Hello from Northern Indiana!

[muvicado]

I'm in Osceola (between South Bend and Elkhart). This is my first foray into 3D printing. I bought a Rostock Max v2 (kit) a few weeks ago and this weekend I got it up and running. It was about a 20 hour build, counting a few silly mistakes that I had to correct. 1) I installed the cheapskates with the two parts flipped 180º. and... 2) I soldered 2 of the headers on the wrong side of the LCD adapter board. That took a long time to fix (removing each pin one by one, cleaning off the solder on the pins and cleaning out the PCB through holes, then soldering the headers in correctly). Despite these mistakes, I had a lot of fun building this printer.

I still haven't succeeded in getting the fan housing (ABS) to build completely - it keeps coming detached from the glass in the early part of the print. If anyone has had similar troubles (and resolved them) I'd appreciate any advice.

1. I wonder if anyone has seen the following problem:
The bed temperature goes up very slowly, and does not get any higher than about 80C, although it creeps up very very slowly after that. After over an hour it is still around 80C (with a target temperature of 90C). I have run the PID routine for the extruder and for the bed, averaged the values and put them in the EEPROM. The extruder gets hot reasonably fast (over 200C), but not the bed. What can it be? Do I need to double up on the 18 gauge wires powering the bed heater? Shorter wires? Change some other settings in the EEPROM?

Also:
2. Where is a good place to buy that purple glue stick that is recommended (I used very thin 2-sided tape, did not work (at 80C))?
3. When printing ABS, is it okay to use Kapton tape on the bed to protect it from gumming up?

I'm really enjoying my new 3D printer!

[Jimustanguitar]

OC Represent! I live between Jefferson and McKinley off of Birch. Small world! Check out themakerhive.com there's a great local makerspace that meets in Elkhart every Thursday.

1. Did you already install the recommended wire gauge between the Rambo and the Onyx, or did you mention that as a next step? I've never tried above 80c, but I know that wiring has don the trick for others.

2. Meijer, Martins, wherever. It's not terribly hard to find, luckily.

3. You can, yes. Kapton is expensive though, and I've been in the habit of just yanking off the build plate and washing is with a dish brush in the kitchen sink.

[gajtguy]

I've had better success getting ABS to stick to the hairsray. So can I sell you my 6pack of purple glue sticks? lol

With respect to the part popping off, make sure your z height is not too close to the glass, nor too far away. I've setup the Slic3r to run two "Skirts" around the object first, just to get the plastic flowing and to see how well that sticks.

On the bed temp - see the special area on the forum for that topic...

[muvicado]

Thanks for the responses and advice.
I will try again this weekend. I used the recommended 18g wiring for the bed (according to assembly manual) but I will increase it by using 4 runs of it (1/4 the resistance). I'll compare carefully the bed temperature I get before and after. And I'll check out the forum more closely.

[Howler]

I had some trouble getting the ABS print to stick as well. I got about halfway through once or twice. I have had pretty good luck with the purple glue stick, but I tend to use a single layer of the stuff.

Definitely double check your calibration. I went back and calibrated mine using some spark plug feeler gauges (took some time), so that I knew all the towers were the exact same height. I have had much better adhesion since then.

As for the bed taking time to heat up, I have this issue as well. I found a silicone pie pan in the kitchen that I use as an insulator. I place it 'upside down' so that nothing touches the glued surface. This works quite well to help speed up the heating process (though sometimes I get impatient and use the LCD screen to drop the temp a few degrees to get the print to start shhhh...don't tell).

[muvicado]

Last weekend I got my two fan shrouds printed in black ABS and they turned out great, although I had to manually file them a bit to get the fans to fit inside, but filing is fun when you are this close to the finish line. I think I'm getting about 1% of shrinkage in the X and Y direction, but that will be easy enough to resolve by pre-scaling in Repetier host once I do an accurate test. But the ABS fan shrouds are installed now an work fine.
http://instagram.com/p/oI_eUrQwE0/
http://instagram.com/p/oKG-gAwwM_/

The glue stick method worked very well for me to prevent the ABS from sticking to the bed. I bought the glue sticks at United Art and Education In Mishawaka.

Heating the bed:
After tripling up the 18 ga wires to the heated bed, It did heat up faster, but it was still losing a lot of heat, so I covered the bed with dish towels while it was heating up, and just before printing I moved them out to the perimeter while printing occurred in the middle area.
see:
http://instagram.com/p/oHwOy9wwFv/
http://instagram.com/p/oKAnCdwwDw/

I will try the pie pan idea next time I print ABS if I can find a suitable one for insulating the heated bed. Thanks for the idea.

[muvicado]

The pie pan works great for heating up the bed quicker. I also throw a few dish towels on top of it for more insulation, and to be able to pull it out of the way without burning myself when I hear the warning beeps.

Next weekend I'll try printing stuff in PLA.