you ever, ever, ever want to print to my shelf. Maybe you have a zip you just downloaaded from thingiverse and your trying to keep those files organized in a folder. Then you want to slice them all and then put them on the thumb drive in a folder. You might be printing multiple projects and so you want to print all red parts. So you might have 2-3 folders of projects and say in each folder is one file you named with an R or something so you know it's for red.

I'm just getting at that either I'm spoiled by features in Sailfish or this software sucks or both.
I really don't think anything I'm asking here is that off base.

Print preparation should allow you to open/import an STL- not import to library first. I just tried drag and drop and it shows a + like it's going to do it and craps out.
You need control over auto positioning. This breaks dualstrusion
You have 4 fixed views and if that doesn't show you what you need- forget about it
The UI is riddled with bugs like losing focus and so forth.

Honestly I feel like this is complete amateur hour trying to touch this. The argument it's dumbed down for ease of use doesn't fly- it's  just dumb and barely usable.

That's the sick part. So it's really bad, but then out of the blue, you can take some single STL files like the classic 3D knot and assign a color to different sections of that STL.
So it's got like 2 or 3 maybe unique features- buried in a pile of bugs.


The machine prints fantastic. The resulting files are fine. Nothing I've thrown at it was ever low quality. It simply prints.
It's just sick to me that for all the good the hardware is- this is the software, no alternative, they got you by the testicles are twist with $49 filament cartridges that contain less than a pound of filament (yes, I weighed the full sppol of a new cartridge is exactly 1 pound-except that's with the internal spool making it less than one pound by a large margin).


Sorry for the stance but it's great until you really try to use the machine to even a basic level of capability If a user has owned any other slicing software and heaven forbid Simplify 3D, they are going to lose their mind trying to use Cubify.

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 4:07:00 PM2/3/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Here, let me show you screen by screen workflow

You fire it up and you get this screen

Ok, again lets say you want to print the amazing Toyota engine by Eric http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:644933 which is way cooler than anything I found thus far in Cubify content (we already went off about that rant).

You download the whole zip folder and unzip to a folder somewhere for nice easy organization because there's a ton of parts. To print them, you have to add to the "My Shelf" but before you do that, again remember that there's a ton of parts here. You might have some files in "My shelf" from a previous project.  So you want to sort or organize your shelf. I see now way to make a folder or organize My shelf other than simply not showing print files or STLS or sort by date or somehow by name.

So then you might be asking yourself-OK, so now I have files, how to I print??

So you might think you click on the big print tab at the top---- WRONG!!!

If you do that, you get this  if your printer was ever connected over Wifi, it connects now as long as it's on.

Nowhere on this screen can you import or open an STL or other print file. You can see status, you see the cartridges and my favorite the constant warning of "Please check your print settings!"

Remember, we are doing ANYTHING right now. We simply clicked on this screen and it's sceeming at me please check my print settings.

Worse, let's say it's the first time and your printer isn't connected yet.

Well, based on other factors, believe it or not, you want to be at this screen??? Why? because otherwise, if it's connected over Wifi even one time and the printer is on, you are going to not have these advanced offline save options.

Back to workflow complete opposite of any sense I can figure out, you go back to "My Shelf " tab..

Here, if you click on a file, then and ONLY then does the Print Now button appear. Like i said before, that misleading too- that doesn't YET start the print, it simply adds the STL to the print window.

So you click Print Now and you are teleported back to the print tab.

You then get this massive warning that the STL file hasn't been checked and validated. Also notice the ever present "Please check your print settings!"

So you click past that and can pick you materials and colors. Now keep inn mind, You can pick colors and if you don't have that color loaded in the printer, it gives you this BIG warning error but you can still maybe print it.

However, if you have the wrong material, ABS VS PLA, or somehow you have the Ekocycle printer selected and choose PET, then it will not print that file unless that plastic is loaded on that side of the printer.

