I have just finished building the idbox printer. I have been interested in 3D printing for some while and actually have the Eaglemoss 'Vector 3' printer so can make comparisons although this forum is not the right place for such a comparison. When I saw the advert for a half price kit I could not resist it.
The kit arrived by courier and everything was nicely packed although sometimes in a strange sequence. I personally do not like acrylic as a basic material but it is very stable and presumably cheaper than metal two of the build plate supports were cracked on delivery but they were used with plenty of cement I could not find a couple of grub screws for the stepper motor pulleys but robbed another device.
The printer is obviously san old design as the documentation refers only to Windows 7 and 8 - Mine works ok on windows 10
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I do not intend to cover the construction as that very much followed the book of words. I particularily like the mechanical set up with both ends of the hot head sliders being belt actuated and the use of optical limit switches is also to be noted.
I have read through some of the previous posts and would like to go through the set up procedure noting places where there have been some confusion
The software (repetier) has been updated and the Manual control screen is slightly different from the book of words
The first thing to do is check whether your lap top recognises the printer. If you got to 'Device Manager' under 'ports' you should see USB serial device(com?). If this does not show you need to install the drivers as described in Pack 10.
Some confusion has arisen with regard to the Z home position. This is with the build plate at the bottom and set by the optical limit switch (the screw, its coupling and the stepper motor have nothing to do with this setting assuming the assembly is correct) The manual control screen shows this as X=0 whereas it is actually Z=100 .This can be corrected by changing 'Home Z'(page 259 4 in the printer shape screen to 100 (Page 258 4)
The fans operate directly from the power so cannot be controlled by the software.
Rather fortunately I have used slic3r with my other printer so used that to try my first print. One of the secrets of good printing is getting the print bed in the right place The instructions talk about using a business card (somebody even mentioned a credit card) I use a piece of A4 paper. After initial setting up try a [print and it will be fairly obvious if adjustment is needed. It is worth spending some time on this.
When you press 'print' a red light comes on to say that the extruder is heating and this is shown on the manual control screen and printing should proceed.
I then decided to try using Curs as the slicer. When 'print' was pressed the bed went to home and the manual control panel showed the the extruder was heating - it wasnt! and the bed the lifted to the start print position and froze Reading through various posts the problem is cured by going to 'edit g code' after slicing and altering the line M109 S50 to M109 S0 The bed will then home Z and the red light will come on and print properly
I can spend hours watching the print build up on the laptop display - little things etc. My other printer however had a problem in that the picture would break up and the print slow down dramatically after about 1.5 to 2 hours The solution was to disable the display. I havent tried a long print on the idbox so do not know if the same happens
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Finally a picture to show it works!
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