I really don’t like seeing filament vendors keyword bomb all printer makes and models in their listings, without any regard for actual compatibility. The worst offender puts the same data for both 1.75 mm and 3 mm filament.
That said, it looks like I’ve been making my own set of mistakes in preparing the information, and I realized that I should crowd-source the data. If you would be so kind, could you please take a moment to fill out this 1-page survey? In most cases, it should really take you about 60 seconds or less.
All responses will be shared.
Thanks in advance!
The first three input fields are a bit ambiguous - so i’ve got a RepRap Mendel90 (super-sturdy XL model) printer with a RepRap Wade’s (with guidler) extruder and an E3D v5 (3mm) hotend - which one of the three should i input?
For the Mendel90, is there a “reference” design that call for a specific extruder/hotend combination?
If the Mendel90 simply leaves that open-ended for the builder to choose, then the answer is that for the Mendel90, the listing should be “check your extruder/hotened”.
I suppose similarly for the extruder, it would be “check your hot end”.
What do you think make sense to you? Thanks for taking the time to discuss. I appreciate it very much!
The Mendel kit from nophead comes with a hotend and extruder, but can mount any other extruder (or hotend, up to a certain size) that complies with the RepRap mounting standards.
I think the extruder/hotend combination is far more important than the rest of the printer when it comes to filament compatibility, so that should be the preferred input for those fields.
On the other hand, splitting the fields into printer, extruder and hotend instead of make, model and variant would make sense as well.
Yes - for systems that are highly configurable, that’s true. But you’re also entering the realm where the person configuring the machine at that level is most likely to know what he can use.
It’s more about answer the question for someone who may not yet know what to get – either because they are ordering the filament before they get their printer (we’ve occasionally seen posts like “Dang, I bought 3 mm, not realizing my printer is 1.75”) or even because when they get it, they still haven’t learned which is which. For those folks, it tends to start with “I bought a XYZ-printer from ABC-seller”.
In that sense, the “Make” would be “Hydraptor” or “NopHead”, the model would be “Mendel90”, and the variant would be “With 3mm J-Head hotend (standard)”.
An imperfect mapping between all the possibilities, I admit.
I’ll update the “Variant” description to more explicitly capture hotends. I was thinking of that when I put the form together this morning, but didn’t actually say so in there.
Thanks!
Ok, I’ve changed it around a little bit. I’ve sort of munged it so that it’s open to the respondent’s interpretation of the appropriate taxonomy. I’m sure there will be more objections… I’d rather capture messy data to get data, and then try to normalize it after.