Hey guys,
A buddy of mine is thinking about selling his Taz 5 for a decent deal (almost for the price of a mini!). I own a Mini and know the few issues that particular machine can have, and I was wondering if anyone with a Taz 5 could chime in on things I should be looking at before I buy the printer.
Any weak points or issues I should be looking for?
Any sort of maintenance that i should ask about?
Any upgrades that are popular for that machine?
Thanks guys!
The taz 5 is a solid machine. Its basically a 6 without auto leveling and with 10mm x rods instead of 12. A taz 5 is essentially a big mini with an LCD and no leveling. Wobble can be a potential issue given the longer spans, but that can be dealt with. Weak spots are the same as a mini, the idler, the small gear on the extruder, pei lifting, the usual. Nothing major. There are a few of the earliest 5s that have the 4 style power supply (rounded black plastic cover) that tend to fail a bit early compared to the others. The small squirrel cage fan on the extruder is also prone to early failure, they use a different style on the 6 now.
Maintenance, basically make sure they didn’t oil or grease the bearing rods, if they did you can work around that.
The openbuilds x and y axis and the anti wobble are popular modifications. The z axis and micrometer barrel retrofits too. Retrofitting to a 6 is another popular path. Itworks3d.com often carries the necessary parts. There are also reinforced carriages, fitting the 6 style extruder to a 5, etc.