Robo 3D

[3dpGeek]

Before you tell me look at the 2016 Buyers Guide I have a few questions.

1. What is your opinion of the Robo 3D? Would you recommend?

2. How is there customer service?

3. Pro/Cons?

4. First hand experience on print quality?

5. Good with Flex, wood, carbon fiber, etc?

6. Can you change/ replace the nozzle?

General comments?

-CB

[Brian_18]

1. I like the robo3d. I have an earlier version, so I don’t have experience with the version their selling, but it looks like there are quite a few upgrades. I would recommend it based price point and performance. 2. Customer service is okay, not the quickest. But they do have a user forum that’s pretty active. 3. Pro: good quality prints for the price. Nice features for the price as well; autolevel, Heated bed, etc. Cons: I wasn’t a fan of the extruder or hotend. I upgraded mine. Granted I have and earlier version so this could have been upgraded as well. 4. quality it great for the price. Some mods or tuning will probably be needed to achieve/maintain great quality 5. Only have experience with ninjaflex, had to modify the extruder to make it work (again, this could have been fixed already ) 6. I upgraded to an e3d v6 hotend pretty early on. It allows for swapping nozzles. Not much experience with stock hot end

[Hilttech]

1. What is your opinion of the Robo 3D? Would you recommend?

My opinion is very high. I would definately recommend for its customer service (see below) and value.

2. How is there customer service?

Very high if you deal with there 1 on 1 meetings with their service techs. Its free to do but you need to schedule it about 1/2 to 1 day in advance. Don’t even bother using their 24 hour line. I have yet to find a simple enough problem for those guys to solve.

3. Pro/Cons?

Pros

Build Volume (its huge)

Value (its dirt cheap for its size)

Customer Service (they’ll teach you how to print and fix anything, as long as you do the 1on1 thing)

Auto bed leveling (paper test to get it close and then the digital dialing in makes a really nice first layer)

Cons

Not enclosed. Weird shape to build an enclosure for (So ya you can print abs. but it will be warped)

Matterslicer (Its garbage. Don’t bother. Just go straight to repetier or cura)

bed heats up unevenly (I usually let it heat for ~20 mins to get it normalized with a custom enclosure)

R0 has some major design flaws they fixed with the R1 (fan press fit instead of bolted, cheap bolts, etc. All fixed to their R1)

Also I know this is nit picky but ultimaker spoiled me with their detachable build plate.

4. First hand experience on print quality?

I’ve gotten my tolerance down to ±0.1 mm. The ultimater I use is down to ±0.01mm so an order of magnitude better. but visually they’re indistinguishable.

5. Good with Flex, wood, carbon fiber, etc?

Never tried these. Although the service tech I talk to regularly said he has had a lot of success with woodfill and showed me a print that looked very nice (from afar over skype for what thats worth)

6. Can you change/ replace the nozzle?

I’ve replaced once (under their customer service supervision) but never upgraded the nozzle. Although I’m almost positive you can as I have seen more than one how-to video on it. Also you can upgrade to duel extrusion supposedly. I’ve never tried cause I am making enough with the single head to make it to risky to take offline and take apart my printer.

[3dpGeek]

Have you used Simplify3d?

[3dpGeek]

Was the swap to the e3d easy?

[Hilttech]

I haven’t but I am now.

[DTOMDesignEng]

1. I love my robo 3D! It’s a simple printer that s easy to understand and work on when needed. I would definitely recommend it for others.

2. The customer service is 24/7. I’ve had a couple of problems and called them, and they were able to tell me the solution and send me pictures and videos to help me.

3. Pros: Simplicity, able to print different materials, great layer height, easy to upgrade

Cons: No double extruder, small tweaks to perfect performance, the software

4. The print quality is great to me, I’ve only printed at 100 micron layer height, but I’ve had great results

5. I’ve only used the wood and it works great for me once you learn the right temperatures.

6. Yes, you can upgrade the nozzle.

[3dpGeek]

The actual nozzle or the entire hotend?

[daniel871]

1: I would not recommend. Get the $349 Monoprice printer to learn on.

2: Customer Service was terrible for me. The community forum was far more helpful, but even with that help and spending again the initial price of the Robo I still don’t have a reliable printer.

3: Nothing that you won’t also get from the Monoprice printer I mentioned above. Cons are poor QC and worse warranty support. The glass bed on mine shattered while heating and I was told that wasn’t covered.

