Assembly Postmortem

Foremost, it never would have happened without the excellent build manual. I appreciate that. The stages may have taken a little longer than stated but overall the instructions and information were spot-on. Most frustrating were the steps involving the sliding parts. I also had some difficulty with the hotend stage. Admittedly these issues were, at least in part, due to my desire for instant perfection or failure to comprehend the instruction.

The following may help others avoid my mistakes, clarify some steps, or otherwise aide the assembly process:

General:

• The best advice I'd give to future assemblers: READ AHEAD. Understanding how things fit together beforehand will save you a lot of grief.

• Notice the colored bullet points are coded to the colored arrows in the images.(@ makertech: It might help to make those bullets bigger. Also, it may be beneficial to double check whether the colors are colorblind friendly ... or add an additional indicator).

Sliding Parts

• The sliding parts won't glide smoothly right away. They need some lubricant and worked-in a bit. I used something called Rock "N" Roll, a dry chain lube that I use on my mountain bike. It's not as greasy and doesn't accumulate as much grime.

• Alignment of the guides may not need to be as precise as you'd like. I don't know if it's just me, the part(s), or the design. I still haven't managed to get rid of all the wobble without causing the other side to stick or cease. See more here:

Hotend:

• When you disassemble the hotend unit, the throat may stay connected to the heat sink. That is okay. Actually may be preferable to it being stuck in the hotend.

• If the throat is stuck in the hotend, DO NOT try to grip it with pliers. First find a then piece of rubber (the pad you may have in the kitchen to help open jars is perfect). Wrap the rubber pad around the end, then grip it with the pliers. Be extremely carefully to avoid gripping the threads.

• The nozzle should be completely flush with the hotend. Make sure you have the teflon (PTFE) tape wrapped correctly. Wrap clock-wise with the threads facing you. Trim the tape at the first thread AND at the last thread. Any tape past the threads will prevent the nozzle from going all the way in. And tape over hanging the end may get in the way of the tube.

• There's some good stuff about getting the PTFE tube all the way into the print head here:

Wiring:

• You may want to label all the cables BEFORE slipping the braided conduit over them. (btw, wire labels tend to stick around longer if the writing is parallel to the wire rather than hanging on like a flag).

Firmware:

• Make sure the gantry moves up and down easily, especially toward the bottom. It's absolutely critical for printing. Even the slightest stick will cause the nozzle to print closer and closer to the part each layer ... which usually doesn't end well.

First Print:

• Before you print: watch at least one video of the first layer (or few) of a successful print It doesn't necessarily need to be an Axis; any 3D printer will do. Pictures just don't tell the whole story. If you're not sure what to expect, you may not realize that, for example (completely hypothetical here): the first layer shouldn't appear as a very thin translucent film --- that's actually the nozzle melting your print surface.