Offer English Support for RF1000 Printer

[mjh11_rf1k]

I have a Conrad RF1000 printer (and an older Mendel-type one, too) and I am fairly active on the forum www.rf1000.de. It is chock full of valuable information, mostly related to the RF1000 printer. Unfortunately, this forum is primarily in German.

If anyone comes across an interesting post that he doesn’t quite understand, I can be of some assistance by putting it into English.

Note: I am not volunteering to translate 6500+ posts, just a few here and there. If you need to send me a note with a request, try dEsBiN(dot)iNet_rf1k(at)sOlUtIoN4u(dot)cOm . There are no guarantees that I’ll answer.

Some of the more interesting requests should be made through the forum, for the benefit of the community.

mjh11

[gabriela3d]

Now that’s community spirit! Cheers for the initiative! How about starting sharing some tips, here on Talk, every once in a while?

[boydconnor]

Haven’t heard much about Renkforce printers… how do you like yours, what other printer would you compare it with?

[zahaar]

We have three in the University.

One is being operated only with 3mm PLA on the PET tape. The only issue (after they replaced cable set going to the extruder) is that 3mm filament always brakes. It seems to happen less frequent after they moved the filament spool on top of the extruder. The printing quality on the standard settings is acceptable, they don’t change anything.

The second was operated out of the box before the Z-axis end-switch was damaged (fault in default firmware, small wonder as it is heavily based on Arduino libs), after replacement it is being operated for 3mm PLA on blue painters tape producing the acceptable quality (we print adaptors, housings, etc.; no fine features). The Makerbot Replicator is typically used for finer stuff.

The last one was equipped with 1.75mm extruder and was used extensively (replaced end-switch, ceramic plate, spool holder, extruder feeder wheel, modified extruder feeder bearing) and produced variety of parts of different complexity (including printer test v2 CtrlV) from ABS (covered printer with PET bag to reduce warping), PLA, Innoflex and Primalloy (last two with feeder adaptor to prevent slipping) until the Ni-Cr wire in the hot-end started to burn out. Used the sand-plaster mixture to cover the hot end wires underneath the hot end cover, but after I mend the wire together in one place, it burns out in the other. Finally it burned out deep in the wire channel so I was not able to get to the wire anymore without replacing it completely, that was enough even for my patience :).

Conclusion: either one buys the validated printer for respective price or builds it himself so there is no one else to blame. Hopefully, considered the amount of RF1000’s defects that users reported on the forum, the manufacturer will correct most of the problems in RF2000 (there are already new hot-end, spool holder above the printer, emergency button, better isolated housing). As a Conrad (owner of Renkforce trademark and R&D) representative told in his presentation on Automatica-2015 (approximate quote) “Before it was difficult to develop your hardware. Now the things are different: you take this sensor, this motor, this demo-board, add some wires in between, flash MCU with code snippets - and you are ready to put your development on the market”. The result is RF1000.

[armans]

First of all, It is nice for me to meet you all on this Website!

Hello, thanks for your proposal of help for dealing with the German Language in RF1000.de. I’m understanding a good part of the message, but struggling to have a complete picture in reasonable timings.

Ideally, It could also be worthy to think about a English-Written-Section in RF1000.de, but the decision is up to the Administrators of that Blog.

Personally I bought a RF1000 V2 in the last July2015. The V2 version was already having a certain number of improvements respect to the early version; as you anticipate, the RF2000 should be having further implemetations. Beside this, my purpose is to launch somewhere a thread dedicated to the RF1000 to RF2000 modification.

It should not be that hell of a job because:

- the electronics of the RF1000 is having already all the needed channel embedded (5th Motor Drive, Resistance Output and Thermal sensor Input for the second Extruder),

- there is already available the latest firmware in common for the two models, it’s just the matter to see how the recognition process will be made, comparing the two schematics when the RF2000 one will be available

- the HW difference of the “multi-color” LED driving capability of the RF2000 could be somehow averrun (again, shematics will be needed of the new RF2000 version…).

- the packing-list for the RF2000 should be available, allowing the owners of the elder version to purchase what’s missing (carriage parts, new motor and extruder, new fan assy and, eventually, the much more clever top filament holder of the new model.

I had a formal answer from Conrad that this modification is not supported, but I reject the concept to withstand a second purchase of such an expensive equipment just for having this extra feature! It sounds ludicrous.

Please tell me what do you think about this matter. Many thanks!

[Print_All]

Hello,

My name is Senol. I’m using Renkforce RF1000 and I just got a extruder problem. It’s not heating. Can you help me about that.

Thanks,

Regards,

Senol

[armans]

Hi Senol,

nice to meet you.

Easy check. With your printed turned off, unplug both the black and the white connector of the extruder harness. Take a ohm-meter and measure the resistance between the terminals of the black connector (heather): you should measure approx 18 Ohm. Measure between the terminals of the white connector (temperature sensor) and at a room temperature of approx 20-21 °C you should read a value of approx 100k ohm. If you find these values to be OK, (specially the black connector…) then you should investigate further in the cabling (the X axis cable is VERY stretched in the RF1000 and breaks off quite often !) or, as a last (and expensive…) resource, investicate in the motherboard electronics. Hope this helped you.

Best regards.

Roberto

[mjh11_rf1k]

I’m sorry I’m not more active in this forum. That’s why I supplied an email address to contact me with. So far, only one person went to the trouble.

It is tough enough dividing time between family, friends, printer AND forum(s). So I don’t really visit here often. But my offer still stands.

BTW, we have one or two members in the rf1000.de forum, and several of the other forum members have proven willing to help. So if you need specific help on the RF1000, RF2000, RF100 or RF500, a visit to the site could pay off.

mjh11