4: When it would print, only .2mm layer resolution prints would succeed. .1mm layer resolution prints would always fail.

5: Any exotic filaments would clog without fail.

6: The nozzle can be easily changed, the Hotend is compatible with E3D nozzles, which do better than the regular nozzle, but the weakness is in the Wade bolt, it strips the filament out during any series of rapid retractions during delicate part printing.

Generally speaking, look for a printer elsewhere. Or buy it from Amazon or Best Buy so you can easily exchange it until you get one that works in spite of the terrible QC at the factory.

[Hilttech]

Just out of curiosity was yours a R0, R1, or R1+? I have an R1 bed thats a year old, I’d love to swap it out before it shatters. Also was the customer support the one-on-one techs, Brian/Jerry, or those 24/7 phone guys?

I agree though there QC has been terrible. They say they’re getting better but I haven’t bought a new printer from them to confirm. Maybe when the R1 Mega comes out… I made a list of all the little problems I kept noticing (stripped bolt here, loose thing there) and at 11 months 2 weeks (Most credit cards offer extended warranties for free pushing their 6 month to 1 year) I sent it in to get all those odds and ends fixed.

[3dpGeek]

I have knowledge of printing, I have a XYZPRINTING 2.0 Duo and I am building a Delta, kit’s can be a b*tch. I also work with a Makerbot 2x and Stratasys uprint se so I don’t really want to go to something like the Micro. I was planning on buying from Best Buy and getting the 2 year warranty so if I wanted to replace t or upgrade I could return it and get full money back.

[Brian_18]

Somewhat easy, but doesn’t require modifying parts. Removed large gear to access screw, remove that screw and one on the opposite side of the hot end, hotend drops out. Put e3d hotend in place, replace both screws, replace large gear. Not too bad. I’d recommend using ptfe tubing with the e3d. This may require widening the hole the filament goes through. Again, this was on the R0 extruder. Not sure if there have been changed made for R1

[Brian_18]

Upgrading the nozle should be easy. You’d have to print a new extruder if you want to upgrade that

[daniel871]

Mine was an R1, bought in April, no idea how old the actual bed was.

[TheMeek]

Well, that depends on your budget. It’s a great machine for the price, but there are some quality issues to consider if you are not handy, determined, and creative enough to control them! I have all of these traits so I am unafraid of a challenge! My first recommendation for you to consider if you do choose a Robo3D is to replace the MatterControl software immediately with Simply3D 3.0 software. It’s way better and well worth the money! You will have to flash the Arduino board with new firmware, so if your not familiar with that procedure then there are excellent tutorials that will walk you through it. As for the quality issues, I personally have had problems with the print bed glass chipping when removing some of the models from it, you have to be very careful and patient with this process. If you do end up chipping the glass, then I would highly recommend a BuildTac sheet or some of the other thicker style plastic add ons that you can quickly remove and bend your model off of it! I have also had to replace the idler arm on the extruder with one I printed from files off of Thingiverse. I have also had to reprint both Y-axis bearing pillows, because of slack issues that messed with the bed leveling. I still have not completely eliminated this issue and had to add paper shims between the glass bed magnets in order to manually level it as much as possible before it’s regular bed leveling routine. For some reason my print head gets closer to the bed toward the front of the bed then toward the back and effects the first layer which is vital for a proper print! I have minimized this issue enough to satisfy me for my purposes. I agree with some other posts that the bed heats up more in the center then tapers off toward the extremities. I have also had temperature control issues with the extruder at higher temps above 150 degrees Celsius. I think I solved it somewhat by removing the bottom of the printer, propping it up on blocks of wood and adding a larger box fan to cool the drivers on the Arduino board. I have not bothered with their tech help, because I would rather figure things out for myself, except for the wise help from forums, which are invaluable! I have had other minor issues that are not worth mentioning. I did buy another E3D bowden style extruder which I have not installed yet, because I wanted to set up my printer as a dual extruder, but since purchasing the Simplify3D software I am reconsidering it! It has wonderful capabilities of stopping mid print in order to change filament types and print properties, so dual extrusion may not be necessary, unless you have a lot of integrated colors or material types on the same layers! I have printed with many different materials such as carbon fiber, stainless steal, glowfil, color changing PLA, etc. with great results! My only criticism is that smaller details are harder to control with the stainless steal. For example I have yet to print a successful Marvin out of it, in order to satisfy 3D Hubs first order quality print test! It prints beautifully up until the top key chain loop, and then it gets sloppy! I even tried to print six at a time, with not much better results. I gave up for the time being after blowing through a whole spool, and a 250 gram sample trying to figure it out! I have many other types of plastics that have printed very well, and some that I have yet to try. So, to sum up my experience I have had major issues that I was able to print my way out of, with some jerry rigging to the machine to fix some minor issues with good success! I would recommend a Robo3D to anyone who has a small budget, as I did but if I had the extra cash to burn I would have invested in a Hyrel 3D printer, due to it’s enclosure, and quickly detachable heads for multi-tool usage, or the All-in-one Zmorph 3D printer! I needed the versatility more than anything, but settled on the cheaper Robe3D in order to have money left over for materials, which can cost you much more then the printer itself! I hope my experience helps your decision making! Good luck, you will need it!

