2 words. Printrbot Play. It will cost you as much as those smart extruders more or less, and unlike the play, it JUST WORKS. and when it doesn’t, there is some legitimate thing you can do to make it work. Good job on bringing the title one folks up. Kids in my school got it rough. The 5th gen is a heap. A HEAP compared to the printrbot play. Its loud. Terrible extruder. Slow. You cant fix it. Makerbot cant fix it. That’s why people NAIL IT TO THE WALL. I have to wrangle my makerbot. Figuratively speaking, I have to grab it by the horns, and throw it on the ground, tie up its legs, just to get it to perform reliably. On the printrbot play - add the heated bed (which is larger) and now it can do ABS. Modify it like mine and it will do Nylon. There are a few more things you will have to learn over the makerbot, but you can write it down step by step on 4 sheets of paper. If you can return the makerbot, and buy x5 printrbot play, your life will be better.
This is how I set my first layer height. I call it manual Z axis calibration. Add this tool to your bag of tricks. No warrantees voided. But now your first layer will stick. You will have to learn what a good first layer looks like, but once you know what too high and too low looks like, you can fix it with a click… click…
