Change your printers!

I thought the fans were to cool the material faster?  You can control the heat of the element by not putting as much current through it and it will cool down itself.

Actually you may be right, but either way the brief case printer that he built wasn't built to well because about 3 days after I got it the heating element fried.  Plus the rails the axis were on weren't straight.  There was little support for the z axis and all the connectors weren't clamped to the wires.  It pretty much fell apart.  Luckily I have some engineering friends that were able to fix it up and redesign it.  I'm hoping to check out his printer that he built with printrbot though.  I gotta get 1199 dollars first.  I'm a sophomore in hs and have no time for a job anymore with my work load.

I don't think design was the reason the hot end failed.  Using hobby grade 3D printers requires a lot of understanding and practice to get them calibrate and working, and they dont' stay calibrated.  The temps are not standard across machines and materials depending on the design, hot ends, ambient temps etc.  Having your temps too high, pushing them too hard, or getting them plugged up without clearing them could easily fry the hot end, I doubt that had to do with mechanical or electrical design.

Now the instability of the mechanical system, I could see that, this was meant as a portable system, thus it was made out of lightweight/thin parts.  I believe it was mostly made of out white Sintra, which is a type of PVC, which I don't think is the most durable thing in the world.  That wasn't the goal, the goal was a proof of concept briefcase 3D printer, it wasn't meant to be a commercial grade printer.  Ben himself has commercial printers for the reason of durability, reliability, and lack of massive amounts of calibration needed all the time.

Thanks for the info.  I know about Sinatra but its not a matter of the material that caused the problem, it's the lack of support. 

I realize it was a proof of concept but if you are going to give it away make sure it doesn't fall apart and is put together a bit better.  Most of the wires that were in connectors were held in the the headers by hot glue and not clamped down, when I got it, the polarity on the x axis was reversed and the thermistor wasn't working properly.  If I knew it wasn't built so well then I probably would've sent it back to ben and said thanks but no thanks.  When I emailed him for help he never responded so I tweeted him and he just told me to look it up online.  When I Skyped him he was very arrogant and didn't seem to want to help me out to much. 

I understand he is a busy guy but he is going to lose fans that way.  If I didn't truly love electronics and had a strong passion for enginnering then the way I was treated probably would've caused me to look at a different career.  I don't mean to be mean or criticize ben because I have learned a lot from his videos.  Some have been from his mistakes but his videos are great.  I think designing the stuff, even if it is proof of concept, that is going to be given away should be looked over and fixed up a bit more so people don't have to bother their engineering friends that have the resources to fix little things that should have been fixed from the start. 

The structure I can see couldn't have been fixed by ben due to the fact that it did need to be portable and I could have fixed up the support because I didn't need it to be portable.

Anyway I'm done venting, and if you read this ben, I'm really not happy with the way you treated me, thanks for the printer and the experience, but I think that if you really want more fans and more respect you need to watch how to treat others and the way you say stuff to others.  I don't mean or want to come across as rude and I don't mean to sound like I hate you or disrespect you but I want to see your fan base grow and really want to see more people enjoy your work and what you do.  I still love your videos and can't wait to see more

Sorry you feel that way. Please understand that printer was a new design, built in 2 weeks, and then used many times before you received it.

The reason I asked you to look up issues online is because 99% of that printer is made from standard parts, such as:

Makergear Hot End

Makergear Extruder / Gearbox

RAMPS electronics board.

Reprap basic design.

Those are known parts, and you're going to find a lot more, and better, information online than I could possibly give you.

Ok.  Thank you.  I'm sorry if I sounded like a jerk but i felt it was something that needed to be said.  Thanks for the printer and I was able to get it fixed and get the structure in a more solid state.  I'm really glad that I was given such an opportunity and I wish you the best.

Appreciate your input, and sorry for your troubles- As Ben mentioned, these prizes are meant to be something fun, proof of concept, and allow the winner to continue to tinker, mod and improve upon a build.  We always welcome feedback and ideas.  The prizes are hopefully something you would be proud to own as a prototype build you saw on the show.  We hope you continue to enjoy the show and be inspired to create and mod your own projects. 

If your going to put a fan on your hotend make sure it not directly blowing on the tip as you will encounter a lot of jams in your machine.  I can say this from trial and error with my machine.  I've been running the Lulzbot Budaschnozzle 1.1 on my prusa for almost year and have never had the heating element burn out.   This Budaschnozzle hot end was built to not have a cooling fan.   Im currently working on getting the hotend to work with the Makergear gearbox as i like that it doesnt have any printing parts like my Gregs Wade extruder that im currently using.