First Print

 So it took me a while to get everything put together. Why the delay? Well I needed decent light. My Otaku Room has an eco-friendly bulb as 99% of the time I'm programming so I don't need bright lights. But to put the printer together I had to open up the curtains to *gasp* the outside light. But I can only do it after I finish work, and before darkness falls. Good job I'm doing it now as later in the year I could only do this at the weekends.

Anyway, the hardest part that I found was connecting the extruder cable bundle. Well not the cable. But that enclosure at the top took me about 30 minutes to get it to screw in.

Anyway. It was eventually done. Next problem was mains wiring. I will eventually drill a hole in the back of the cupboard to allow mains to be connected, but in the meantime, a simple extension cord is supplying power. Next off there is the issue with the filament. The cupboard is too small to allow the supplied spool holder to sit on top of the printer let alone have a spool of filament. So at present the spool is on the outside, and I am manually unwinding the filament as the printer needs it. Which basically means that every 5 mins I need to check the printer. So no over night prints for the time being.

So, time for calibration. I ran the calibration routine 3 times to try and figure out how low to bring the z-axis down far enough. I think I have it. Time for the first print. Can you tell what it is yet?

Yes it is the tried and tested 3D Benchy. The base layer went down really well and everything got off to a good start. But then... disaster.

The model came unstuck from the base. Fortunately I caught it within a couple of minutes and could stop the print. I hadn't done anything special to the board other than give it a clean. So I put a dab of glue-stick on the sheet and set it going again. This time with results...

No signs of any stringing. But there are some improvements to be made. The top of the arches are not quite perfect. Also there is a gloop of plastic at the bottom of the ship so I suspect that I didn't quite clean the nozzle properly. But on the whole I'm happy with the way it turned out. Certainly the quality of the print is pretty good.

There is still quite a bit I need to sort out and get used to, but for now I'm happy that everything is working as intended.