What should I actually expect from my TAZ 5 with minimal modifications

I have the parts to do it, just not the time

I’ll throw out there… if you’re prints aren’t turning out well, then its the settings the slicer software or something basic is wrong (bed not level, nozzle height not optimal). The TAZ prints well out of the box, but to really get it to perform it needs to be tweaked.

Something like issues with overhangs, I’d say its a software issue. Try more overlap, try more cooling… post the STL and a pic of your outcome.

I’ve done your toolhead upgrade and the dual cooling with those decent shrouds are working pretty well. I’ve also replaced the little blower with a 12V axial fan to cool the hotend barrel(I happened to have it lying around and not a 5V but It seems to keep the barrel cool enough and the PLA flowing)

I’ll be doing the rail mounts eventually and am looking at doing something to work on the z-wobble.

The only reason I’ve stuck this long with my TAZ is because returning it would cost me too much money. The parts I’ve been getting have been worse than my UMO. Fortunately, discojon remixed some stuff and I think I’m finally on the way to getting decent prints. Now it’s just going to be up the rail system stiffen things up even more so I can put on a bit of pace.

To a point I would agree with your “research project” comment. I expect a printer that’s rated better than the 3rd generation of the first printer that I had to print out of the box better than my first printer.

I would agree that filament plays an important role and I’ve had a few crappy rolls in my time and I’m still testing what I can find to try get decent stuff that won’t break the bank. My local store has started selling the Verbatim brand but I’ve heard that it has a tendency to crack which for me is unacceptable. I await further testing by others(or maybe I’ll suck it up and get a roll) Amazon would be good but import taxes and the exchange rate in my country make it REALLY expensive.

This imgur album: Disappointing Stock Taz 5 Benchy - Album on Imgur is the 3dBenchy printed my TAZ completely stock.
Here’s the album after installation of discojon’s toolhead upgrade: Benchy after discojon upgrade - Album on Imgur
Settings were the same but clearly the extra cooling just wins. Sure there are divots and zits which are Cura related but overall, I think you would agree that the upgrade was essential to getting a decent print out.
3DBenchy.stl (10.8 MB)

Yeah the dual extruder fan mod helped your prints a lot! Nice job!

Just to clarify, The dual fans are from Lulzbot, as is the extruder carriage. The reinforced mount was from another member here (sorry can’t remember who). I took the original concept for the reinforced mount and just made it work with the mangrove parts. Be sure to print out the newest left and right fan ducts from the olive directory and attached below as they divert the air lower away from the thermistor and cartridge.

http://devel.lulzbot.com/TAZ/Olive/production_parts/printed_parts/fan_ducts/

http://devel.lulzbot.com/TAZ/Olive/production_parts/printed_parts/heatsink_fan/

For what its worth, I started with the Mini and loved it, worked great but thought I needed more room and ended up with the TAZ 5. When I got it, I was appalled at the light weight construction and slop in the bearings. I am used to working with machines and was not impressed by what was a $2200 3D printer that was going to need another $300 in mods.

Since I was interested in a production machine not a hobby grade I sold the TAZ and purchased another brand that has heavy duty construction and designed by engineers. Had it since August 2015 and only had one jam, using a .35 nozzle. I am hoping the TAZ 6 addresses all the issues with the 5.

I agree the Taz 5 has fallen short of my expectations when I bought it. Frankly like others I was pregnant with it so I just kept hammering away at its issues until I ended up with a great printer. It is the “devil I know” in that I was afraid to trade the Taz 5 for something else and end up with just a different set of problems.

I know the Taz 6 has addressed many of the problem area but not all of them. Sometimes I dream about designing my own 3D printer. But with a full time job and kids I just don’t really have the time or energy. But it is ridiculous that someone hasn’t made the perfect machine yet. I think the biggest problem is consumers today all have a Walmart mentality. They don’t want to pay for anything. So manufacturers, realizing this, put cost ahead of everything else. And here we are.

Let’s not let this to turn into a TAZ 5 haterfest. The TAZ 5, at time of release was a very capable machine. It has fared well and placed and even won Makes shootouts every time. Some tradeoffs have to be made when offering a HUGE build envelope, while keeping cost at the forefront. Name me another 3D printer manufacturer that Makes 100% of it’s designs opensource, posts all their files, and encourages public development. I can’t name one. I would consider the TAZ 5 a last generation model due to it’s lack of sensors for leveling, and the mini a next generation model since it includes them. The TAZ6 will fall into the later category. Marlin is now to a point where Mesh leveling and Auto leveling are stable and becoming widely adopted. If you want to upgrade your Taz 5 to include these features, do it, it costs about 35 bucks. I’ve compiled all the parts and FW into one location to make it easy. If you aren’t sure of the wiring, read the forums. There is a great thread on it. If you are not pleased the the miniscule amount of say on the X axis, install Piercets openbuilds rails.

