An idea for 3d printing companies. Take a fully functional printer, and purposefully disable it.
Go through the common issues of your printer, one at a time, and print test cubes. For example, a loose belt. Loosen the belt, print the test cube, take photos. Document each issue, loose pulleys, damaged z rods, bad couplers, etc.
post the documentation online, as a self help for people with these problems. They can look at the pictures, match their calibration cube, and find a solution.
Sounds like a new startup website. You should take it on.
Why a cube why not a miniature Angkor Wat
This is an outstanding idea!
It would allow new users to compare their own test cubes with photos of bad cubes and help them visually match a symptom to many of the possible root causes.
(A small issue: I think ‘purposefully disable’ is a bit harsh, perhaps ‘minor de-tune’ would suit your meaning better?)
Its ridiculous to expect a company to encourage a user to self repair a product. This would lead to so many new problems and people constantly messing up and blaming the tutorial when they didn’t follow its instructions. To expect this from a manufacturing company is to much. To ask shows a lack of understanding as to how economy functions. Can you imagine the frivolous law suits from ppl failing to follow those instructions then at the least breaking the device beyond repair at worst getting seriously injured cuz they didn’t unplug it.
@wolfgang_schroeder
It can be entirely reasonable for a company to expect users to self repair a product. It depends both on the company, and on the product they sell.
A company like @Printrbot , from whom I purchased my 3D printer, provides a great deal of technical support to advise and assist users to do their own maintenance and repair.
If the Printrbot CEO @Brook_Drumm were the subject of frivolous lawsuits, as you are suggesting would happen, then he would have been out of business years ago.
We encourage people to dig in and troubleshoot and fix. There is maintenance involved, do education is an important part. Maybe someday printers will go for a couple years without a touch, but for now, learn to do light maintenance.
We are about to release a software tool for z adjustment that will include a few pictures. I like the idea and have been working on implementing it. We will expand tutorials for maintenance right there in our upcoming software.
Brook
I love this idea. Maybe make a new wiki page and have the ability for anyone to submit thier own photos that way one person doesn’t have to do this for hundreds of printers. This is a fantastic idea. Keep us updated please.
@Branden_Coates Didn’t read your comment first lol but that’s pretty close to what I was thinking.
@Branden_Coates that’s pretty much what I was thinking. If the page gets updated by the community, then it will be a very valuable resource.
Here’s a really good one somebody put together for Ultimakers: http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/23-a-visual-ultimaker-troubleshooting-guide
I was thinking of something similar yesterday for filament. Having someone like ColorFab or Taulman create a series of YouTube videos identifying filament issues…this is brittle PLA, moisture in your filament, the difference between “good” filament and poorly made filament.
@John-Paul_Hopman I’d rather see a user compiled site about what’s good or bad filament and issues with specific resolutions or how to avoid those issues.
@Ryan_Carlyle thanks! We will rip off… Errr, be inspired by this 