What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

I saw the thread about the Makerbot Replicator 2 and figured there should be a separate one for the Cube 3D printer.

We have both types and so far I have had a much better experience with the MakerBot Replicator (it is a more expensive machine after all). I wanted to list out a couple of things that I have learned about the Cube so far.

• The filament likes to be incredibly picky. We have a blue cartridge that refuses to be recognized by the machine. I current have an email out to 3D systems to find a solution on this one.
• We have another blue cartridge that is recognized by the Cube but the flywheel/stepper motor continually strips the filament for some reason I have yet to figure out. I took the cover off of the print jet and to ensure there was not any filament dried on the gear/flywheel that was causing this and I am still seeing the issue.
• I plan on running with the cover off of the print jet from now on, as it allows me to see when the filament is getting stripped.
• The cartridge that came with the Cube (Neon Green) has filament tangled on the inside so you cannot actually pull any filament out, therefore the machine will not either.
• When it works, the Cube can print some really cool stuff with the space it has. So far we have printed a very sturdy L bracket, two of the Rooks that it comes with, a minion from Despicable Me and a couple of keychains the students have designed.
• With all of the issues we've had using the cartridge we are really looking at going with this idea: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:76083

Has anyone else encountered issues or had some really cool successes?

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

I've found with our cube that due to the 3-point leveling system, leveling the bed can be very problematic.


We've also found that the printer seems to print very close to the melting point of the filament, because we've run into issues with parts cooling too fast and peeling off the print bed (even when using the provided glue).

Consequently, we've discovered that our build space may be too cold to operate the cube effectively without some kind of enclosure to regulate the temperature (we're considering building an enclosure out of polycarbonate to address this issue).


And finally, we've found that our cube seems to over-extrude the final (top) layers a bit, causing a rough top surface.

We actually printed this part but have yet to use it (still on our first cartridge), it looks like it will work ok, however positioning the part in the cube software is a bit of a pain because the author created it on a strange angle.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

That was actually the first big thing we printed after the rook. We started noticing by the 2nd print job that the prints would fail after 20 minutes or so. Nothing was jamming the print head, but it soon became apparent that the cartridges themselves were constantly jamming, regardless of the type of plastic or color. We actually had to rotate in shifts to constantly babysit the printer while making this bracket on Saturday (5+ hour print, btw). It's been an otherwise great printer, but it is completely and utterly impractical for a team to have to constantly tug extra filament out of the cartridge. We're really excited to see how it will perform with this modification. Plus there's the small fact that the generic filament costs ~1/5 the cost per kg of a proprietary cartridge from 3DS.

Having said all that, I would still probably pick this printer again from FIRST Choice at the 300 point price level (which we did). 600 would have been way too much for the hassle. Don't spend money on this printer without knowing what you're getting into. It does work, but it is not remotely as plug-and-play as claimed.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

I've read that they've updated the firmware so it keeps track of how much filament and will stop reading the cartridge chip after it is used up.

In all honesty while it's not in the "spirit of FIRST" we will probably end up selling ours. I already own a 300$ Makibox A6 printer that can do ABS and PLA with the same performance as the cube.

We would rather sell it for 1000$ buy a second Makibox for 300$ and use the 700$ to buy filament at 1/10th of the price.

It's really a shame that 3D systems isn't selling the filament at cost to FIRST teams.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

We tried printing over USB to ours after activating it, and it told us to hit the "link printer" but we could not find the link printer button anywhere. We tried putting the included flash drive into the printer, and it showed no print files on it.

We were able to update the firmware on it, but that did not help.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

It doesn't print via usb cable. Only from the flash drive and over wifi.
Make sure the files you are saving to the flash drive are .cube files.

Hope this helps.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

Has anyone had any luck using blue painters tape on the glass print bed? I heard suggestions to use that over the provided "glue".

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

Our CAD students have been using ours more than anybody else, according to them the process is export from your CAD software of choice as a *.stl file, run the cubify software to create the *.cube file, and then place it on the flashdrive or print over wifi.

No issues so far using the included glue and our prints have been done in the shop which is one of the colder rooms in the school or at someones home since the school asked us to not leave it running unattended overnight.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

The glue seems to work fine for us, so long as the room temperature isn't too cold, so we haven't had to try the painters tape method.


You can downgrade the firmware to avoid the issue.

Doesn't the Makibox have a smaller build space than the cube? I looked at the Makibox myself when I was considering 3D printers, but I always thought it looked too small to do anything useful with, and the slack in the extruder positioning system made me worry about consistency.

Personally, if we were to sell our Cube, I think we would probably go with something like a 3rd Gen Solidoodle printer for the bigger build space.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

So our team got the cube and one of the first things we printed was that adaptor for cheaper plastic from thingiverse. It is for the gen 1 cube not the gen 2 so it did not fit. We had to make a custom one. Also make sure you have enough of that glue stuff down if not it can peel of the coating on the print bed. Also we had an issue were the bed was too high so we were jamming the extruder. Makes sure the bed never touches the extruder or it will not work.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

I have found that letting the Cubestick dry causes the plastic from sticking to the bed. I have been applying one coat, letting it dry, then applying a second coat and starting the print while it is still wet/sticky.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

I have been using ours with some filament I bought with personal money to figure it out. The team has access to a school commercial 3d printer for build stuff.

