Anker's 3D printer kickstarter
Apr. 13th, 2022 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdANKER's 3D printer kickstarter - which they're running solely for publicity, they don't need this money - is going around with a bunch of paid videos (LTT is at least upfront about it, but I still don't like it) and I have to say... I'm not real impressed.
Given what's available now at what costs are now, I was really disappointed with that combination of apparent bed size and price. I mean, no, it's not an unreasonably small bed, but I saw the size of that base and was all, "You have my attention" and then I saw the print area and was, "...and you just lost it."
Plus, they are making some really inappropriate speed claims. Not because I don't think they can move the hot end that fast, but because that's how PLA works. (Or any of the other filaments.) They seem to be talking about just linear movement speed and that doesn't matter if your material can't cool that quickly.
I mean, I'm sure it's faster at defaults than my Ender 3 V2 but that's not hard, and at well over twice the price, I expect better.
And all those are big issues, but there's a bigger one, and that's the whole sales pitch.
They want a plug-in-and-forget 3D printer, and they're basically advertising this as one, focusing really hard on ease of assembly (great, I'm for it) and the included auto-leveller (great, those are common, I don't have one and don't need it, but they're good), and they're spending a LOT of time on what they call their AI-driven spaghetti/failed print detection.
And that's fine, but they're making it sound like those are the unsolved problems, when those are in fact the already solved problems.
And a big one is filament. Filaments are not consistent enough for this kind of approach to eliminate all the variables! Particularly not in an open / uncased environment, like this printer! If it had an enclosure, I'd be a bit a bit more copacetic about it, but not entirely, and it doesn't.
Does it have some sort of environment temperature sensor to make temperature adjustments based on ambient temperature? Not that they've mentioned, and I don't see one.
What happens when someone throws some HT-PLA+ at this thing, just to use a filament type I like to use. It can't tell that it's not standard PLA, but the temperature profile is going to be completely different, and not just for this type in general, but by the maker! Each company's HTPLA and PLA+ and so on - they're all different, and there's no way to communicate that to the printer from the filament itself, or the spool.
And changing filaments between jobs, too - it's using standard i3-style printer print heads, and those _need_ to be cleared between filament types. They just do. PLA to PLA generally isn't too bad, but changing colours is not just like popping in a new inkjet cartridge. I have some low-temperature black matte PLA and you need to get that head _squeeky_ clean between prints or you are going to learn new meanings of pain if you switch to something different! Particularly something that operates in different temperature ranges.
And that's just one example.
Here's another: nozzle types. I mean, I guess they can have some sort of hardened-steel plated copper nozzle and that's fine, and that will last a while and tolerate abrasive filaments like wood-infused PLA, but... that's at best a semi-solved problem. Changing those out isn't too difficult, but with that kind of hot end - exactly the same kind I have - you need to get up close and intimate with 200°C metal. (That's... 390° in Freedom units.)
Not to mention the adventures in cleaning it out. By going direct-drive they've eliminated the Bowden tube issues, but... well, we'll see.
Which is all a way of saying "great, they've solved assembly and they're including a levelling sensor with the kit." And they've got a spaghetti detector to stop you from wasting too much filament, that's nice. But that doesn't make it print-and-forget, not by a damn sight. There are all these other very serious issues that they haven't touched and which are not solved here. And in my experience, they're the bigger problems.
But they're kinda selling it as an "all problems solved, print and walk away" solution.
And it's really not.
Given what's available now at what costs are now, I was really disappointed with that combination of apparent bed size and price. I mean, no, it's not an unreasonably small bed, but I saw the size of that base and was all, "You have my attention" and then I saw the print area and was, "...and you just lost it."
Plus, they are making some really inappropriate speed claims. Not because I don't think they can move the hot end that fast, but because that's how PLA works. (Or any of the other filaments.) They seem to be talking about just linear movement speed and that doesn't matter if your material can't cool that quickly.
I mean, I'm sure it's faster at defaults than my Ender 3 V2 but that's not hard, and at well over twice the price, I expect better.
And all those are big issues, but there's a bigger one, and that's the whole sales pitch.
They want a plug-in-and-forget 3D printer, and they're basically advertising this as one, focusing really hard on ease of assembly (great, I'm for it) and the included auto-leveller (great, those are common, I don't have one and don't need it, but they're good), and they're spending a LOT of time on what they call their AI-driven spaghetti/failed print detection.
And that's fine, but they're making it sound like those are the unsolved problems, when those are in fact the already solved problems.
And a big one is filament. Filaments are not consistent enough for this kind of approach to eliminate all the variables! Particularly not in an open / uncased environment, like this printer! If it had an enclosure, I'd be a bit a bit more copacetic about it, but not entirely, and it doesn't.
Does it have some sort of environment temperature sensor to make temperature adjustments based on ambient temperature? Not that they've mentioned, and I don't see one.
What happens when someone throws some HT-PLA+ at this thing, just to use a filament type I like to use. It can't tell that it's not standard PLA, but the temperature profile is going to be completely different, and not just for this type in general, but by the maker! Each company's HTPLA and PLA+ and so on - they're all different, and there's no way to communicate that to the printer from the filament itself, or the spool.
And changing filaments between jobs, too - it's using standard i3-style printer print heads, and those _need_ to be cleared between filament types. They just do. PLA to PLA generally isn't too bad, but changing colours is not just like popping in a new inkjet cartridge. I have some low-temperature black matte PLA and you need to get that head _squeeky_ clean between prints or you are going to learn new meanings of pain if you switch to something different! Particularly something that operates in different temperature ranges.
And that's just one example.
Here's another: nozzle types. I mean, I guess they can have some sort of hardened-steel plated copper nozzle and that's fine, and that will last a while and tolerate abrasive filaments like wood-infused PLA, but... that's at best a semi-solved problem. Changing those out isn't too difficult, but with that kind of hot end - exactly the same kind I have - you need to get up close and intimate with 200°C metal. (That's... 390° in Freedom units.)
Not to mention the adventures in cleaning it out. By going direct-drive they've eliminated the Bowden tube issues, but... well, we'll see.
Which is all a way of saying "great, they've solved assembly and they're including a levelling sensor with the kit." And they've got a spaghetti detector to stop you from wasting too much filament, that's nice. But that doesn't make it print-and-forget, not by a damn sight. There are all these other very serious issues that they haven't touched and which are not solved here. And in my experience, they're the bigger problems.
But they're kinda selling it as an "all problems solved, print and walk away" solution.
And it's really not.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-13 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-13 09:17 pm (UTC)I'm not saying it's going to be a bad printer, I think it's going to be a good printer. I just am :/ at the way they're implying very strongly that it's print-and-forget, and there are a lot of unsolved problems that are bigger than the problems already solved, and they aren't addressed at all.