Has anybody here purchased a Gcreate GMax 1.5 3D printer? I’m wondering how the machine holds up, what is their support like and if the unheated bed has been working out with PLA. Thanks!
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I didn’t buy one, but I built one using their build manual to generate a BoM. The printer is pretty rigid due to its frame. The difficulties I have had are extruder clogs and leveling the large bed. The extruder clogs I haven’t seen anyone else have issues with on their forums. The issue here is mine. I upgraded to an e3d hotend and have had issues with heat creeping up the hotend softening the filament too early. The bed is large and does not remain perfectly flat over the large area. I started with the acrylic they spec in their build manual but switched to glass early on. I have found that a taller and thicker first layer helps. Someone on the forums has added auto bed leveling which should solve the problem. They are working on releasing their models and configuration in a small tutorial for others. Their support is done through email and their forums. I recommend the forums as you also get the help of the community. The unheated bed works well for PLA as long as you have the bed leveled well. The gMax comes with an acrylic bed that you print directly onto, but I like glass with glue stick better. In all, I am happy with the printer. If I were to build another I would probably design something, but that is because of who I am rather than what the printer is.
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I Have a GMax 1.5 XT and I like it alot. Unfortunately support is pretty much non-existent and I also had grounding problems after full assembly. For some reason they grounded the frame through the arduino board. I used a stripped molex adapter to ground directly to the power supply and that seemed to help. The .5mm nozzles aren’t to bad and print well at a 120 micron layers without a problem however finding replacement parts makes them unreasonable in the long term. I eventually went with E3D nozzles because parts were easy to find and E3D nozzles print a larger amount of different materials.
As for the bed, its great for PLA - too good. Often times it was too difficult to pull the models off the bed. I use blue painters tape for all my prints and it seems to be the best way to print. I print ABS and t-glase using this method and it seems to work well there too. Is there anything in particular you are curious about; just ask. I know it sounds like this printer was a hand full but unfortunately all printers are! This one is easy to work on and provides a great value for the price point.
Thanks for your insight. I am planning to buy one and since i ve never had a 3d printer, i m a bit intimidated by its size snd the scarce of info and feedbacks.
How about the quality of the prints? Can i use wood or bamboo filaments? Is it easy to assemble? Thanks buddy
Hi. I’m the one that posted the original question on this thread.
I can’t help because I wound up going for a Fusion3 F306 printer instead. The F306 is an incredible printer and I can honestly say I made the correct choice.
If you buy from gcreate.com, you won’t have to assemble the printer anymore. They now ship them pre-assembled. I think it can print the wood and bamboo filaments, but I’m not 100% sure. The main limiting factor on materials for the gMax is the lack of heated bed. You can add one, but it will require some knowledge. You will need a relay (the electronics board can’t handle as much power as needed for a heated bed this size), the heated bed, and a second power supply or a power supply that can handle the printer and the bed at the same time. The heated bed would need to be 16"x 16".
The printer can get some pretty high quality prints, but as with any consumer-level 3d printer, getting there may require some tuning. I’ve done countless upgrades to mine to get it where it is.
If you have the money to spend on the Fusion printer mentioned, it sounds as if it’ll be closer to out-of-the-box ready with a heated bed, an e3dv6 extruder, and Simplify3D slicing software. The print volume is a little bit smaller on the x and y axes, but that seems like a good trade-off for the benefits that printer brings. Also since the print bed only moves vertically, that eliminates a lot of motion and vibration from affecting the print. That printer will print faster at higher quality than the gMax.
Hi, would you be up for passing on the BOM you drew up? It would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Sure, I’ve shared it on Google Sheets. The BOM is for v1.5. They recently came up with 1.5+ which improves the bed design to make it sturdier. That’s good because I’ve noticed that the mass of the bed and printed part moving back and forth (particularly for repeated short movements) causes vibration that affects the print. They no longer ship unassembled printers, so they don’t have a build manual for that version, but all of their 3d printable files for 1.5+ are on their site for download. Unfortunately there is a lot of new hardware with no specs (like the laser cut aluminum piece for the print bed). They may share it if asked on their forums.
Due to the limitations of a moving print bed (the vibration I mentioned), I am leaning towards building a different printer where the print bed either doesn’t move or only moves vertically (small layer height changes shouldn’t introduce much vibration). I’m intrigued by the CoreXY principle and may build one of those.
