Yes, majority are spare parts. One thing you want to watch out for on these printers is to print a replacement plastic plate for the one that sits above the extruder that better strain reliefs the loom of wires. As the print head moves around it can (and does) flex the brittle thermocouple wires at to much of an angle causing them to break inside the insulation. They can not be repaired and have to be replaced at that point. I’ll be uploading to ThingIverse one later tonight that I designed and seams to be working quite well (dmyers7). The others on there where tweaked for oddly different mods and therefore the dimensions for the stock parts are slightly off.
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Congrats everyone on the new printer purchases 
There are tons of spool holders on Thingiverse, but I’m attaching the ones I came up with. These plug up the side handle holes, plus allows you to put the spools on the sides. They are designed to handle the large-hole spools that Microcenter sells. I generally feed the filament around back and under the same-side, back factory-installed spool holders, then up into the filament guide tubes. Haven’t had an issue after printing dozens of spools through the printers (I have two PowerSpec 3D Pro printers).
The next things you’ll want to do is go get a glass print bed set up (buy a sheet of glass or mirror at Lowes/HomeDepot, have them cut it to size, print bed corners and a Z-shim, and a couple cans of Aquanet hair spray).
Other things on the horizon would be active cooling (not sure if the 2 comes with a print-cooling fan), and nozzle upgrades.
It’s definitely an exciting journey
-Joe
new_powerspec_side_plugv2.stl 11 (120 KB)
new_powerspec_side_spool_holderv2.stl 15 (43.1 KB)
I’ll try and get that posted tonight and will provide a link.
No worries about HJ the thread! The other questions are actually some I was going to ask.
Like the spare parts that were included, the white tubes, etc.
After a few prints here is where I am at.
Without a doubt Simplify3D is TOTALLY worth it.
I tried ReplicatorG first. It’s ok. Has decent controls for manually controlling the machine. You can change the colors of the LED’s, etc so that’s a cool feature.
Then I tried MakerWare, I didn’t care for that.
I have 15 years experience in CNC machining and tool and die work so when I went to Simplify3D it felt more natural. Offers way more control of the printing process, adding supports, etc. Speeds, layers, everything.
I did order some glass beds for it. I have build fish tanks and reef sumps before and just didn’t want to deal with polishing the edges so they don’t cut me.
On the other hand using simplify3d I was able to adjust the raft size, infill and bed and nozzle temps for the raft so when I printed the glass clips yesterday they popped off WAY easier than any print before. On the stock blue bed.
So far I’ve printed some spool adapters (BTW it does work fine without them and haven’t used them yet.) An LS3 Chevy block, and currently I am printing a pendant. My girlfriend laughed when I printed an engine block and said I thought you were going to print useful things!
Right now the problem I am having is drooping plastic. On the engine block I think I can solve that with supports, but the glass clips had such a minimal overhang I thought they would be ok but they drooped also.
I am going to take some pics today to show you guys and maybe someone can offer some advice.
Thanks! So far I am having a BLAST!!
Pics are always good. Make sure your cooling duct is installed. Without supports the Simplify 3d software will provide a move called a bridge. There are settings to adjust the speed, turning the fan on to force the plastic to harden faster as it’s coming out of the tip and extrusion percentage which effectively “stretches” the plastic to keep it pulled tight when set below 100 or 100%. I usually set this to 87% when not using support. Keep in mind the bridging only works on straight line paths. If your overhang curves at all you will need support. In general support and bridging is only used when the critical angle of the overhang exceeds 45deg (I set mine to 50). Hope this helps.
Useful things ha that’s good ! I have seen quite a bit of fantasy character prints etc etc… my interest is mostly functional parts and pieces that I or other people might need.
I installed the duct, put on a reel of PLA, installed the software as suggested in the manual and fired it up for the first time this evening. I wasn’t really sure about this part of it because I didn’t plan to connect it to the USB on the pc. I just wanted to get the basic parameters set and create a file on the SD card which seemed to work ok. I ran a time lapse of the second print since I was not prepared for the first. Stock everything at this point. Will get mirror glass and already have a new hot end pair with nozzles on the way.
Looking forward to trying some PVA supports and some of my own models.
This is what I ended up with.
https://youtu.be/0k-lMmB5xkg 2
Geeez there’s a lot to learn and I’m looking forward to it. Will pick up a copy of Simplify tomorrow…
I did see the post about the strain relief component and thanks for sharing that! Tired puppy now and done for the night.
AHH, That’s what the little black elbow is for!
I attached that to the fan tonight. Running another part right now.
I am attaching my first few parts.
The first pic is a progression. Top left is the first print. Bad. The bottom left is the 4th print. I tried painters tape since I was having a really hard time getting parts off the bed. Doesn’t work very well with the heated bed at 100C!!! It also wasn’t right size wise.
The next print to the right is after I bought Simplify3D and found all the parameters for bed temp, raft layers, etc. It popped off pretty easy and fits. These were the spool adapters.
The last print bottom right is the glass bed clamps. They turned out pretty good except for the drooping.
The engine block I printed on fast, .2mm layers, 60C bed and 205C nozzle. It’s ok but the drooping is bad. I printed this before the glass clamps so I thought the clamps would be ok.
The FU hand pics show the better quality of a smaller layer level, better temp control, and supports.
The main questions I have now that I learned a bit about temps feeds and supports is
1: Why would the finger have such a different texture than the bottom? (granted, this was before I put the duct on the fan)
2: What could I change to make the clamps without adding supports? Or is that not possible since it is a 90 degree overhang.
3: What do you use to get the supports off? Some snap off, but the ones inside the palm of the hand look like a problem. I do have a few dremel tools and various bits but when I tried some they grab and dig in.
I am printing a desktop cell phone stand and it is having some other oddities like blobs and strings so when it’s done I will post a pic of that also.
What made you decide to order a new hot end pair with nozzles already?
I read somewhere about swiss nozzles but I’m curious about your thought process.
Simplify3D is somewhat pricey but it made such a difference in going from “what do I do now” to wow, I am actually glad I bought this thing!
I did hook up the USB cable. I don’t run programs that way but it’s easier to make changes, like LED colors, leveling the bed, moving the machine etc VS using the built in control panel.
I trust running programs from the SD card way more.
One thing I did learn since SD cards are so cheap is 32g seems to be the max for FAT32 formats. I tried a 64G I had laying around but with windows 7 it formats with eFAT, which the machine can’t read.
Osmo Mobile (handheld gimbal) is the piece of equipment and uses your cell phone. Easy as pie and you can also do hyper lapse. I have some examples on my YT page.