Help with M3D

[juxtapozer]

Hello all. I recently purchased an M3D and I could really use some help getting everything calibrated correctly since nothing I’ve attempted to print has come out with decent quality. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to adjust the temperature since I’m thinking its overheating the filament. I aborted my last print partway through because the details looked a little melty and there were spiderweb strings all over it. Am I correct in assuming it’s running hot? I’m using the stock M3D software on a Mac and I haven’t found a field to manually adjust the temp. As far as the other calibrations I’ve just been using the auto calibrate function but I’m sure there’s a more accurate manual method of doing that as well. If anyone would be willing to guide me I’d be really appreciative. I’ve attempted to contact M3D support 5 times now with different questions and they haven’t replied once…

[prosys]

I’ve not done anything to mine… it basically worked out of the box…

I had NO faith in it when it started up, it clunked, it whirred, it moved SLOWLY, it homed itself by driving its motors to their limits and beyond…

But once it laid down a thick raft and actually started to print, the resulting prints are very high quality… they take an absolute age… I’d guess its 10x slower than my other larger more conventional FFF printer… but it works…if you have the patience.

I only use this printer in a squeeze… it actually produced parts to repair my main printer most recently, and thats pretty much what I got it for… to dig me out of a hole if I’m stuck.

[Dremmen]

Hello Sam.

Some tips:

• Don’t use the the filament spool inserted in the bottom of the printer. It gets stuck very soon. Always use the “external” filament method.
• Are you using original M3D filament? PLA or ABS material? PLA works fine at 215 degree Celsius. ABS needs 240-260 degree Celsius. But this material is by far not working as good as PLA on the M3D
• If you type in the right 3 letter code of the original M3D filament spool during load procedure of the external filament , the temp should be set well. But there is also an advanced manual method to create a custom filament profile with your own temperature setting. Just look under the deeper expert settings.
• Sometimes, you will have to open the front cover of your extruder (the printer head) to see if the filament was to hot during retract and got stuck in a loop under the filament gear.
• There is also a chance that the temperature sensor is not in the right position (touching or fitted in the metal block at the nozzle within the rubber) and therefore underestimates the real temperature. To detect this you will also have to open the printer head and eventually unplug connectors/disassemble the head. The front cover of the print head is only clipped with some little noses inside. With some jerking around it should go off.

Best regards

F. J.

[PodgeOnethousan]

Mine is as stock, I never change the settings, I probably get about 1 in 10 prints fail. Just start small and learn the printer limitations.

[Cristian_Sandu]

I own a beta M3D since June 2015 and I used it until a couple months ago when I upgraded to an Original Prusa i3 Mk2. I wasted a lot of plastic on it.

I know this is not constructive but if you can you are better off selling the M3D and getting something better. Please forgive me for this, I am not being a troll, just talking from my own experience and frustration.

However, if you want to stick with it, here are a few tips:

- This is no.1: get on their forums, there are lot of knowledgeable users there that will be able to help.

- Contact their support: supposedly their support team has grown and they offer more professional help(I guess…)

- If you can, switch to the Windows version of the M3D software - you might get better results.The Mac version was always behind.

- Check that your extruder fan is working and cooling.

- Switch to a better slicer - I used Simplify3D since February and I have gotten consistently better results BUT it’s an expensive product and if you are not looking to spend more, the slight improvements might not be worth it.

- I also used M3DFio with octoprint, an excellent replacement for M3D’s buggy slicer. See GitHub - donovan6000/M33-Fio: The ultimate OctoPrint plugin

M3DFio also includes a better calibration routine for the bed.

- Do and redo the long calibration - the drive calibration. On OS X I also used a program called MicroPrint to do a better bed calibration, see GitHub - tomasf/microprint: Printing software for M3D Micro for OS X

- The lack of a heated bed is going to almost always interfere with the quality your larger prints - causing lifts, curls and whatnot. I used an IKEA box to try to seal my printer but that didn’t always help.

- Build a decent spool holder, ideally with ball bearings and some PTFE tubing to get the filament rolling in smoothly(the extruder motor is really weak, even when using their internal feeder it would fail).

I hope this helps but really, the M3D is a semi-failed experiment, made obvious by their M3D Pro; normally with a 3d printer you would get incremental updates and fixes but the M3D overhauled their printer because, well, it was just not good.

I, like you, probably was enticed by the small entry price.

[juxtapozer]

Thanks for the honest feedback Cristian. You’re correct in your assumption that I was reeled in by the low price. I’m a graphic artist and was honestly expecting that the learning curve would be with learning to manipulate the 3D files within my software, not simply getting the printer to print cleanly and accurately. So you’ve decided on the Prusa i3 Mk2. Why did you opt for that printer and what else was under consideration?

[juxtapozer]

Thanks for the advice. I’m using ABS for my first roll, but per your experience,will switch to PLA when this roll runs out. I read that different brands and even different colors work better at different temps… can you recommend one that you have experience with that works well with the stock M3D settings?

[juxtapozer]

Yeah I was skeptical and even had decided to return it until I checked out their forum and saw all of the great prints that people were getting. That renewed my motivation to get this thing working properly. Unfortunately their support is non existent. Can you tell me what filament you use with your M3D?

[st3v3th3rat]

My M3D worked for just two weeks. After that every print attempt failed completely. Also, the inside filament spool never worked even out of the box. I returned this crappy printer for refound. I bought it because it was cheap and it really was cheap quality. I upgraded to a ROBO3D R1+ which performs like a beast even if i ruined the heatbed by removing the prints like a gorilla because they stuck too much. In other words i broke the glass. I already got a replacement one but i can still repair the old one by carefully changing the glass of the heat element. I plan to get the new Robo R2 which will be too nice with vertical moving heatbed and dual nozzles for printing with two filaments at once.

So, my advice is to return the cute printer and buy a reprap printer which any handy guy can repair at home. I nearly wrecked my robo, but i replaced and realigned its gantries and now it prints even better than out of the box.

P.S. The printer weighs 35 lbs, not 3 like the M3D crappie.

[juxtapozer]

Yeah I’m leaning more and more towards buying something nicer. Not sure how I can return this junk though because they don’t reply to any of my messages. I’ve tried to get support in 5 different ways and haven’t gotten a single reply. I checked the Better Business Bureau website and they have 40 some complaints against them… Should have done my homework…

[Cristian_Sandu]

Well, my reasoning for the Prusa i3 was:

• Good price
• Complete feature set w/ autocalibration, rivals the big brands
• All parts are serviceable/replaceable/upgradeable like on a PC
• Great community behind it
• 24/7 chat support
• Everything is open source, no more crappy closed source firmware and propietary g-code

[Cristian_Sandu]

Indeed, that was what drove me as well, the people on the forums bragging about their good prints.

Ultimately, M3D support said they would be willing to exchange my beta printer with a retail version for the low-low price of round trip shipping to the US(I think a couple hundred bucks - I forget).

If you got one of the later models, yours might be better.

Like I said earlier, try to use one of the alternative software solutions for it, don’t rely on the default software.

M3D Fio was my best friend.

As for material I mostly used PLA, but not their PLA which was too expensive.

I did have a roll of their material.

I suspect that the people who had good prints mostly used M3D’s branded PLA. However for me the price and the shipping costs were off-putting. I live in Europe. That’s another reason I went for a Prusa, the Czech Republic is actually pretty close to my country and shipping via UPS is 10-20 Euro depending on the package size.