The printer won’t do any leveling with a fully heated nozzle.
The MK4’s we use at work and my personal MK4 all heat up to 170 before bed leveling, and if you previously swapped filaments before leveling, the printer will pause and wait until the nozzle has cooled down to the target range before initiating bed leveling.
It’s a pain in the ass to set up and navigate, but I use Solidworks for hobbyists. It’s $99/yr and it gets the job done for me. Since I use Solidworks at work, it’s nice to have the same software for home so I don’t have to worry about learning to navigate another CAD software.
I tried FreeCAD as well, and it’s what pushed me to try the Solidworks subscription.
I really enjoy printing PETG as well. In fact for a while when I finally got my MK4 all I was printing in was PETG so I could whip up the parts for the lack enclosure. It’s so far been pretty forgiving to print with.
Plus I like hearing the pops come from the part when it separates itself from the build plate as it cools down.
My MK4 is definitely a lot quicker than the MK3s we use at my lab. It’s certainly not the fastest printer on the market, but I’ve been very happy with it so far.
And what’s nice about it (from your perspective), you can very easily disable the WiFi permanently on it, given that the WiFi card is externally mounted on the board chassis and held in place with like one screw. I installed mine and finally was able to set up the PrusaConnect feature on it. I’m usually not a fan of cloud services but I trust Prusa more than I trust Bambu.
Regardless, if you can get your job site to fork the cash over for one, I have nothing but great things to say about the MK4. The nextruder and its LoveBoard will make maintenance on the hot end worlds easier and more convenient than the MK3 (which wasn’t that bad to start with).
I’ve heard some inklings of that. I’ve heard diehard fans say that they specifically got Creality printers because they wanted to work on a 3d printer, not have one that just worked out of the box. Though the K1Max from Creality looks pretty neat.
I myself always preferred low maintenance things, but I like knowing how they work. So I got the kit for my MK4 and built it on one of my days off. Took about as long as I’d heard (8+ hours), but was worth it.
Haven’t heard of sovol, I’ll look into them though. Always good to know the other brands.
They really are.
The MK3 is an absolute beast of a workhorse. We use two MK3s at the lab I work at. They collectively have 2000 hours of print time and they just now started exhibiting issues. One had a hotend fail, the other had a thermistor fail.
They’re damn good printers. I heard bad things about the MMU2, but I’m hopeful the MMU3 will be great, I have one on preorder.
I’d look into the nextruder upgrade for your MK3, it’s really nice. Only two thumbscrews to release the hot end out, and the LoveBoard makes servicing different components on the extruder a lot more painless.
Is this your first printer you’ve ever had?
If so I’d suggest getting one that has auto bed leveling, not having to worry about that is a very nice feature.
Prusa is kind of the reigning king of “it just works,” but they tend to be expensive. I myself have a Prusa MK4, but I wouldn’t really recommend that for a beginner due to the price, only reason I got it for my first personal printer is we use two MK3’s at the lab I worked at and I wanted something similar as that’s what I’m used to.
If you do decide to go with Prusa I’d look at the Mini (I’ve heard though that the Mini will benefit if you print a custom brace for it). The MK3 also got a pretty decent price drop with the release of the MK4, so that’s something to consider as well.
But otherwise I think Creality released a couple of new printers that aren’t too bad on price.
Given that you specifically mentioned the X1C, are you trying to do multi-colored prints or just want something fast?
Yup, I’ve only had it for several days, but my MK4 kit I got “just worked” after I assembled it.
I did have to take a look at it yesterday as it was making a clicking/knocking noise. Turns out the applicator took they supply to pack the bearings with grease doesn’t work the best, had to repack the y-axis bearings, no more noise.
Hell, we use two MK3’s at the lab I work at, and they have about 2000 hours of print time between the two of them and they’re just now showing signs of wear (one of the printers had a hotend fail).
Between the fact that they’re open source, they’re damn near bulletproof, and that I worked with them already, getting my MK4 was a no-brainer.
We do this at the lab I work at! It’s really effective and super easy. My boss had me whip up a bunch of signs using this method to designate our different work stations.
I love black kitties, they always seem to be goofy little bastards.
Someday when I find myself catless again in considering adopting a black kitty from a shelter.
Had this happen as well with the GR86 trunk handle file that’s on there as well. I made a make, tried to mark it as such, but was given the same error. Like with your case, the creator doesn’t have an option for purchase/support.