I bet our motors lasted almost the same number of hours Tim. I had some time to tinker and after having a couple of extruder pinion gears wear down on me, I had the extra extruder motor and thought I'd give it a go as a Z motor. I cut off the threaded rod from my broken Z motor (it was surprisingly ...

Thanks Jim Yeah, I just ordered the motor from Makergear. The one that failed was on the older 12v model, and it did tend to get hot despite all the heatsinks I had on it. I haven't had any problems so far with the newer 24v models. :D Wow, I had just read that exact page JSC, if this motor dies an ...

The Z stepper on my M2 has a problem. Whenever I send a command to the axis, or try to print, it simply grinds and shudders. It does the same when connected to the Y controller so I'm sure its the motor and not the board. It turns freely and smoothly when its not powered. My question is can I repair...

I would definitely be interested too. I fixer-upper for my students with be a great project, and within the yearly budget. Would these be 12v machines?

Bad filament? You might pull the filament drive and make sure the teeth on you gear are clear, and the gear itself is not lose on the shaft. Have you noticed any "slipping" sounds from the extruder? As above, check your extruder motor mount, Angle of your hotend (pointing straight down?). Check your...

I run two M2's from one machine all the time. You can run two instances of Simplify, and select a different com port for each control panel. You can also run pronterface if you just want to print from SD card. If you are printing via USB, you may need a machine with a lot of oomph- Two instances of ...

Thanks for the heads-up Jim!

Ok, figured it out. Bad extruder thermistor- simple.
The bed reading 0 was throwing me- I was worried it was the board.
Swapped out the therm with one from another machine and its fine.... just need to get a new one.

Thanks for the reply Jim

While heating for a print (a print I've sent many times) My m2 started displaying Err; MAXTEMP on the VIKI. The LCD and simplify both show a temp reading of 0 for the extruder and bed. I've powered down, reset, disconnected and reconnected USB- and I always get the same error immediately upon poweru...

I have the small drills too, but I actually have more luck using a small guitar string (.10). They are not easily broken, and if used fairly gently, shouldn't deform the hole in the hotend. I buy singles at the music shop, then clip the strings into pieces of about 5 inches. I keep a magnet on my M2...