Felix 2.0 3D printer

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Draft

Introduction

We got the Felix 2.0 on october 25 2013 and probably will add documentation over the next few weeks. We bought it assembled and it worked out of the box.

As of oct. 2013, it is the printer we recommend for educational settings and for three reasons:

  • It prints as well as any other good printer
  • It's light-weight and easily transportable (as opposed to some heavy no better models that seem to popular in the print media)
  • It prints with PLA. ABS fumes may not be too healthy.
  • It's reliable

See also the Felix 3D printer article. It describes a model we bought in 2012 and that is still working fine.

Slicer and control software

As for the 1.0 model, Felix distributes its own packaged distribution of Slicers and user interfaces for 3D printers, i.e. the Repetierhost software and two includes slicers. The slicers include several settings, e.g. "normal" and "quality" as well as a setting for printing spare parts.

As I argued in many other contexts, there is no such thing as universal settings. Some types of model require adjustments of the slicing parameters (not done so far). That being said, the printer does print out of the box...

First adjustments

After the first print, we decided that the platform needed some recalibration. X/Y=0 was higher than X/Y=max which is not good when printing large objects. Therefore we lowered the X/Y=0 corner. After homing the printhead it was really close and should have adjusted the Z-sensor a bit. Since the first layer is mission critical to the kinds of objects we want to print, we left the setting as is (some tiny fraction of mm). That scratched the Kapton tape and we then (only) adjusted the screw that lowers/raises the Z-position homing sensors.

Anyhow, here is a video of the first print.

First print with the Felix 2.0 (as printed out of the box, without calibration)

Pictures of the next two prints (after adjusting the print bed)

As you can see, the slicing is not totally optimal, and we will have to import our old Lego styles and also play with temperature.