Note to self: do more research!

Just my luck. I find this forum and the MANY complaints about Botmill AFTER I bought one.
Based on the tons of complaints here it sounds like I'll be having a lot of fun with mine.

I bought the Glider because it was the cheapest (or close to it) "fully assembled" 3D printer. It's just to get my feet wet so to speak. My plan is to learn the ropes with this cheap POS apparently and then buy a "good" one later when I'm more experienced.

Can't wait to be "disappointed" with my glider

I got it! They said I would have it in about 7-10 days, but I got it in 3. So far so good. I hope this is not where the good news ends

As long as you set the right expectations for yourself, and assuming they sent it complete you should be fine.

The most important things to understand is that there are very few shortcuts to getting good print quality, and that buying a fully built printer is not one of them.

Stick to one firmware, one slicer, and one control app, and then proceed with calibration. If you change any of these main components, expect to take a few step backward each time.

Best of luck!

One spring/bolt/nut was missing for the heated bed. Went to Ace to get a spring for it. Actually I got 4 and replaced the other 3 springs as well. Other than that, just some loose nuts, but I believe I got everything.

I downloaded repsnapper and all motors work. I have it calibrated by eye for now. Will use some automotive feeler gauges to fine tune it when I have some time.

I'm not sure what firmware and slicer mean, but I'll google that after this.
From what I've read, here's what I need to do after I get this thing to work: Design something in CAD and save it as a STL file. Then use Skeinforge to convert the STL file to GCODE and then use RepSnapper to send the GCODE to the printer.

Oh, I have a question. The printer came with a piece of 3mm ABS filament already in the extruder. I have no idea what size nozzle I have. I ordered some extra 1.75mm PLA with the printer. Can I use the PLA without any modification?

To get a 'thing' to print, check out Thingiverse. There are thousands of things uploaded there. It will get you going and you can use those for inspiration and guidance for what will work well on your printer.

If it came loaded with 3mm you will need to use 3mm with it unless you make modifications to the extruder.
The nozzle where the extruded filament comes out isn't affected by the diameter of the filament going in. The plastic is molten by the time it comes out the nozzle. It is the upper part of the hot end that determines what size filament you need to use.

To go from ABS to PLA you need to adjust the temp and calibrate it a bit differently. Make sure you push out any residual ABS in the hot end before dropping the temp for PLA.

I'm on the same boat as you: found so many bad reviews after I bought one. The shipping was fast, which surprised me. But right now I couldn't any support (other than a few e-mails from Gil saying they'll support me) to make my printer working.

My first problem is after I installed Gen 6 driver and ran Repsnapper, it won't connect to the printer because you can only choose COM ports in Repsnapper but the printer is actually connected through usb cable. I noticed the paper instruction says 2 power chord should come with the package, one for Glider, one for the heated bed. But right now my heated bed is hot after I plug the power chord and the other power chord is labeled for LCD monitor and I don't find any place to power the Glider. I really doubt that my circuit board is not powered at all because my laptop doesn't pop up anything like detecting new hardware.

Can you help me out? I'm really tired of sending e-mails and leaving messages.

Thanks a lot.

you need to install the FTDI driver this makes it connect fine to a USB port, does the circuit board have a plug for power as it should? Look up Gen6 on the wiki it will show you what it should look like and what all the contacts are for

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

Automeasure, he USB device runs in serial emulation mode, so when its connected it should become a COM port, assuming the drivers are installed (on windows, on linux or mac os it should just work). Find out what virtual COM port is created when you connect, and point RepSnapper to it.

wikisi, Skeinforge is the slicer. Its a program that takes an STL file and slices it into layers and represents those in gcode. There's an alternate slicer called Slic3r, that many people are having better results with, but don't change unless you have your printer working, just for simplicities sake. The firmware is the software running on your electronics set. It is loaded on using the Arduino software. You probably have one firmware loaded already, but its likely older, and newer firmwares like the latest Marlin will also increase quality. Again, get your machine working before you start tweaking this stuff, but keep it in mind for when it is working. And I agree with grog, before designing your own objects, find some proven working objects on Thingiverse. It'll make tuning a lot easier.

@Automeasure: I downloaded the driver and repsnapper before I hooked up the printer. Then after hooking up the printer I opened repsnapper and found that nothing worked. I only had one COM to choose from. COM1. Then with the printer already hooked up (and powered on), I reinstalled the driver. I reopened repsnapper and this time COM4 was clickable in addition to COM1. With COM4 selected, all motors plus extruder worked.

Now, based on your message it sounds like you don't have a power supply for your printer? My printer came with a power supply already hooked up to the heated bed. I just had to connect a power cord to it. Then I had another power supply (exact same one as for the heated bed) that came in a small box. It came with the same power cord as for the heated bed. So they both use the same power cord and same power supply, they differ in that one power supply comes hooked up to the heated bed and the other one plugs into the top most right connector on the board.

If you hook up the USB cable but the printer isn't on, I don't know if what I did will work for you. I don't if it has to be on or not for the COM4 to show up. (or whatever COM you will get)

Hope that helped.

This calibrating thing is pretty tricky stuff. I can get close, but.. I don't think I can get the nozzle to just a papers width from the bed. Does it HAVE to be a papers width? It won't work with a slightly larger gap?

wikisi Wrote:
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> This calibrating thing is pretty tricky stuff. I
> can get close, but.. I don't think I can get the
> nozzle to just a papers width from the bed. Does
> it HAVE to be a papers width? It won't work with a
> slightly larger gap?


Give it a try. It depends on if you like how it turns out and as long as you don't have problems with it sticking to the bed or being too stuck.
Mine is a little higher than a paper's thickness and I'm happy with the height.
I'm trying to work out a z endstop holder that is adjustable since it is a challenge to move it up or down by less than a mm.

It is important that the bed/table is level and that the head is low enough such that the first layer sticks well.

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

Thanks to all for your replies. And you're right, Wikisi, I didn't really power on the circuit board because I was confused by the other power supply that is labelled as "for LCD monitor". Now my printer is running. I hasn't calibrated z axis that good but just want to start using it to get a feel. I printed "something" but the nozzle is all messy with melted material. What I need to learn is understand all those settings in Reprapper to create quality print. I couldn't find any instruction for those parameters except for temperature setting. Anyone has any quick instruction for those settings?