Velleman k8400 Buy or not to buy????

[Jonathan_Fitton]

Hi everyone, I am thinking of purchasing a velleman k8400. Has anyone got any experience of this model and is it a good buy

Thanks

Jonathan

[yangyangqin]

Hello, I have bought this Velleman K8400 in may2015. After spending 40+ hours assemblying work, i have found two defective components which doesn’t match.The rod and bearing doesn’t match. I am right now still waiting for the feedback from the salesman.

If you are very good at mechanics and electronics,

have a great deal of patience,

have a lot of time to kill and wait,

have extra energy for trouble shooting

Then i suggest you buy this machine!

And good luck!

[RobV]

Looking at the price/performance, it is a very good printer. I have one and I am very happy with it. It takes some time calibrating, and the heated bed kit is a DIY thing, but if you are only printing PLA (which you will be doing for the first few weeks anyway) it is a very good solution and the BuildTak works like a charm (for me). The build is very solid, but the belt sprockets (can’t find the proper name) are a bit weak.

As this is a printer kit, do not expect to have to running production prints within 2 days. Assembly heavily required.

It is waaaay better than a $300 printer, but not as good as a $2500 one.

[Daniel_71]

Good consistent prints. Build volume is a fair amount for desktop modeling. And the price is great! All 3D printers have to be calibrated at some point, some are to easy and almost mindless. It’s actually is a benefit that kits have, you get to really learn your machine. The K8400 can not be modified to a larger build volume. The only thing that I find in the negative is the loss of modification that their K8200 frame allows. It was design as a fixed size appliance like all the other shell is structure printers; Makerbot, Cube, Da Vinci, Dremel and the like. Machines that look like workshop tools lend themselves to modification. Replace a few rails and poof you have larger build volume. Yes over simplified but not really that far from the truth. Overall it comes down to this; The price is great, you get to assemble it giving a true sense of ownership and when you need to get it done “How Things Work” knowledge is your best power tool.

[Mario_Buccieri]

VERY good printer, i own 2 k8200 , 1 k8400 and a Wasp 2040. I can assure you it has equal 3d printing capabilities of the Wasp2040, in some cases i had better results with k8400!!! Expect some trouble in assembing and fine-tuning and follow Velleman forum “Hardware issues on k8400”. I have the double extruder version, works like a charm. Cheers!

[maartenverstapp]

If you don’t mind building it just buy it. Its a great printer.

[Elrenuir]

I have k8200 and do not advise anybody to buy k8200, unless You want to heavily upgrade it.

[Jimmy_Butzen]

Hi,

i bought it two weeks ago, the assembly went very well but it was a long journey till the finish , after that it was just connect with repetier host and the party was started the quality is very good for the pricerange i dont think you find a better one for less money .

[Georgeh1ll]

Try looking at the wanho i3 its opensources, same quality and speed, prebuilt and only around £300!

[RobV]

I’d have to warn you that ‘same quality’ might be a bit overrated there. If you can selling something for 50% you are skipping on something and it ain’t the profit margin.

[R19P87D]

If your looking for a customizable printer and can follow instructions to an assembly then it greats for what you pay for. You will spend more on improvements in the long run. If your looking for something ready to print then you should look for alternatives.

[tommyfer]

I would really recommend the k8400.

The manual is not so good around the alignment of the x/y carriage. The wiki is MUCH better

http://www.k8xxx-3dprinters.crimed.be/w/index.php?title=Layer\_Shift

[OMD3D]

Buy! I have also a leapfrog creatr that cost me +/- €1900. have had more problems and bad prints with this one than with the Vertex. the only thing I would consider if I were you, is changing the flex coupling for the Z-axis. the standard one is fragile.

if you want I can send you the file to print one in PLA.

another tp is only to keep the hotends heated for the minimum of time possible to avoid clogging of the filament.

Peter

[SlowFoot]

I got a Vertex K8400 few months ago and with what I know today I would have bought a Kossel or Prusa I3 instead. The cost for the kits are about the same here. The print quality on the Vertex is OK, if you manage to set it up right, but it will never be great. Too cheep mechanic components and the cooling is sort of there but not much more (It looks like they set up the fans too cool one of the rods). Unlike the other two I printers it is hard to make improvements on the Vertex, as it is very tight on space. The best thing about it is that I could get it over counter, so local (fairly strong) consumer laws apply. Also the ticket system for replacement of faulty parts works well, but slow. I have tested it contentiously.

It works, I had a lot of fun with it but: No, i would not recommend it, I think you can do better for the same money.
Cheers!

[larryea]

Hi Jonathon,

I bought the kit. satt it all together. plugged in cable to PC…and contact on the PCB came off !

I sent photoes, I delivered the card with the contact off…

I am still waiting for a card or two that has a contact that tolerates connection.

Sincerely ,

Larry

[SlowFoot]

Interestingly enough exactly the same thing can be said between the K8400 and the Ultimaker Original (that the K8400 is a cheap copy of).

[larryea]

I bought a K8400 kit. I put it together. I connected the cable from K8400 to PC. The contact came off the PCB !

I got a new PCB and the same thing happened to that one too. I have waited and waited for Vellaman

to fix the problem with the cable contact on the Printed Curcit Board.

[RobV]

I bought my K8400 in November last year when it was just released, and I have been very happy with it. Two month ago I started printing ABS without a heated bed. With the right calibration (and use of a brim) the BuildTak sheet works pretty well. I’ve been printing two full spools of ABS in about 2-3 weeks time and only 1% of the prints warped or failed, and those mostly to my own doing. I realise there are better printers available but i am very much content with the K8400 right now, and do not feel the need to buy a better one.

[WayneSlater]

If you are looking for a really reliable 3D printer wait until someone actually makes one that is. The seemingly constant barrage of printing issues I’ve encountered with the K8400 is reminiscent of the reliability of early computers (the Altair 8080 comes to mind). If you want to get married to something that will provide unending hours of frustration but great prints when its working properly , the K8400 may be for you - it is not a 3D printer to be used for any kind of production though - unless you are trying to go broke.

[grellgruen]

Dont buy - problems, problems problems all the time. Bought this 6 weeks ago, 80 percent of prints fail for different reasons. After solving problems of permanent stucking filament in nozzle (dont know why it worked suddenly), it worked for 3 days, now it looses steps in x-direction but not all the time, sometimes print outs are ok. Now z-axis does not position correctly. I’m fed and this is the reason why I’m writing here. Calibration is as loud as hell, neighbours complains.