BUT, before you do any of the above, read the forums, learn about the machine, understand how the mechanics work. The single best thing you can do to improve print quality doesn’t cost you anything at all. It’s knowledge and an understanding of YOUR TAZ 5. There isn’t a magic profile that will work for everything. Each machine is different, not fundamentally but in nuance. Find what works and iterate from there.

The absolute best thing to do it to ASK for help. Some of the most knowledgeable folks I’ve encountered pertaining to 3D printing reside here and I’m sure are more that willing to assist.

Time to name drop (sorry guys):

Piercet - hardware
Sebastian - FW / SW
Mhackney - Print quality and SW
kcchen-00

It’s not a haterfest it’s constructive criticism.

The fact that this printer is open source is another reason I hung with it.

When does the Taz 6 get released?

Name me another 3D printer manufacturer that Makes 100% of it’s designs opensource, posts all their files, and encourages public development.
I can but won’t here… and it needs no mods to just run out of the box.

I think part of the issue is based in perceptions and expectations. The fact that upgrade setups exist make people think “there must be something wrong with the printer since these upgrades exist” when instead, to use a car analogy this is the equivalent of an aftermarket turbocharger upgrade kit for a sports car. Does that turbo kit upgrade the car? Sure, but it’s still a sports car even without it, and as such better than most of the other cars out there to begin with.

A stock Taz prints well. There are definitely some areas it can improve on, as we’ve shown, but if you compare it to other printers in its class (the M2, The mendelmax 3, the Ultimaker 2, etc.) it prints comparably to most of them, with a much larger build area. The M2 has a slightly more rigid frame, but the offset frame actually lends itself to right side of print issues and torqueing. (their tech support forums have just as many support issues as any other printer…) . The Mendelmax 3 openbuilds design is better than the stock Taz 5 bearings, but it’s a kit, has a smaller print area, and the extruder cold end doesn’t work as well as a Taz extruder. The Z bolt on rails instead of an extrusion rail also lend themselves to misalignment, and it has a smaller build area. The Ultimaker has a great frame and the fixed bed makes it easier to print ABS without separation, but the extruder on it is a Bowden, and the taller extended version has Z rod deflection and a tiny bed. The point not being to bash other printers, but to point out that they all have issues that could be considered deficiencies by some people, and that of all the printers mentioned in that price range, the Taz 5 is the oldest serving design.

It’s also the only one with a massive amount of community upgrades available to make your printer into that over the top fully tricked out sports car of a perfect printer machine if you really want. Not because they are required, but because people have chosen to refine that platform further because it is such a good starting platform. It quite frankly pisses me off when people point at my openbuilds modifications and use them to justify their stance against the Taz.

The 10mm rods are an issue. At the time they were introduced, most people thought they were overkill. As we now know, they are the one area of the Taz 5 that doesn’t offer the best possible quality, but that’s largely going to be resolved by the 12mm rods, and if that doesn’t do it for you, there’s always the Openbuilds stuff. If you aren’t happy with the 10mm rods on your Taz 5, for $40 worth of plastic, 12 hours print time, and another $70 worth of hardware you could print your own Taz 6 components right now, for free, taking advantage of hundreds of hours of design and testing without paying another dime to the company that did the work. Even with the stock Taz 5 rods, in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, how to tune the printer and properly adjust the bearings, you can get excellent quality prints with it compared to the other printers in its class. Sure, the openbuilds modifications and whatnot can improve upon that some, but that’s not really the point.

The cost aspect is another frustrating area. People compare smaller, Chinese labor constructed printers with a much larger Taz with more features, fit and polish and wonder at the cost difference, then complain when their knock off 12 volt RAMPS board catches on fire.

I dunno, that’s my 3 1/2 cents for the day anyways.

If I could change one thing on the Taz it would be removing the cantilever mounted design of the extruder. I firmly believe the true final answer to correcting the X-axis is to add a third x-axis rod in front of the extruder assembly. Make all three rods 12mm and use linear bearings or high tolerance bushings. This will remove 95% or more of the deflection, and also remove x-axis rotation from the cantilever of the extruder mount. It also would make the dual extruder more viable.

I would like to see someone come up with a carriage mount that utilizes a linear rail for the x axis that mounts to the openbuilds rail.

*wink, wink piercet.

