Low cost Solidoodle side shields (<$20 US)
I was struggling with ABS not sticking to the platform, which I’m sure had to do with the air conditioning in the room. There is a custom solution offered by Solidoodle, but I thought I’d try a cheap solution first and it seems to have done the trick.
I bought three 11x14x0.093" acrylic sheets at Home Depot along with some magnetic tape. With the steel frame of the Solidoodle it is a convenient way to snap on and off the sides and front to fiddle with the innards and remove finished parts, while still protecting the volume from cold air currents. I can easily add a top to restrict heat loss but it is not urgent at this point. The total cost was $16.70US + tax ($4.24 each for the acrylic sheets and $3.98 for the magnetic tape).
This should work for most other cubic frame open printers - for a wood frame you’d just need to apply the tape where any stationary steel fittings protrude the sides, or just add a screw or small steel plate in a few locations and apply the tape where needed.
It’s good to see I’m not the only one who simply brushes failed prints and skirts to the bottom of the case.
The 3D printer rep said unless its a hard wearing engineering component you need don’t both with ABS as it is far more troublesome in those ways. You can use PLA for the raft, support and build easier.
Did you change the location of the reel feed. A sensible spot.
Thanks melinda. I just started with the printer and ABS was the first plastic I tried. I have a spool of PLA that I will try soon, but I wanted to get a feel for ABS first.
I didn’t change the spool location yet, but I probably will at some point. I think an overhead feed makes sense, but it isn’t a priority for me at the moment.
The two best upgrades I’ve made to my solidoodle are replacing the hot end with an E3D hot end, and adding an overhead filament feed.
With the E3D the overhead feed isn’t such a big deal, but moving the filament was the only way I could get the original hot end setup to stop stripping filament. There’s FAR less resistance to spool turning with an overhead feed.
Cool Stephen - I’d be curious to see/hear about your hot end upgrade process. Was it a kit or already assembled? Plug-and-play, or did you have to do some engineering?
This is funny because what I did was use some acrylic CD cases from a Google Chrome promotion. They have magnets and connect very nicely to the Solidoodle 
@Stephen_Baird I’ve just gotten an E3D hot end - would be really interested in what you did to put it in your Solidoodle and where you had to change the settings to allow higher temperatures because I think Solidoodle limits it to 210C due to their acrylic extruder. I designed a combined overhead spool holder and carry handle for my SD3 (thing:117122).
At the moment I’m using an older version of the printed acrylic jigsaw replacement (v3 I think). The E3D doesn’t really like to fit in it, but with a little manual modification of the printed part and some superglue it holds just fine.
The newest version (v5) is made to work with the E3D. I’ve got a copy printed and ready to go, but I’ve been keeping my printer too busy lately to make the change and recalibrate the Z axis.
As for the firmware modification, I forget the exact line I needed go change, but it’s not hard to find. I think I originally found it by googling Solidoodle and max temp. I made the upgrade months ago now, so my memory is a little hazy, but I seem to remember it being one line and it’s now set absurdly high (like 450c high) because I didn’t want to ever have to go back and find it again.
This is the newest version of the jigsaw replacement, which will hold the E3D in place nicely (according to various people who’ve tried it) - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:111213
@Stephen_Baird just be aware that the thermistor I supply in the kits is rated to a max temp of 300C (but will actually go a tiny bit higher without issues). The rest of the components are good to the melt point of aluminium. Thermistors are cheap anyway…
Oh, I wasn’t planning to take it that high, I just didn’t want to have to dig through the firmware to change that value again, so I picked something well beyond what I ever thought I’d need.
It is an amazing hot end, though. I’m pleasantly surprised by just how much I like it every single time I use it.