Yip that’s what I found with my small cheap one. Had to turn the printer speed down. So am looking for something more ridget. Going the other way you will still have the gantry weight to shift at speed. I’m also looking at trying to get away from two motors driving the same axis.
True about the gantry, but a print bed will have significantly more mass as size scales up than a gantry. It is especially true if a bowden setup is used. Yea, for z-axis, I have been thinking I would do something like this to drive it all off of one motor: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/h-bot-and-corexy-3d-printers/qQs10CV1hnM/EqD25p7tbswJ
I have 2 gMax printers. The gMax 1.5 and the gMax 1.5+. Both printers work very well. I use them everyday. The gMax 1.5+ worked right out of the box. I had to tune the bed alignment slightly but after 10 minutes I was easily printing very large models. My second day after unboxing the gMax 1.5+, I was 29 hours into a large model which finished much better than anticipated. Replacement parts are very affordable, accessible and modular. The software and electronics are opensource. This printer can be modded/built into any form of FDM 3d printer. The customer support is great. This is a great choice for any prosumer looking for a 3D printer.
varija
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Hi, Thanks for BOM. I have some doubt on ACME rod.There you mentioned 1/4"-16.please let me know 1/4" is diameter?If yes it is equal to approximate 6 or 8mm rod.Also please explain 16.is it length of rod?
I contacted McMaster store. They are not shipping spare to India.So please suggest any other equal rod.
1/4" acme will be close to 6mm acme in diameter. 1/4" is 6.35mm. 20 is the number of turns per inch. You may find something similar in metric, but it won’t be exact. You will need to alter the marlin settings appropriately for whichever rod you get. You also will need to make sure that the nuts you use in the z axis will be captured properly in the printed parts. Check the dimensions of the ones you get against the 3d models. If they don’t match, you may need to alter the models some. I honestly don’t know why they chose to use imperial measurements. Metric can be found without too much difficulty here in the USA.
varija
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Thanks for reply.Here I got some 8mm ACME rod with 3mmpich. I will try with this.
varija
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Dear Sir,
Right now I am using I3 prusa DIY printer.I am planning to build Gmax1.5 from that old printer. also I can use every part like 4 stepper,Power,Extruder,Mother board Gt2560.etc
I am plannig30x30 T slot or 40 x 40 T slot. But i wont get ACME rod in India.So I am using normal rod and planning to add heat bed. Please tell me what are the changes required in frimwere for these all.
Thanks
varija
17
Dear Sir,
Right now I am using I3 prusa DIY printer.I am planning to build Gmax1.5 from that old printer. also I can use every part like 4 stepper,Power,Extruder,Mother board Gt2560.etc
I am plannig30x30 T slot or 40 x 40 T slot. But i wont get ACME rod in India.So I am using normal rod and planning to add heat bed. Please tell me what are the changes required in frimwere for these all.
Thanks
varija
18
Hi anybody know?
Right now I am using I3 prusa DIY printer.I am planning to build Gmax1.5 from that old printer. also I can use every part like 4 stepper,Power,Extruder,Mother board Gt2560.etc
I am plannig30x30 T slot or 40 x 40 T slot. But i wont get ACME rod in India.So I am using normal rod and planning to add heat bed. Please tell me what are the changes required in frimwere for these all.
Thanks
I have a gCreate GMAX and I use it daily. I had yet to try ABS on it, but for PLA, so goat so good. I use Aqua Net Extra Hold hair spray and I’ve had no issues. I do have the occasional mess ups from downloaded files but nothing on my printers end. I also have a Prusa i3 and I rarely use it anymore. Think I’m going to try ABS in the next week or so and attempt to get that figured out.
It’s definitely a good printer. I have been getting very good quality prints as long as I pay attention to my settings and know my printer. I do have a few modifications, but mostly to support an e3d Chimera hotend.
I have printed and assembled nearly all of the lower portion (where most of the complicated parts are) of a Curta calculator (if you’re interested in the progress, I post my updates on http://wudev.digitaltorque.com). Many of the parts are very small, and nearly all of them require tight tolerances to operate properly. The work has involved cutting both internal and external threads into printed parts. The gMax has handled this work which involves detailed prints both large and small very well.
That said, I am currently building a core-xy printer which will eliminate y-axis movement vibration since it won’t be moving a big print bed back and forth.
Excellent printer – it will get you far, but there is room to grow.
