Hello from Fox Lake, Illinois

[lytspd]

Hi,

I am a lifelong tinkerer, who bought an Alunar (Anet) A8 for my son for Christmas a few years back to give him some experience building and tinkering. We (mostly I) have been hooked ever since. That printer no longer has any original parts on it. It has been slowly modified for improved prints and improved usability. 

At some point I saw a video of a Railcore in all it's glory and I knew this was the direction I wanted my next printer to go. I didn't have $1500 to spend up front to make it happen, so I bought a Tronxy X5SA to get started. Once again the printer has moved from being an acceptable machine with decent qualities, to one that I feel works better and is easier (or at least more fun) to use. It now has many of the qualities of a Railcore, but will never exactly be a Railcore. I came across the ERCF in a post somewhere and actually had to dig to find out what it is. I bought a kit and am nearly ready to start printing parts to make it a reality. So my printhead is now a Voron Afterburner (printed from Priline Carbon Fiber filled PC) with a generic V6 hotend and modified to use an Orbiter 2.0 extruder. 

Both machines now have BTT Octopus as MCU and use Klipper and Mainsail to drive them. 

I use Fusion 360 as my sole CAD platform and Cura has historically been my slicer. I ran into SuperSlicer while studying the ERCF and printed my first parts using it just today. It seemed intimidating at first, but I feel it won't be long before I all but forget about Cura.

Sorry if this has been a bit wordy. I'll throw in a couple pics in case anyone is interested.

[mvdveer]

Welcome to the forum. It seems all our 3d printer journeys start with heavily modifying existing cheapish printers. My TronXy x5sa is now a VZBot and the Enders are so heavily modified, they cannot be recognised as such. Here you will find a Buch of very helpful people, enthusiastic about what they do and happy to share. Looking forward to hearing more about your 3d printer exploits

[claudermilk]

Welcome to the forum. That's quite the journey!

[smirk]

Welcome aboard. You've joined a great forum full of helpful and supportive people. Your 3D printing journey is very similar to mine as well (and most people here I guess ) so you are definitely in good company.

13 hours ago, lytspd said:

Sorry if this has been a bit wordy.

Not at all, never apologise for being pationate and enthusiastic

 

Now, he burning question will be where will you put the Voron (you have a buy a Voron, it's inevitable really). Guess your son needs a room mate....

[lytspd]

2 hours ago, claudermilk said:

Welcome to the forum. That's quite the journey!

Thanks for your kind reply

 

11 hours ago, mvdveer said:

Welcome to the forum. It seems all our 3d printer journeys start with heavily modifying existing cheapish printers. My TronXy x5sa is now a VZBot and the Enders are so heavily modified, they cannot be recognised as such. Here you will find a Buch of very helpful people, enthusiastic about what they do and happy to share. Looking forward to hearing more about your 3d printer exploits

Thanks for your kind reply

[lytspd]

23 minutes ago, smirk said:

Welcome aboard. You've joined a great forum full of helpful and supportive people. Your 3D printing journey is very similar to mine as well (and most people here I guess ) so you are definitely in good company.

Not at all, never apologise for being pationate and enthusiastic

Now, he burning question will be where will you put the Voron (you have a buy a Voron, it's inevitable really). Guess your son needs a room mate....

Thanks for your kind reply

If I end up with a Voron (definitely not a bad thought) I will probably build as much from scratch as possible. But even as I type, a kit is sounding like a better idea. Next I have to figure out how to make money with them. If I'm going to justify 3 printers around here, they better be a self supporting hobby!

[Demosth]

Welcome!!!!

[mvdveer]

3 hours ago, lytspd said:

But even as I type, a kit is sounding like a better idea.

Having self sourced three Vorons and finally succumbed to ordering a kit, I can emphatically say that a kit works out cheaper for me here down under (Australia), purely due to shipping costs. And the convenience of it all. All the required parts right there at your fingertips - no rummaging through the spares box/boxes to find what you want. 

[claudermilk]

21 hours ago, lytspd said:

If WHEN I end up with a Voron (definitely not a bad thought) I will probably build as much from scratch as possible. But even as I type, a kit is sounding like a better idea. Next I have to figure out how to make money with them. If I'm going to justify 3 printers around here, they better be a self supporting hobby!

FTFY 

I self sourced my Trident, but for my next build I'll get a kit. It will be easier and cheaper overall. You still have to build the printer from the components. There are a number of good kits out there these days so little reason to self source. LDO even includes several nice extras and parts for some of the most common mods.

[smirk]

Definiitely kits, I'm slow enough without adding 6 months to source and get a zillion parts delivered. Never underestimate just how many components there are in a Voron so to have to individually source each part would be.....well....I think you probably have to enjoy that kinda of thing to put it politely.

[claudermilk]

19 hours ago, smirk said:

Definiitely kits, I'm slow enough without adding 6 months to source and get a zillion parts delivered. Never underestimate just how many components there are in a Voron so to have to individually source each part would be.....well....I think you probably have to enjoy that kinda of thing to put it politely.

Hey now! It was fun. That one time. It only took something like 2-3 months.