Predator first impressions

[mpirringer]

We bought 2 Predators to do more PPE printing. I set up the first one and printed so for about 1/2kg worth of masks in HIPS so here are my first impressions

First the Bad (for me) This thing is heavy as its big - not that good for a guy with back and joint problems to put it together. Plus I got to get a low table to put it on right now its on a regular table and I am 5’11 and I need a step stool to climb up and change filament. (build volume is 370 circular by 455 in the Z and did I say its a delta?)

Now the good. This thing was packed - well the way I am by now used to things being packed by Anycubic. Very well and well padded - Each set of fasteners in its own bag. A printed manual with lots of pictures and clear instructions - all tools included. So its a delta and you got to bolt the 3 uprights to the bottom and top section, then you got to connect the rods to the hotend plate, the flying extruder to the side, mount the filament out sensor and spool holder (I needed a step stool and thats tough for someone with my joints) then plug it in, turn it on, do the assisted bed leveling which means you can bring the hotend down to the center and adjust the center with a piece of paper and then put the supplied probe on and let it do its thing. Now you are ready to load filament and start printing.

Now its the quietest printer I got. The only thing I hear is the PSU fan. Oh well I had to set up a profile in Prusa slicer too as I don’t use Cura that comes with it - didn’t even install it. Just looked at the SD card on their bed leveling gcode and copied start and end code out of it.

So so far so good. Printing the minimalistic face shields in 28 min a piece which is about 2x the time the Chiron does but then the Chiron has a .8 nozzle (this one has a .4) and will try some of the prusa ones too

Well 2 thumbs up so far

Oh yeah we printed and delivered 150 masks of the minimalistic kind to a local hospital today. We showed them the prusa and the minimalistic one thursday at about noon and told them we can make 4 minimalistic in the time we can do 1 Prusa and they called us back Thursday evening and asked for 150 of the minimalistic ones here is a pic of them side by side

We are using HIPS which can be boiled plus we are set up to print HIPS and Prusa said its as good or better than PETG (don’t use PLA unless its all you can do) Each Chiron prints 6 minimalistic ones in 1:40 and each predator 3 in 1:20

[sanddrag]

I had no idea this printer was so inexpensive. Very cool. However, it’s web page says only available in Europe. Where/how did you buy it?

Also, I’m finding lots of filament out of stock or long lead time. Where are you buying filament these days?

[Akash_Rastogi]

If you’re out of all options, McMaster does indeed sell filament…at a premium of course.

[nmatthes]

Look on micro centers website. Cheapest I’ve found. https://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=&cat=&ntt=Filament

[mpirringer]

Filament I buy wherever I can lol.
Hobby King - you got to buy $200 worth or they kill you on shipping
Zyltech - but they run out fast - just bought $300 of mostly PETG from them and a little PLA
Toner Plastics - Is great for HIPS a little expensive on most others Over the last 2 weeks we got about 40 or 50kg of HIPS from them
Matterhackers - last time I checked they still had some stock got 10kg 910 from them - even though that was a different project which currentl is shelved to free up capacity for this

We only use PLA on the printers that can’t print anything else as PLA is brittle and has poor temp resistance. PLA will shatter when it fails and create splinters and sharp corners, HIPS, PETG and especialy nylon mostly will bend and when fail make a clean break and no splinters so it is by me and others (like prusa who put a lot of work into the masks considered a far superior choice

[mpirringer]

We monday bought 2 new of Ebay.