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 4:25:46 PM2/3/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Again, sorry if my negative feelings are biased here but the basics:

#1 a new user reads the manual and the guide. They are going to set up and create an account and so forth. It basically really tries to make you do this.
#2, the user is going to follow the guide and connect the printer over Wifi or Ad Hoc. To my knowledge, USB doesn't connect and I can find nothing in the manual. Plugging in USB does NOTHING on my machine and is not detected by any OS. Also, the printer doesn't come with a USB cable, only power cable and the thumb drives. So it's either some sort of wireless connection or thumb drive from what I know and what the manual says right?
#3 clicking on the print tab is not the first step in trying to print something. Somehow, call me crazy, that's just not right.
#4 All files to print must be added to the shelf. I see no good way of organizing the shelf other than by date, name or file type. Complex multi-part projects, forget about it.
#5 Traditional dual extrusion prints are 2 separate STLs in most other slicers. Here, selecting 2 STLS and hitting print to bring them into the print UI trashes the positioning with auto layout.
#6 Print Now button from the My shelf should be anything other than that title. It should be send to slicer or some other terminology. It is not a print now function.
#7 There is no possible way to disconnect  a Wifi connected printer short of turning the printer off  (and if you do that- mine kept turning on by itself as the program tries to access it) or kill your Wifi connectiion at the laptop. 
#8 The rule #7  above means that you never see an option to export print file to USB drive if the printer autoconnects to Wifi. you can't disconnect it and hitting print will attempt to send the file over Wifi to the printer. ONLY if you wait until after slicing happens and then see it transferring and then hit cancel, it now saves the sliced file to the "my shelf". At that point, You can then go to my shelf and select the file, then hit the floppy disk icon and that opens the save location window. Except, on my computer, I cannot see any location other than desktop.  So, you cannot directly save the print file to thumb drive if the printer autocconnects. It's an insane series of steps.

Jacob Russo

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 4:27:58 PM2/3/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Hey Jetguy, Ironically, I totally agree with you about the Cubify software and the "Shelf" issue.  We've been busting 3DS's chops from day one about it's usability issues.  Even something as simple as being able to create "folders" or "categories" or any other way to "group" files.  The Cubify software workflow works great for a home user that simply downloads thingies every once in a while.

We have resorted to using "Prefixes" for multi-part things.   For example, the Flexy-Hand_2 Prosthetic Hand we renamed the files using a prefix of "FH2_".  This at least allows us to use the "Search" button and "filter" all related files.  This is NOT by, any means, the proper way to handle things.   I will share all of your observations with our folks at 3DS / Cubify to add to ours.

It is very sad that they would tarnish such an impressive machine with such half-baked software.  Because the casual home user eventually "grows up", as we all have, and requires better software with better functionality.

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 4:38:29 PM2/3/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
So, let me turn this around into tips for other users.

#1 do NOT sign in in Cubify. Doing so it will constantly try to update to the cloud and will pause and be slow and unresponsive.
#2 I guess try to keep My shelf cleaned up and delete files not in use. That's the only way to organize a multi file print.
#3 keep in mind for traditional dual extrusion projects, you probably want to use Makerware or another slicer to open both STLs and then save the combined pair as a single STL for import into My Shelf. The reason is that you need to maintain alignment of the objects, but Cubify does let you assign which color and thus extruder per part in the same STL file. In some ways cool but also very annoying if you are used to separate STL files.
#4 Do not connect the printer  over Wifi or Adhoc if you want to be able to print offline and save easily to USB drive for faster transfer. Again, from what i'm seeing, unless you turn wifi off on the printer or kill your laptop network card, it's going to try to connect. When that happens and you hit print to slice the file, you are not presented an option to save the file- it's going to transfer over the Wifi. If you try high res 0.7mm layer files, they are larger files and transfering can take a long time. The manual actually says this in it. Except, that pesky bug that if you ever connected and the printer is setup to connect to Wifi, firing up Cubify might even turn the printer on and when it does connect, then you have no save options.
#5 make a folder on your desktop to save print files to from "My shelf" This is again, a weird bug in the UI that doesn't give me access to save to thumb drive from "My shelf"

Jacob Russo

unread,
Feb 3, 2015, 5:14:30 PM2/3/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
So you don't get the Windows standard "Browse for folder" dialog when you click to save the file?  We get this dialog every time!

As for the Cubify USB thumb drive... we received one that was DOA with one of our other Cube's.  You may want to contact CubifySupport ( cubify...@3DSystems.com ) to get a replacement.  But any FAT formatted thumb drive should work with the cube.

