It has been around three weeks since I received my M201 and I want to share some experience after long evening (and sometimes nights) spent on this machine...
First of all, the assembly is not so easy. I am quite experienced in DIY but as there are some inconsistencies betwwen videos and pdf guide I had to do, undo and do it again some operations (especially the hotend carriage). Finally I managed to have it finished and ready to print !
The first prints were not really beautiful but it worked. During this 3 weeks, I encountered various problems, solved some but there are still many issues with this printer.
Here is mylist :
- hotbed : the hotbed was not at all at the temperature indicated but much lower : I solved this by turning the hot plate the other side (the resistance on the aluminium plate side), put an insulator in order for the connections not to touch the aluminium, add thermal paste in between and and a cork layer below ; now the temperature of the plate is really the one displayed by the LCD
z-wobbling : thi sis a very well know problem with Prusa due to misaligned or bended Z-threaded rods, I solved it by replaced the original Z-couplers by couplers I have printed (
ball bearings : after a few prints, one ball bearing of Y driving wheel was very noisy and finally, it exploded ! They are of very poor quality : I bought new ones and replaced them on all the wheels
X-axis bearings : the LM8LUU were very noisy (the balls inside were moving) : I had to put grease inside to remove the noise
A4988 drivers : X and Y axis were missing some steps, creating shifts on the object : I had to increased the current in the motors by adjusting A4988 voltage
X axis endstop : I had to screw a piece of plastic on the X carriage to reach the X endstop...
firmware : that is the biggest issue !!! the printer is only usable with Repetier host. I tried Repetier server : does not communicate at all. I tried Octoprint : it works but there are many com errors and, according to Octoprint's author, this is due to the firmware. Finally I tried to print from SD card but the print stops after 9 hours around 50%... Moreover, when printing from SD card, the printing speed decreases automatically down to 15%, then increases and decreases once again without any reason !!! I will open a new topic on this issue