CEL Robox 3D Printer

OH MY LORD !!!!! I really need one of these I do foam carving and everything is custom by hand but a lot of the things I make I'll make a hand full at a time and if I could use auto cad to program each idea/ idem and hit print and have it run a ruff copy would take my work out of my moms laundry room and out where I can really start my business only thing holding me back is if I open my website and get hit with any more then 3-5 orders I'll be slammed and the time frame to ship wouldn't make for very happy customers giving I make custom enclosures for reptiles any thems any thing could be done with a 3d printer just print and finish with hard coat and hand paint it takes me 4-6 days after carving to finish with the 3d printing capably I'll be able to knock off the first 1-3weeks of carving would run 18 hours a day if I could  @element14 please please pick me this could change my whole life and I can stop doing e-cigarette reviews just to get e-juice and new toys cuz I can't afford to buy anything 

Andy,

I wonder how they are doing supports with other material.  Since the extruders are fed by a single reel, that would be a challenge.  Prints would take days as each layer would need to be paused and filament swap for support.  You would probably need to modify the G-code file also to print the structure first so the supports are printer at the same time.  I look forward to the reviews!

Nate

I can say one thing about the printer even though I am not testing it.  The PEI bed is wonderful, I upgraded my printrbot simple to one and would suggest it to anyone.  It increased the quality 10 fold.  I would not want to go back.  I find the print jobs are easier to remove all I do is have more then one bed and change it out.  When the bed cools the print is easy to remove. 

Multimaterial was mentioned somewhere on their site with a different material for supports, there is definate use of other materials if you look on the CEL support forums.

Good to hear you are going to touch on a few.  I hope some of the others will pick up the rest.  These are very important aspects to find out as for example, if you are limited to only using PLA and ABS the printer isn't the most useful.  Probably half the time I print I'm using support material.  It gets kind of expensive if I'm using PLA for both the print and support and you also encounter somewhat of a headache removing supports post processing using either PLA/ABS.  I do find it interesting that CEL is using the dual extruder for speed and not multi-material printing.

Nate

Nate,

some good points, so of which I'll be following up on as they fit well with my proposal, others I'll not be looking into, I'm not sure if the other 3 will be looking into this.

     - Filament spools - I don't have any plans to investigate these although if I run out of filament I might need to. I'll likely document the default settings on the cartridge I'm provided with.

     - Colour change - I'm not planning to do colour changes, sorry.

     + Bowden tube fix - Yes, I'll check this out as I don't want the printer falling apart on me. I can see posts for issues but could you point me at the one with the fix.

     + Default settings - Yes, I'm fairly new to 3D printing so will be focusing on the out of the box settings unless they are so bad I'm forced to do something about it.

     ? Slic3r - I'm not sure I'll have time to investigate this but I'll have a look how the two pieces of software integrate and see if I can get you an answer.

     + Overhangs - Yes, I've already recieved some models from a 3D printing chap up in Manchester that should test overhangs and bridging

     - Fancy filaments -  I'm likely to stick with PLA and/or ABS. I do have an idea about how I can print a mold and then form Sugru into a gasket for a Stirling engine but probably won't incorporate that as part of my test.

I'll likely write an intro post (possibly before the printer arrives) restating my plan and what I've done so far and post it in the 3D printing group with a quick link from here.

I've also tried to make contact with the other 3 road testers to see if we can avoid repeating each other's work and help each other out as necessary.

Thanks again for your suggestions,

Andy

Andy,

A couple (lol more than a couple) areas that I think would be of good value to review are as follows:

-ability to add your own filament to the spool and resetting the eeprom and the impacts it has on your print quality.  It has been a big topic in FFF/FDM based printers that to small of reels or the variation in winding(very tight or loose) on the reel will effect print quality.  Right now users in the Printing community are trying to get  standard for reel size.

-How easy is it to change material mid print to start for say another colored material.  Did the lines getting fully flushed, was the print able to start where it left off and such.

-The Robox is known to suffer from the Bowden tube coming out of the housing with such high torque extruders.  They have a fix posted on the website.  I would like to have the user see if the fix was implemented in the printer shipped and if not, how to fix.

-Do the default print settings(course, medium, fine) do an adequate job in print quality.  Having used many printers over the years I've never had a set of parameters that worked perfectly on every model.

-Automaker which is CEL's software uses Slic3r for the slicing engine.  I would like to see if for say Beta versions of Slic3r can be ported by yourself into Automaker.  I would hat to have to wait for CEL to release a new piece of software to get the most current version of Slic3r.  This one I'm not real positive will work as Automaker does a translation at the end of the slice.

-How well the printer is with overhangs in prints.  Not all printers are capable of the same degree of overhang.

-How well filaments such as NinjaFlex work on the printer.  Printers that use the Bowden extruder system typically have difficulty printing with soft/flexible materials as they get compressed in the tube running from the geared extruder to the hotend.

These were some of the areas I wanted to test if I was selected and feel would need to be reviewed to give a comprehensive review of the Robox.

Nate

reading through the blocks that got to do this road test I know why I did not get picked they had a better plan for what to do than I did well done hope all are going to give a good review as this machine fits the bill for what I wont to do

Good luck guys.

The printer looks like it has a lot of useful features.

I look forward to seeing what you make.

DAB

Congratulations guys! Can't wait to see how this printer performs.

Yes it is possible to tumble plastics although I don't have any kit to do that at the moment. http://solidoodletips.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/tumbler-finishing/

Warping and surface quality on different surfaces should be something I can incorporate in my results, thanks for the idea.

Congratulations guys!

Very interested in the moving parts construction Workshopshed !

And very interested to hear about surface quality in different planes, since it looked like early home 3D printers were not very smooth - guessing this one is much better.

Also, do parts warp on cooling, at different amounts due to some areas having more plastic and printing slower in those areas, or are effects like this compensated in software?

Apologies if this is a novice question - I don't know much about the technology.

Also, is it possible to tumble designs to improve surface finish or is that not possible with plastic?

Nice work selecting them so quickly.

Well done guys and looking forward to some great reviews.

Mark

Many thanks to Christian DeFeo and CEL for selecting me.

My primary objectives for the road test are to use the CEL Robox 3D Printer to print gear wheels and components for electric clock mechanisms.

The fine resolution print head should allow the detail needed to print gears, screw threads, shafts and hands and other parts. The higher print speed should allow different versions to be made quickly and for larger components to be made.

• Speed of printing
• Quality of finish
• Ease of deployment and packing up
• Thin items such as the clock hands to check for warping
• Moving parts such as bearings and concentric shafts to check for accuracy and surface finish

If anyone has any other specific questions that they want answered then I'm happy to concider them as long as it does not detract too much from the roadtest.

Yep, gratz to all selected well done!

Congrats to the chosen!

Congratulations to the chosen few! I'm looking forward to reading the reviews.

Greetings Christian,

Even though would love to have been selected, you have done a masterful job in the selection of the winners.

Congratulations,  Andy, Martyn, Jessie and Douglas.

-Steve

Wow, congrats to the selected roadtesters !!