I just bought the thermistor cable. I had to remove the old one from the very nice loom and get the new one in and get the loom closed up again, which all was a bit twitchy.
If I ever make one of these. I'll use wire with more strands then MakerGear did - less likely to harden up with flexing.
Except for the spring on the extruder adjusting screw, and the Wham Bam magnetic PEX printing surface, My M2E is as I bought it in 2016. The wham bam print surface has pretty much eliminated the downside of printing. no more fussing with re-leveling and the height seems to be maintained perfectly unless I change one of the stainless steel pex sheets and then I reset the height as a pecaution.
I didn't have great experience with the tape and the glass plates which I didn't think were of constant thickness such that bed had to be releveld every time I changed one. It could have been just my clumsiness, though.
Extruder motor stops responding/moving
Re: Extruder motor stops responding/moving
I went with the build-tac and attached the magnetic part to a glass plate as it was much flatter than the aluminum heater plate. I am sure this does not transfer heat as well but don't have adhesion issues .
The build tack surface did not last well and got lumpy where it had been pulled from the flex plate removing items.. so maybe it worked a bit too well. I also had bought their PEI and Nylons surface with dedicated flex plates for all 3. So far the PIE is working really well with ABS and everything else. I do use the nylon plate for nylon.
I don't run a BLtouch leveling operation with every pint the way they do on the other Makergear machines that have them. I run one for each bed temperature I use, utilizing the max number of points the software supports. This can take an hour to run. That get saved and the I load it with a macro, it stays in place until the board is restarted or a different height map is loaded. I have also set it up so it tappers off over 10 mm this way the Z screw is not constantly moving for the entire height of the part. Have to redo them every so often as plate does change over time. Over all I am very pleased with the BLtouch and I would guess if I was printing on tape, it would work just a well. I mean I never remove the flex plate to remove a pint.. only to change surface from PEI to Nylon
The build tack surface did not last well and got lumpy where it had been pulled from the flex plate removing items.. so maybe it worked a bit too well. I also had bought their PEI and Nylons surface with dedicated flex plates for all 3. So far the PIE is working really well with ABS and everything else. I do use the nylon plate for nylon.
I don't run a BLtouch leveling operation with every pint the way they do on the other Makergear machines that have them. I run one for each bed temperature I use, utilizing the max number of points the software supports. This can take an hour to run. That get saved and the I load it with a macro, it stays in place until the board is restarted or a different height map is loaded. I have also set it up so it tappers off over 10 mm this way the Z screw is not constantly moving for the entire height of the part. Have to redo them every so often as plate does change over time. Over all I am very pleased with the BLtouch and I would guess if I was printing on tape, it would work just a well. I mean I never remove the flex plate to remove a pint.. only to change surface from PEI to Nylon
Re: Extruder motor stops responding/moving
I print only esun petg. 235 for the hot end and 70 for the bed. I have a remote shop about 2 miles for our apartment and for the last 5 years, until the intermittent stops started to happen, I'd run the printer from home via VNC and Octoprint with camera. I design at home because it's more comfortable, my spouse prefers it, and the machine has a bigger monitor. I send files to the shop via synology drives at each end. I leave the M2 ready to priont although it is switched off via a tp-link switch which can be controlled from Octoprint whic is running on the computer in the shop.
Surprisingly, this has worked very well and makes very long prints not much of a problem. I'm embarrassed to relate all of the ideas I had for what was causing the stoppages - it took me 4 months and a lot of new parts and reinstallation of firmware and software before somone suggested the cable.
As to the Wham-Bam, I cannot be happier with it for what I do. The Wham-Bam guy, Peter, is a professional designer who does, to my mind, really good work.
John
Surprisingly, this has worked very well and makes very long prints not much of a problem. I'm embarrassed to relate all of the ideas I had for what was causing the stoppages - it took me 4 months and a lot of new parts and reinstallation of firmware and software before somone suggested the cable.
As to the Wham-Bam, I cannot be happier with it for what I do. The Wham-Bam guy, Peter, is a professional designer who does, to my mind, really good work.
John