Makers' Alliance Wiki

(This is the V1 mini. The V2 is a separate printer) Current Status: It's a mess. Currently in a box on a shelf. Rehab at your leisure?

Status: Broken. Needs lots of Fixing

At some point in 2018, this printer experienced multiple failures (Display board failed, and then while troubleshooting, a voltage regulator on the main control board released the magic smoke. The main board has been replaced by a RAMPS, and the display by a low-cost LCD controller. Hotend was replaced by an E3D clone. Still needs a lot of calibration to get 100% right- last time I attempted to use it it errored out with a thermal runaway condition?

A brief guide on usage:

• Maximum build area is 120mm x 120mm x 120mm
• This printer theoretically can print ABS, but we have not yet done so. PLA works great, though.
  • If printing ABS, there's a special fan duct cover we've printed that will help that stops the fan from cooling the part unnecessarily.
• Get your design into .STL format (Thingiverse downloads come this way normally, or export the file via whatever CAD program you choose to use)
• The easiest & quickest slicer program I've found is Cura. Download that onto your computer (we should probably get it on the main machine in the space as well…)
• Configure the printer with a build envelope of 120x120x120, layer height of .175mm (multiples of .04375 correspond to the step height on the Z-axis of this printer, so they're somewhat optimal)
• If you're using the gray PLA filament currently on the printer, it really wants an extruder temperature of 220 degrees C, and build platform temperature of 50-60 degrees C. If using some other filament, it may take some trial and error to get the temperatures right. The Lego keychain is a good test example, as it takes about 10 minutes to print.
• Save your sliced Gcode file onto a microSD card, and put the card into the printer's microSD card slot.
• Turn the printer on, select “Print”, and select your .gcode file.
• While the build platform is heating up, I usually set the extruder temperature to whatever it needs to be (to speed things along) and set the build speed to 2.0.
• If printing something for personal use, please Donate a couple of dollars ($1/hour for PLA? $2/hour for TPE) to cover filament usage and other expendable parts (hot end, etc.), especially if it's a big print.

Additional Considerations:

• TPE - in May 2017, we got a spool of Inland TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomer) - It does work with the MP Select Mini, but you do need to be very careful or your print will be very easily ruined. Suggestions:
  • Run the Extruder fairly hot (235?)
  • Put some heat on the bed, but not too much (40 seems good, 60 was too much, and the part lifted off the tape)
  • SLOW. SUPER SLOW. I'm currently running a job at somewhere around 8 mm/s (original gcode set at 20 mm/s, and running with the MP speed set at 0.4). Any faster and the filament will kink up in the cold end of the extruder. A Lego keychain took about 71 minutes to print, versus the usual 9-10 minutes with PLA. Expect to be patient.

Potential Hacks/Improvements:

• Extruder (cold end) upgrade: A set of Metal extruder parts has been procured. Don't replace until necessary.
• Other modifications: See Here for many other improvements.