I just wanted to share one of my favorite channel "This Old Tony".  He is a machinist.  But he just got into 3D printing.  Watching this video, I thought about all you guys out there that had to put a Prusa printer together.

Yep that is TOT of my favorite channels too!
My Prusa printer should be delivered next week but I ordered the mini and it is partly pre assembled already

TOT is hilarious. You can't just watch one video. I hope your build goes as smoothly as his.

I eventually want to get into machining. I just need a larger work space. And more free time to hang out with a machinist I know that is will to allow me to sort of apprentice.

I think I have watched almost all TOT clips on YT he really is hilarious

Machining is great, I had a cheap china milling machine when I build my motorcycle but I soldl it when I had to give up the garage..

TOT just got another sub  

Now you know why and how it took me nearly 10 hours to build my Prusa i3 MK3S. The extruder assembly alone took around 3 hours. I never had any issues with a wonky frame.

One thing I notice is that Prusa now appear to include a tube of grease for the linear bearings. I never got any of that with mine and the instructions just said to install the bearings as is. I have no prior experience with linear bearings so I just did that, but then I read afterwards that the oil in them is just transport oil which should be cleaned out and replaced with grease. I couldn't be bothered to take the printer apart again so I just left it as was and it was working fine. That was until recently when I started getting some random crashes on the X-axis even though the extruder assembly wasn't hitting anything. Further investigation revealed that the linear bearings on the X-axis were binding up. I am currently in the process of rectifying that which is detailed in the thread linked to below...

https://into3dp.com/Thread-Help-Linear-B...s-Catch-22

Leave to TOT to break out his indicator to make sure the frame is flat. I was surprised he didn't check for squareness.

Read through your thread. That sucks, considering the printer is so new. Isn't it still under warranty? Prusa probably would have sent you new parts.

(07-Oct-2020, 04:04 PM)voodoo614 Wrote: Read through your thread. That sucks, considering the printer is so new. Isn't it still under warranty? Prusa probably would have sent you new parts.

Yes, it was disappointing, especially considering that it's only done a total of 9 days printing and 230m of filament according to the built in stats. I'm actually surprised I've done that much with it TBH.

I didn't even consider the warranty because it's over a year old. The unbranded bearings that Prusa supply are only $2.30 each and that includes a mark-up for profit so they are clearly substandard, and even less so without any grease in them. Maybe I'll ping Prusa an email to let them know and see what their response is. However, I don't really need them now because the 10 replacement Misumi bearings I got at more than twice the cost of the no-name ones are supposed to be much better quality. I guess I'll find out once I've fitted them. It would have been nice to also fit matching Misumi rods but that would have been another $65, and the current rods still look to be in perfect condition so I couldn't really justify that.

(07-Oct-2020, 05:11 PM)SnowLeopardFPV Wrote: Yes, it was disappointing, especially considering that it's only done a total of 9 days printing and 230m of filament according to the built in stats. I'm actually surprised I've done that much with it TBH.

I didn't even consider the warranty because it's over a year old. The unbranded bearings that Prusa supply are only $2.30 each and that includes a mark-up for profit so they are clearly substandard, and even less so without any grease in them. Maybe I'll ping Prusa an email to let them know and see what their response is. However, I don't really need them now because the 10 replacement Misumi bearings I got at more than twice the cost of the no-name ones are supposed to be much better quality. I guess I'll find out once I've fitted them. It would have been nice to also fit matching Misumi rods but that would have been another $65, and the current rods still look to be in perfect condition so I couldn't really justify that.

You have 2 years warranty on the printer. I would contact them. Get a free set of bearings as a back up.

If you’re replacing the bearings you should upgrade the rods too, which by default aren’t stainless. The misumi kit is sweet, noticeable difference. Quieter, smoother and prints are more consistent. I’ve also had less maintenance / tuning.

(11-Oct-2020, 10:59 AM)blanco Wrote: If you’re replacing the bearings you should upgrade the rods too, which by default aren’t stainless. The misumi kit is sweet, noticeable difference. Quieter, smoother and prints are more consistent. I’ve also had less maintenance / tuning.

I know the original rods that came with the Prusa i3 MK3 had issues and people suffered from scoring on the rods, but Prusa rectified that problem by providing harder rods with the later kits which I have on mine. My rods look to be in pristine condition. Unfortunately I only have a set of Vernier calipers and not a Micrometer, so I have no way to measure the rod diameter accuracy of the current Prusa rods.

The question is, if I fit the Misumi bearings to my current Prusa rods, will I be damaging the bearings in any way by not using matched Misumi rods?

(12-Oct-2020, 04:57 PM)SnowLeopardFPV Wrote: I know the original rods that came with the Prusa i3 MK3 had issues and people suffered from scoring on the rods, but Prusa rectified that problem by providing harder rods with the later kits which I have on mine. My rods look to be in pristine condition. Unfortunately I only have a set of Vernier calipers and not a Micrometer, so I have no way to measure the rod diameter accuracy of the current Prusa rods.

The question is, if I fit the Misumi bearings to my current Prusa rods, will I be damaging the bearings in any way by not using matched Misumi rods?

From another forum "I did the Misumi bearings on old rods and regretted it. If you inspect the old rods and see no signs of wear, maybe you'll fare better.  But I suggest you get new rods."

Source: https://forum.prusaprinters.org/forum/or...ooth-rods/

Also found this there which is interesting:

(12-Oct-2020, 11:06 PM)bffigjam Wrote: Source: https://forum.prusaprinters.org/forum/or...ooth-rods/

Thanks for the link. That's a really useful thread. I read loads of other threads but don't recall coming across that one. It seems that a few of the posters on that thread did actually stick with (new) Prusa rods. Because mine show absolutely no signs of any wear I'm tempted to just stick with them, but still undecided.

Annoyingly, since I filled the original el-cheapo bearings with lithium grease, the bearings now seem to be working fine. I haven't done much printing since I did that but what I have done has been perfectly acceptable with no issues so far. So maybe I didn't need to order new bearings after all. I guess it means there is no real hurry to replace them, so I could wait a bit and then decide if I think t is really worth spending another $50 on new Misumi rods or just sticking with what I already have.