Adding a third rod would stiffen things up and reduce the torque on the extruder carriage mount. I find a lot of the X carriage torque in the Y axis direction was due to the flex at the base of the extruder carriage. The taller extruder body with the upper mount, even on a stock Taz 5 removes a great deal of that, and that’s probably something that Lulzbot should look at for the Taz 6 as it would be easy to implement and not raise the cost of the printer very much at all (another half an extruders worth of plastic cost)

Some of the possible of the downsides to a 3rd rod would be alignment and carriage over constraint. with 3 rods, depending on where you mount them, you’ve potentially now magnified any Z wobble effects. with front and back rocking motion induced by the leadscrew itself potentially. If one of the three rods is out of alignment or bent, you end up with more friction. Certainly not something that couldn’t be overcome with the right bracket setup. You are structurally closer to a box at that point so deflection shouldn’t be an issue, and 12mm rods should fix that regardless. The bed itself is half of the apparent deflection too, but the 12mm rods should solve that as well.

Moving from horizontal rods (the AO-101) to Vertical stacked rods on the Taz fixed the offset nozzle wiggle the AO-101 had, but put more weight in the same plane, so introduced a bit of the deflection. The toolhead has gained a fair amount of mass since the AO-101 days as well, with the additional fans and fan ducts, heavier bearings, etc. A redesign on the Greg/Wade style extruder to eliminate the vestigial outer leg and to shorten the whole package slightly probably also wouldn’t be a bad idea someday. But anyways, I would wonder if the 3rd rod would add some of that deflection back in. Only one way to find out for sure though!

Heh, I actually do have a top secret carriage project in the works to change the mounting method, as part of the sensor project. It’s top secret though so I can’t tell anyone about it yet. Mainly because there is very little to tell yet.

Frankly with all your good ideas Lulzbot needs to hire you.

Lulzbot is happy for Piercet to stay right here. He does all this R&D for them without a paycheck. Smart thinkers these open source business people.

I am new to 3d printing, but not to machine tools - my TAZ5 is a machine tool with a different “cutting head” from my prior experience. My expectations of a consumer machine are tempered by my work on CNC business machines.

My machine was purchased from a salvage house on 19 Jan … DOA though built end of Sept 2015. In spite of me not being the original owner and therefore no obligation to do help me, Adelph Objects help desk helped me track down the problem. I bought new parts from them (needed one stepper motor, but bought four as I have a project coming in a couple of months needing three).

I set the machine up, getting bed leveled, axes calibrated, etc.and then found my bed was warped - humped in the middle. Again, the help desk helped me - no, not likely the bed, probably X axis sag producing Z axis droop :blush: … I knew better to check both sides, but am long out of practice.

Looks to me like Adelph Objects wants to ensure all owners of their products have a good experience.

The machines on which I worked many years ago periodically required improvements - as diligently as the designers worked, they could not foresee everything. Ignoring the fly-by-nights, most manufacturing I’ve seen tries to make the best product to meet a decent spec at the lowest cost (someone mentioned crappy RAMBo boards: those are not built to a decent spec). That often means some parts are at the edge, and being on the wrong side does not show up until a lot of product gets into the field or some units get heavily used. I expect no difference in this regard for my TAZ, or any other product.

Attached are images of two Benchy prints made on my machine - one ABS and one PLA. The machine is physically stock, but I modified the Marlin code to compensate for the X sag because wide prints had the first layer separating from the object at the ends while being well attached at the center. As soon as the help desk indicated the problem, I instantly thought of a machine I worked on in 1978 where electronics + mechanics were used to help compensate for Z axis droop. Note that such compensation is a last resort - the machine must be made mechanically as good as possible first. For the moment, my machine is as good as it gets, but…

As yet, no enclosure for the machine. The ABS print was not as good as the PLA. The temperature was too high when printing the PLA so some goobers and spider threads are present - I did not want to spend two hours printing another properly. Except 1st layer, ABS layers were 0.4 , PLA 0.2. ABS shows separation on the front of the wheelhouse and some layer gaps.

Ignoring the fact my machine was not purchased at full price from a dealer, my thought is that the machine is a very good value when purchased new (I got a great value!).

I forgot - the table currently used to hold my TAZ 5 is too flimsy - it shakes while printing! Replacement table in sight.






Your ABS temp is too low.

What characteristics of the print help you see the temp is too low? I can see some things indicating my PLA being too high.

Is there a place to visit that lists the types of things to observe? I’d expect different brands, and potentially batches. to need somewhat different temps so observing prints early in a spool can should help printing with the rest of it.

Looked at the gcode: the PLA was 205/200 (1st layer/rest) and the ABS was 235/230.