Is extrusion bot worth it?

[Jean-François Talbot]

Hello there,

Or rather, the question should be, is it ready for prime time?

I have a lulz bot printer, and I am building my own, out of the CoreXY pattern (real CoreXY not H-bot).

Obviously, after sinking a few large on it, its going to be time to print serious stuff. My print area is 350x350mm and I will chew through plastic in no time.

I have seen the Filastruder, and it was quite successful on Kickstarter. At the time I started down the 3D printing path, EB was already there, and I didn't notice.

Thus, building my own printer, I am no electrical engineer, and I don't feel I could wire up that thing. Let alone diagnose what is wrong with it.

So, is it ready to be operated by a n00b ?

Jeff

[Herb Winters]

I cannot speak for everyone here but as far as Me and my needs.
I own and Ultimaker. the build platform is 200X200X200 or a little bigger.

I also own a small run plastic injection molding machine. My plan is to use the EB to create color filament for the Ultimaker and make matching color pellets to use in my injection molding machine. so I also need Volume.

I have been watching Extrusion machines on the web from any sources including kickstarter for a couple years. but none seemed to produce enough plastic or they were selling something they did not have running. the other thing is I need lots of colors so it is important that I can spool the plastic filament on rolls. (not easy to wind the stuff after it has cooled.)

ExtrusionBot was the first that claimed 3ft/minute and demonstrated in a video 4ft/minute they also showed spooling and it is compact. from the moment I saw it I though it was ulgy. saying it doesn't looking high-tech is an understatement it looks like a Prop for a 1950 Horror Movie :)

but in the end I realized all I really needed was function it is not something that needs to look good as long as it works.

well to get back to your question Yes I have seen it produce 4ft per minute on my prototype what I have not seen is it spool a full roll or even extrude a full roll.

some of this is because of mistakes I made in drilling holes in the Rubber stoppers and some from as you put it not being ready for prime time.

although the problems I have seen have stopped me from seeing the ExtrusionBot reach My Expectations.
 I see the problems as minor compared to Problems with Industrial Products I have been hired to fix. I have been a consultant for many years helping companies fix there Design problem and in my opinion the problems the ExtrusionBot is suffering from are minor. when they are fixed the Machine should be awesome.

as far as you building the kit if you are not excited by the challenge or if your not like me who cannot use something until he has taken it apart or at least understands how it works.
then I would recommend you purchase the prebuilt ExtrusionBot which I believe once Mark catches up on the KS commitment he will offer ready to run units on his website.
However I have not been able to talk to him so I may be wrong. but if he does not offer it I will offer a service to assemble the kit for people that don't find that fun ;)

[Jean-François Talbot]

Thank you for your reply.

I would not mind putting it together, but my time is limited. The very short amount of free time I have goes towards by CoreXY Bot, but its far from being finished.

I am about 3 weeks away from having it all put together and then the real fun will begin. I expect it will require me a lot of tweeking so, while I'd be using filament I dont have time to diagnose another piece of equipment.

Anyhow, I'll wait to see what the creator does after his KS.

Thank you

[jason carlisle]

I would say absolutely NOT. This was a horrible kickstarter and product. My "opinion" for my personal experience is that this was a bad buy. The instructions were horrible and incomplete, the kit missing parts for most people, the metal chassis is VERY flimsy. And good luck getting any response from Mark Dill that doesnt make you feel like you are a nuisance to him even though you are a customer and backer that got him running, if he replies to you at all.

  After I finished my build I discovered my extrusion bot varies in extrusion diameter between 1.6mm and 1.85mm. Which is unusable if you are hoping for quality prints, at least for me. Then I tried adjusting my extrusion temp up 5 degrees and now my bot continues to heat and the temp continues to rise even after reaching its target. I got sick and tired of trying to re-invent and troubleshoot a product that I paid for just to make it work that I was about ready to turn it into a shotgun target. Instead I just put it back in my garage in storage incase I ever need it to cannibalize for parts.

If you can get it to work well, then I suppose it would be great, but otherwise this thing is crap.

[Thomas Braun]

I think it depends on what you expected from the kit.

First of all this is by no means a product but a prototpye produced
multiple times.

The build videos are really not good, I would have preferred a proper
manual. And if you have no idea about electronics you should definitly
not build it yourself.

For getting good results, you obviously have to do a lot of
experimenting and reading. You won't get good results in the first
weeks.

My last tests were with ABS and 3mm Filament. This time the main motor
did not overheat. The diameter is not perfect, and I still have problems
with popping ( this should be due to the fact that I did not dry the
pellets).

[Jean-François Talbot]

thank you for your feedback.

There is some voodoo science into getting filament right all the time I get that.

Its like finding the right temp for a new kind/color of filament, and tweaking the bed temp for the kind of part you are making.

But, if the creator doesn't step up, that does not look good. I guess, I will be poking here from time to time to see how this thing progresses.

I do wonder however, if someone with a full build, by the creator was able to achieve speed, size and roundness that was promised in the video.

Jeff

[Ralph Person]

I think (and hope) the solutions to the drawbacks of this machine are going to come from the users (because sadly I believe that they aren't going to come from the creator).

The problem of consistent filament diameter is shared among many of the Lyman extruder offshoots to one degree or another.  I'm pretty confident someone will develop some modifications for some sort of extruder which can be applied to the extrusion bot to improve filament consistency.  Maybe an idea will be born on this forum or maybe it will come from someplace else, but sooner or later it will come.

As for speed of the device, I have my fingers crossed on that one.  Herb is assembling my machine for me and I'm just hoping I can run it for a reasonable amount of time without something burning out.  I never cared much if it lived up to Mark Dill's claims of speed.  So long as it extrudes and it works and it doesn't take 10 or 20 times longer than advertised or burn out in the process, I'll be fine with that.

Anyway, that's how I look at it.