Adventures in 3D Printing

After a long wait, my MakerBot Replicator 2X was finally shipped and came in. I’ve wanted a 3D printer for a long time (going back to the Cupcake days) and only this year was able to convince my wife that we “needed” one.

Two problems were apparent right away: no cover and no magnetic latch on the front door.  Both of these are vital for keeping warm air around ABS, and keeping cats out in progress prints. For now, I’ll just keep the printer in a closed off room, which solves the cat problem.

Setting up the printer was otherwise easy. The build plate level procedure was simple. Loading the extruders was a little difficult at first because of the unclear instructions, but eventually I got them both working.

Printing in ABS is a breeze. On one large print, I got a little lift in one corner, but that’s probably a result of having the top of the printer open.

Printing in PLA is a disaster though. I tried printing the sretchlet, but only half of it printed before the extruder lost grip and started clunking and stopped extruding. Luckily, there are extruder upgrades for the 2X already on Thingiverse that some folks have had success with. I’m printing the wphthomas version now to replace one of my extruders to see if I can get PLA working.