[Tommaso_Ciofi]

1. What is your opinion of the Robo 3D? Would you recommend?

It was my first 3d printer, so my opinion is fairly high. It is fairly easy to modify and customize and all parts are simple to access. Definitely recommend.

2. How is there customer service?

Never did the one on one service, i contacted once the 24/7 line and they weren’t very helpful. The community is awesome though, i had most of the problems i encountered sorted out there.

3. Pro/Cons?

Pro: Build volume, Low Price, Hackability, Community

Cons: Not enclosed, Software (buy simplify3d and you’ll never look back, no matter which printer you use)

4. First hand experience on print quality?

Needs to be fine tuned and you need a bit of experience, but the print quality is great. You can check some pictures on my hub to get an idea.

5. Good with Flex, wood, carbon fiber, etc?

Printed with all of the above succesfully. wood is probably the easiest filament to print ever, flex takes some experience, but it is definitely doable.

6. Can you change/ replace the nozzle?

I changed the entire hot end early on. The printer comes with an all metal hexagon, which is a good hot end and i think the nozzle are changeable. I went to an e3d v6 first and e3d volcano later and never went back to the hexagon.

[3dpGeek]

Thank you! The Hyrel 3d is nice! I met the guys at the Atlanta Maker Faire. I love their machine I just don’t have that type of budget.

[Hilttech]

This is very in depth. Thanks theMeek. I can second the airflow to the arduino. In Robo3d’s infinite wisdom they put the cooling intake fan on the bottom of the printer and then made the printer sit virtually flush with whatever surface you rest it on. My solution was inadvertent as I made a custom side table for my printer and when I realized the issue I just took the top layer of the table off so it was only the frame. No tabletop = no obstructed airflow.

[san_kart]

1. What is your opinion of the Robo 3D? Would you recommend?

I have the Robo R1 and it has been a good first 3D printer. It does have some fixable problems that may annoy some of the users. I the print volume is huge but it is not very handy when printing with ABS. It does not have a chamber, so wraping will occuur when printing big ABS parts. PLA printing is better because your can fix clogs by adding an oiler. I had to place another piece of glass on top the bed because some prints chipped away the glass.

2. How is there customer service?
Constumer service is just great, I had some nooby problems and I was able to get help via Skype and forums.

3. Pro/Cons?
PROs: Print volume, price,

Cons: noisy, continuos cloggs. (fixable), precision is not always great.

4. First hand experience on print quality?

0.1mm. works fine but precision again is not the best for smal detalis.

5. Good with Flex, wood, carbon fiber, etc?

Excelent printing with wood, I haven´t triend CF.
I have tried extruding Ninjaflex several times and I haven´t been succesful

6. Can you change/ replace the nozzle?

I know it is possible, but I have never tried.

[TheMeek]

I think your referring to the hot end tip, which is just threaded onto the cooling block and can be swapped out easily. You will have to run your bed leveling sequence again after switching, due to the fact that it measures from the tip and different tips vary in height. If you want to changed the entire hot end to a dual or bowden type (for flexible filaments), then you will have to order a new X-carriage or print a new one. You can find various versions on Thingiverse. I was thinking about switching to a dual myself, but have not printed it yet, because it is a big project and I didn’t want the down time while I was still learning how to use it. I bought my R1 in April of 2015.