Making your own Ultimaker - What not to buy on china stores (personal experience)

[macua85 52]

Cheers for the rod info neotko. Bearwood, yea i use robotdigg a lot as he is in China, and as I am at the moment, it makes shipping so cheap. I've just got my latest delivery...all the parts to make the 'mostly printed CNC machine'. I plan to use my plasma cutter torch with it. Should be an interesting project!

Regarding the rods, it definitely pays to get from a reliable source off the bat, i'll upgrade to misumi in due course, once i've moved back.

[zumfab 3]

This are the ones I ordered.

PSFJ6-267 (head 6mm shafts)

PSFJ12-339 (z 12mm shafts)

PSFJ8-348 (y? 8mm shafts)

PSFJ8-337 (x? 8mm shafts)

 

What prices are to be expected?

[neotko 1,417]

[MISUMI Part No.]:PSFJ6-267

[brand Name]:MISUMI

[Product Name]:LINEAR SHAFT

[Quantity]:2 [unit Price]:7,58 EUR

[MISUMI Part No.]:PSFJ12-339

[brand Name]:MISUMI

[Product Name]:LINEAR SHAFT

[Quantity]:2 [unit Price]:10,60 EUR

[MISUMI Part No.]:PSFJ8-348

[brand Name]:MISUMI

[Product Name]:LINEAR SHAFT

[Quantity]:6 [unit Price]:9,43 EUR

[MISUMI Part No.]:PSFJ8-337

[brand Name]:MISUMI

[Product Name]:LINEAR SHAFT

[Quantity]:6 [unit Price]:9,43 EUR

[niyoki 21]

 

@neotko, thank you for your list. I have a small question about PSFJ6-267 (267mm)  from my UMO+ is 268 mm. Should I order 268mm or this is the reason why they formed itself to Banana (the printhead was moving difficult)

Edited February 3, 2016 by Guest

[neotko 1,417]

No, probably I got it wrong anyhow it works

[neotko 1,417]

Also you remind me a reason to print this http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:99182

Edited February 3, 2016 by Guest

[niyoki 21]

Also you remind me a reason to print this http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:99182

 

I mean axisses from just coming out of the print head. Not the axisses beside walls.

[neotko 1,417]

Ahh that ones on umo+ can be 1mm shorter for sure.

Sorry I been having the busiest day ever, fast reading everything

[neotko 1,417]

Just a small update. There's a seller on aliexpress that sells hyper cheap barrels. For 1.75mm they sell it as infernal dia 2mm but they make it 1.89-1.92 so they generate very weird preassure. At least they are easy to drill with a 2mm bit and after that they work perfect. But, get yours calipers ready and ready the drill. Also they are 0.2mm shorter, so they need an extra turn on the peek (a bit hot). After all that they can work. But without that adjustments, they make really weird stuff, leaks, and changes on the filament preassure.

[zumfab 3]

[MISUMI Part No.]:PSFJ6-267

  [brand Name]:MISUMI

  [Product Name]:LINEAR SHAFT

  [Quantity]:2    [unit Price]:7,58 EUR

[MISUMI Part No.]:PSFJ12-339

  [brand Name]:MISUMI

  [Product Name]:LINEAR SHAFT

  [Quantity]:2    [unit Price]:10,60 EUR

[MISUMI Part No.]:PSFJ8-348

  [brand Name]:MISUMI

  [Product Name]:LINEAR SHAFT

  [Quantity]:6    [unit Price]:9,43 EUR

[MISUMI Part No.]:PSFJ8-337

  [brand Name]:MISUMI

  [Product Name]:LINEAR SHAFT

  [Quantity]:6    [unit Price]:9,43 EUR

 

What bearings do you use? Standard Ultimaker or something from another manufacturer too - and is that a budget solution or something of a more industrial quality?

Edited February 4, 2016 by Guest

[neotko 1,417]

Misumi it's top industrial quality afaik. I'm using the default bearings... So far everything it's printing and working just perfect.

Edited February 4, 2016 by Guest

[zumfab 3]

Misumi it's top industrial quality afaik. I'm using the default bearings... So far everything it's printing and working just perfect.

 

That was what I was wondering about, whether you replaced the bearings for something industrial grade too. I am not sure of the actual quality of the Ultimaker bearings, though those seem to do and fare well.

[neotko 1,417]

Maybe we could ask @jonnybischof if he has sometime to tellus his opinion. I remember long ago a post he did talking about that but I can't seem to find it. Also I think he said something about that the catalogue from Misumi explains a lot about their products and tolerances and stuff that I barely understand.

[neotko 1,417]

Olsson Aliexpress China block... For 1.75mm

I asked @Anders-olsson first before buying this, he was also curious about the quality...

Let's start with photos of the unboxing LOL... sorry.. wow... How to waste 90€...

HIGH QUALITY BOX DELIVERY!

IMPRESSIVE PACKAGING!!!

A small crack.. ok....

Another crack with some kapton tape... And this it's actually the good part!

Ok Let's see this olsson clone..for 1.75mm..

As soon as you remove the ptfe, you see that it's inserted to the very inside, touching the nozzle. So the only actual 1.75 olsson block it's... The nozzle! wow...

Ok let's check this...

Wow, the nozzle was actually quite ok, let's see that .. WOW

A friking drilled hole! And it's sooo unclean you can actually see...