Here's what I've found so far...

If there's not much overhang PLA will print really nice most times, if it doesn't jam up inside the cartridge.

ABS doesn't print very well if there's alot of surface area as the ABS shrinks as it cools and lifts badly, getting the glue down just right helps some but I tend to have 3 fails for every useable success with the ABS filament I bought.

There doesn't seem to be a difference between solid and strong, has anyone else noticed this?

I was able to print an interesting planetary bearing that printed as one piece but turns correctly, the stars were in alignment as this one printed first try in ABS.

If we had to pay real cash for it I would have suggested we return it, for 300 FIRST Choice points it's ok, at least we can print give-aways and such with it.

James Culp
Programming Mentor
Team 3389
RoboSpectrum

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

While a decent machine that we traded 300 FC credits for - I would not spend my school budget on one.

It is a great teaching tool - but not when you are trying to show a video.

It sounds like a NES - an NES that is out of control!

Ours stopped reading a usb stick a couple days in but we messaged support and they're getting a new one shipped to us. I can't say much about the prints but their support us very fast and easy to work with.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

In general it prints OK, but definitely has a heat issue when printing thin and small areas, like the tip of a pyramid. It seems the heat can't escape the print fast enough if the area is too small.

Other than the setup, it's been plug & play for us.

The extruder does dribble out some filament as it heats up, and that gob of goo will ruin the print before it finishes the raft, so we've been using an index card to knock most of it off before the print starts.

Solid was definitely more solid than Strong.I would estimate they are 70% and 90% infill, respectively.

IF I had paid full retail for the Cube I'd be upset, but for the price and what it is, it's OK.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

Many spacers, motor controller mounts, and sensor mounts later I agree with Don's assessment.

After we finish robot parts I think our cube may end up doing some replacement parts for a repman 2 that one of our engineering classes class is currently repairing.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

I have noticed that if I design in piece in Autodesk Inventor (2012 or 2014) and save as a .stl file and import into the Cube software, the dimensions are way off - I have to shrink to 40-60% of the original size to get it to approximate what I designed. I have confirmed that the design is in inches, and I import into the Cube software in inches as well. Any others have this issue?

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

Actually, I have heard that as well. Our team uses Creo but the person who normally sets up the printers tried to make some spacers in Inventor because that's what she's familiar with and she had the same issue with dimensions being way off. No idea how to fix it (she caved and downloaded Creo), but you're definitely not alone.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

Even if your part is drawn in inches, autodesk inventor will export the stl file with centimeters. Before saving, choose stl, go to options and change the unit to inches. It defaults to cm.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

Miracles never cease! It worked like a charm. Thanks

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

We had the same problem with the part coming off. we fixed it by decreasing the z gap. the printer now pushes the filament on to the plat instead on laying it on.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

We found that if you shrink it to 39.42% it will be the correct size.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

How did you come up with that number? Trial and error? We have been using 40%

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

It's 1/2.54, because inventor defaults to exporting in centimeters, even if the part is in inches, so you need to convert. If you export in inches, it's the proper scale.

If you aren't using inventor and can't change the stl export to cm, use 0.393701.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

Ah. Thank you.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

We have some huge Talon cable mounts that printed before we caught on to the inches - centimeters thing. Kinda neat in a way, because we could see the details easily instead of squinting to make out the tiny features...

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

the way we found it was we printed a part that was supposed to be .5" wide and we measured it with our calipers and it was 1.268" wide and then we did the math and got the 39.42%

Leveling the print pad
 

When we first started using our Cube 2, we thought that the leveling command would actually make and save adjustments. We learned that this command's purpose is only for checking the gaps, and does not make any changes.

We found that having the corners of the print pad at different heights contributed to an uneven thickness of the filament on the first layer. The tip was not running parallel to the print pad. Because of this, the tip would come too close to the pad in the areas where the gap was small, which caused a thinner strip to be laid down. We think this may have also contributed to the filament flow error that appeared multiple times. Eventually, it got to the point where every print attempted would fail.

Because of this, we tried to level the print pad according to the instructions. We were either very confused or the instructions were not adequate, so we looked at how it was built and figured out a way to fix this problem that worked for us.

First off, notice the print pad is mounted by three fasteners, however one of them is not adjustable (it has a solid spacer). The other two have nuts above and below the black mounting plate. In order to make an adjustment to one fastener, you will need to loosen/tighten both of the nuts. For example, if the gap at the front of the pad is too large, you would need to adjust the front screw. In this case, you would need to loosen the top nut first, and then tighten the bottom nut, which raises the pad.

This process is very tedious because multiple iterations are required. After each adjustment, you need to check the gap for all four corners, and then repeat the process between the two fasteners until the pad is level. We found it easiest to leave the tip in one corner, make adjustments for it, and repeat for each corner.

After levelling the pad, we experienced no further print failures, and the quality of the parts improved.

Re: What you've learned about your Cube 3D Printer
 

To make the cartridge be recognized, we duct taped the cartridge in to the printer in such a way that the cartridge was held diagonally in to the printer.