Also, if you insert a USB thumb drive that has files with the "*.cube3" extension (lower-case, case-sensitive), you should see the object on the LCD when you press the "PRINT" icon on the LCD screen.  And you should be able to switch between the different files on the USB drive with the "<" and ">" icons.

lassi_kinnunen

unread,
Feb 4, 2015, 1:14:59 AM2/4/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
probably if you can do or not what you did on the 3d knot depends on how the model is built.
the common 3d knot file has 2 manifolds, 1 for the knot and one for the base. it would be relatively simple for the sw to look out these different manifolds and then let you handle them as separate imports/objects.

-lassi

lassi_kinnunen

unread,
Feb 4, 2015, 1:15:24 AM2/4/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
oh and where does one find the .stl for the lady?

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 4, 2015, 7:57:34 AM2/4/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
My fault, I should be better abut always posting attribution links.
The original is by D_E_V_O and was remixed to be more printable by curious_pl  http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:662606

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 5, 2015, 3:15:27 PM2/5/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Go figure, you complain loudly and BAM- new version of Cubify is released in 2 days.

Somebody is paying attention.

Jacob Russo

unread,
Feb 5, 2015, 3:34:11 PM2/5/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
I told you they listen... didn't I?  They have listened to everything I have said since last year.  I sent them this post and they are looking over this it with a fine-tooth comb.   Just imagine where this product can be in a few months with some good input.

By the way, if anyone is interested... we still have ONE White Cube in-stock at www.3DSysTech.com .  Next shipment expected in approx two weeks.

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 5, 2015, 4:29:14 PM2/5/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Bad news is, none of the major complaint items are remotely fixed. 
Insult to injury, the first test print I ran printed and then sat at some sort of completed state but didn't end. Fluke?

Jacob Russo

unread,
Feb 5, 2015, 5:05:50 PM2/5/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Oh no!   I won't be able to test this till tomorrow.  But I'll update as soon as I do.

Richard Beck

unread,
Feb 6, 2015, 7:25:02 PM2/6/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
I have a couple of basic questions for Jetguy and Russo

1. CubePro single, dual, or trio? Which do each of you have?
2. I am dealing with two dead rep 2s right now and an original rep dual that runs into cracking on blocky prints but ironically has been more reliable Than the rep 2s. I am thinking of selling two of these or possibly all three and getting a cube pro trio. Yes or no?
3. I sat with someone as they used the software today, seems pretty straightforward, but does not give you as much freedom to set shells and fill % as stock Makerware. Is that right?
4. I saw mentions of complaints about loading things to the CubifySupport cloud and the "shelf" and the negatives of that. However, in watching cover this persons shoulder, it looked like they could have their files organized how they wanted to, or is this only before you prepare the build file? It also looked like their files sliced in the cube software could be kept where they wanted them, in their case I saw them on a network drive.

Last question between usability and output, is the CubePro, better, same, or worse than stock replicator with Makerware?

Sorry for the basics, but if some real users like you could answer, it would be greatly appreciated.

Jetguy

unread,
Feb 6, 2015, 8:23:57 PM2/6/15
to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com
Cube Pro and this model of gen 3 are night and day different. Different software, different hardware and different controller.

I personally have 2 half dead CubeX Duos and I just went to the local highschool and saw their now dead CubeX Duo down for an endstop switch likely because the X axis cable harness has to be replaced or repaired.

So in saying that, The Cube Pro is simply a Cube X in a new plastic housing from everything I know. I've studied the pictures extensively and I can assure you that is a valid statement of the hardware.  For your sake, I'm hoping they fixed the prone to blow up electronics in that name change from CubeX to Cube Pro. Trust me, I'm not making this up.

Finally, I know you are having some problems but you are boarderline insane to even mention selling  a Replicator 2 and trading up for this.
I have huge respect for what they have done to the Cube Gen3 but man, I honestly cannot tell you moving to a Cube Pro makes sense.
I'm sure Jacob has a different experience but this is just me.

If you want help getting you 2 series fixed, let me know. It's the last good printer MakerBot sold. Shame to see you chuck it away.
It is loading more messages.
0 new messages