Do you see this? wow... now this it's what I call HYPERCRAP!

Ohhh and OFC, the fancap TOUCHES the olsson block.. (It will need a full disassembly and hammer time to even try to fix it..

So... If you see an Olsson Block on Aliexpress and you say WOW THAT'S CHEAP.. Yea, you pay cheap, you get cheap stuff.

Actually there's some parts I can use (BUT I'M AFRAID to test it yet, I'll check them on my clone um2.1.1 board so I don't kill good stuff).

The FANS. They seem ok 12V 0.15A. The Aluminium stuff, looks quite ok. The steel area that holds the coupler isn't bad, but doesn't look really nice. The 5V fan, nice.

Also another good stuff. It includes the heater and pt100, but the cables of the pt100 are quite weird... Who knows XD! The Heater isn't installed to the very end ok... On the bright side the cables are quite ok and they have the correct connection cables... But I need to inspect that 12v fans to see if it's actually connected in serial.

SOOO... DONT BUY =)

[neotko 1,417]

Wow this weekend did a full disassemble of the china head and it's even worse than expected.

The steel coupler holes of the aluminium. One of them it's very badly drilled to 8mm so the coupler doesn't touch the aluminium. The linear bearings are the worse I ever seen (and I have buy very bad bearings in the past). The 5v fan works but it's way too noisy (I have 2 sunon that are just silent).

Now the fun part. The pt100 it's very short so it can't go full in without making the cables touch the 'cholsson' (because it isn't any olsson).

The m3 that goes inside the olsson. Now that's fun. The hole on the alu it's drilled clean so it can't be screw to it.

The x2 30x30 fans seem ok but they are 0.15mA each, I thought that the um2 used 0.1mA. If so, it might destroy someone's transistor. I haven't plug them.

The heater... 25W heater. Seems to work ok.

So the only prt savageable it's 2/3 parts of the alu, the fan cap after some hammer time, the 5v noisy fan and a low amp heater. So.. Big time crapppp

[ultiarjan 1,223]

[neotko 1,417]

Hahaha yeah I deserve it. But hey China it's the only place to go for now to get my 1.75mm couplers. So no all its bad oh and the gt2 belt/bearings 6months using them and zero issues. Also no need for tension clip. On the down low my um2 real board heater 1 died just 1 month after warranty expired XD

[neotko 1,417]

Well I tryed to make it work installing a real olsson. But as suspected the Fans are utter crap. (can't be said with a nicer language). The fans start at 150/255 and very slow. Also the wiring it's prepared for a china cloned board, so the connector it's reversed. Ergo.. I fried the transistor of the LED PWM (It's better to fry that than the fan pwm). Now my umo+ has a very sad led light at 0 and almost nothing at 255. I'll have to take out the board and solder a new transistor (good think I got a strip of 20 ready on a box). So..

Stay, the freak away from this crappy jenny guys...

I'll just focus on the 2 vendors I found to be 'almost' reliable...

Sad Saturday, that should teach me (it won't)...

[neotko 1,417]

Well just last update about this um2 hotend (it's even hard to call it a clone since its a pure disaster).

As I suspected the bearings are absolute crap. Not worth a cent. They drop a black dust and are noisy as hell. Just trash.

The fancap even with its simetrical design it's horrible. It shakes, metal hits and even after quite a lot of hammer and alignment it's just pure crap.

The spring... Omg the spring can't even push an oldlady down a hill. More trash.

The 5v fan works quite ok. The dual 12v fans ofc trash.

So overall, don't even go near this product. I have spent more money fixing it that anything. I will have nightmares with this. Anyhow I wanted to check the cable distance and a real um2 hotend will fit perfectly on an umo+. Now back to fixing it. Pffff...

[bob-hepple 59]

Bad Luck /with the head it was worth a try China though its always a gamble

[yangxiang1029 2]

China really have a lot of very good businessman，But most good businessman does not understand English，Alibaba international and domestic businesses to sell things on the real level is differ a lot.If I have chance, I want to sell the real good things abroad.But now my English level is not high（sad。。。。。。。:(）

[neotko 1,417]

Indeed Alibaba and aliexpress are quite different. And not all china shops sells bad stuff, as you can see on all the post there are parts that I got from there with quite nice quality. The hard part it's to find sellers that really tell you all the good and bad and not just 'yes this works' and then you wait a month for it to arrive and find out that it didn't.

It took me a lot of time to find my 2-3 reliable sellers.

[bob-hepple 59]

To throw my view for what it is worth, yangxiang1029 the problem I have found with parts and machines bought from China, is there is a tendency to take short cuts, and parts that should be accurate are not, and when it comes to electrics cabling is low quality and hap hardly assembled. NOT all the time, but you gamble..

[neotko 1,417]

Lol I just saw that on aliexpress a new shop that sells cholssons for just 24€

Check how much offcenter it's that hole! Holy... Who drilled that? Daredevil? XD

[neotko 1,417]

OMG this it's like a long joke. More china crap. This one from sealand at aliexpress (and this it's one of the most reliable guys I found)

Top of the aluminium um2 hotend

And this it's what happened after trying to install something

At least it did pop outside and not after doing all the setup. So... Yeah, as always cheap stuff give cheap results.