Groan more trouble upgrading my printrbot. See how short the cable is hanging down from extruder? That is the same length as the medium motor I put on the extruder on advice from @Printrbot . It’s not able to reach the printrboard.
This was a beta simple originally. Beta simple came with two small motors with short cables, one medium and one large motor. The printrboard was on the side near the Z screw, about half the distance for wiring.
Then I got various updates to something like 1401 and added XL size in X and Z.
This 1405 update comes with 1 new big motor for Y so I now have on hand 2 small, 1 medium, 2 large with various lengths of wire. I think those upgrading from Beta probably should get another big motor,
I’m going to have to cut motor cable and splice in extension wires. Solder time.
The problems so far: No set screws, no alu extruder (undocumented requirement coming from beta), old beta motor wires too short.
I like printrbot but I’m somewhat peeved. I would not recommend upgrading older printrbots unless your are starting from a 1401 with alu extruder. I’m into this 240$ and probably going to need 2 more motors, one for extruder, and one for Z. In hindsight should have gotten a simple makers kit.
Is the aluminum extruder really required? Or will the direct drive wood one work?
Hi there. You could always extend the wires yourself or purchase the extender that @Printrbot has on their site store.
@Laura_Thomas the wood extruder has a latch (where they added the fan) that extends out quite a bit. The wood version is two plywood thicknesses wider than the mounting area.
The new mounting is 90 degrees rotated using 3 bolts. The old one was attached to vertical plane, new by base to horizontal.
So I couldn’t figure out how to reuse the wood one, Nothing in about it on the assembly instructions.
I think one of the issues is that the upgrade kit to the makers simole 1405 is that it was made to upgrade the previous 2014 model not older legacy models. In your case I would do as instated earlier. I’ve extended cables fairly easily it really isn’t that hard. Also the extenders they sell is $10 and add an additional 5 inches. Not sure if that is enough for you but it worth a try.
@Michael_Spano_Jr_Ama I did every upgrade along the way except ALU extruder. So I was up to date upgrade wise. In past BETA people got cheap upgrades to get us up to current model. I can solder and have scratch built a printer thats not the problem. This update is getting costly, close to new printrbot costly.
