SeeMeCNC Rostock Max V2

This machine is great. After owning several commercial machines that were much more expensive, the Rostock has made me the happiest so far. Excellent value for the money, and builds robust parts. Surface quality is as can be expected from a very decent FDM machine. I have used it to build parts for clients, as well as building parts to repair things around the house. My two "wants" that are missing... dual extruders, and a heated enclosure. 

My main problems have come from a couple of wiring connections which I did coming  loose, and what appears to be occasional software glitches.   I have it set up with a raspberry pi 2 for wireless control. 

PRICE BALANCE - ~$2,000 sounds expensive but as it is in kit form, if you build in with care, consider the actual "real" value of the kit to be >$5,000.

KIT BUILDING - Built in less than 25 hours, my background is doing this sort of thing so found it easy, enjoyable and satisfying.  Documentation and support is brilliant.  Important thing is to take your time with the build and you should have as good of experience as I did.

PERFORMANCE - astounded that the first prints were simply perfect, and they have been getting better ever since after tweaking and playing with various settings and techniques.  Have printed using PLA, ABS, Nylon, metal composites and various others with success.

USE - Mostly used for custom engineering items to support my projects rather than getting a fabricator to make them (at great expense and time).  You can design and build with an FDM that has as much strength as a cnc fabricated item.  Yes, built a lot of kids stuff and home solutions too.  The printer was paid for by project income in the first 3 months of service.

RECOMMENDED MODIFICATIONS - Remembering the Max V3 is now available, much of my modifications and upgrades are incorporated in the V3 model already.  Essential modifications I have made include:

- Temperature enclosure - I simply housed the printer in a melamine cupboard so the printer generated heat stays around the printer.  No need to go fancy with an enclosure.

- Build Surface - Tried everything, now using PEI sheet which works perfectly with the problematic ABS.  The PEI sheet is stuck directly on the glass build plate but suggest the PEI sheet on an aluminium or copper sheet would be better to allow heat spread to be more even.

- Extruder - standard extruder worked fine but wore out (started to slip) after huge number of hours of use (18 months of almost full time use so can't really complain).  Upgraded to the Bondtech extruder which has a far stronger performance.  Easy upgrade to do.

- Hot End - wanted to start using higher temperature filament so upgraded to the E3D V6.  A bit of messing around to fit but perfect results straight away.  Only issue I have is that PLA tends to clog in the E3D V6 a bit but that is manageable.  I mostly print in ABS and ABS variants anyway.

- Delta Arms - Upgraded to the SeemeCNC ball cup arms.  Easy to do and makes the assembly much more stable.

- Carriages - Upgraded to the SemeCNC injection moulded carriage set.  Improved assembly stability even further.

- Lighting & Camera - sounds unimportant but adding some COB leds and a HD camera to the printer is useful as I can then keep an eye on prints without going into the workshop and opening the temperature enclosure.

FUTURE UPGRADE ASPIRATIONS - Although the Max V2 printer is doing a wonderful job, I can still see that more improvements can be made.  Some noted below.

- Upgrade temperature enclosure - I will be changing the enclosure so the electronics base is dropped below the floor of the enclosure.  This is so I can keep the electronics cool but be able to actively heat the entire chamber to >60degC.

- Upgrade microcontroller - not sure what to yet but aim is to improve resolution of prints.

- Dual hot end - with the aim to print using dissolvable supports through one hot end and ABS through the other.  I'm not interested in colour mixing as I already have another Delta printer to do that using a Diamond mixer hotend.

The Max V2 is a joy to use and I can quite happily watch it do its thing all day.  It is one of those oddly satisfying things to watch.

Enjoy.

This printer is a great platform to get started on. Out of the box it will not perform as well as you want it to, but using it as a launching off point will get you far.

We love our Rostock V2 Max  but its love you have to earn. Although you can now buy this machine pre-assembled, I would still recommend buying the kit and making it yourself. You will save some money, and when something goes wrong (and yes I mean WHEN), you will know how to fix it. I don't mean to sound like this machine is unreliable, the fact is that any FDM machine in this price category IS going to give you grief. At least when the Rostock dies you can easily source extremely cost effective parts and get it back up and running without spending a week on hold with MakerBot.

Good machine, but this is a machine for geeks and nerds, not someone who wants to "dabble" in 3D Printing.

It was by far the most challenging thing I've built, and made a great excuse for purchasing such things as wire crimpers.  Overall, I would only suggest this to a first-timer if you really want to get into the process and remove all fear of modding your machine.  Everything that felt difficult for me when assembling the kit appears to have been corrected in the v3 model - threading the wires, the cramped motor locations, and the non-metal hot end.   

It is similar to other filament printers in that if you are looking for a "set it and forget it" you should seriously consider a stereolithography setup - playing with all the settings to get a specific model to print with a specific type of filament is far from automated.  Imagine the early days of photography, where you had to adjust the exposure and aperture by hand after looking at a light sensitive needle move up and down - it feels a lot like that.  I'm betting future generations will feel more like the last film cameras, where the machine reads the filament's specs from a QR code on the spool and you can just press "print."

I love the speed of the delta, it is a great choice once you've decided on a filament printer.  I've been able to print with semiflex just fine, but haven't tried fullflex with the Bowden tube yet, so YMMV.

The assembly manual is around 261 pages and you will need every one of them.  The nice thing is that it is written really well and can be understood easily through both the words and the pictures (I used a tablet so I could zoom in).  Mine actually fired up the first time after assembly.  It did get tricky in one spot where there were 2 black wires that went to different places.  After  zooming in on the picture I managed to see where one of them went and it worked!   You even print a fan holder at the end for your machine!  The satisfaction in building it yourself and having it work is unparalleled! I chose this printer because of the build volume as well as the ability to use ABS (it has a heated bed).  I have successfully printed a lot including ABS as well as PLA. I have been printing with it for over a year now and I am still learning the intricacies involved with 3D printing in general but I see it as a journey and not the destination. 

Bang for your buck its hard to beat this printer!  

First off let me say that when it comes to electronic devices I have the absolute worst luck.  In addition I purchased this kit at the same time a close friend bought the same kit, so I'll try to temper some of my negative experiences with his amazing experiences.

I bought this kit in January of last year.  Assembly took me awhile, but I wanted to take my time.  The directions are fairly comprehensive, and if there's one big plus to this printer its that their community is awesome.  After getting the printer assembled I ran into my first problem.  I couldn't get the LCD screen to display anything.  I contacted support and was told it had to be the tiny fuses on the RAMBO board and that I would need to purchase replacements.  I bought the replacements so and waited over a week for them to arrive.  Once they arrived I installed them only to find this did not fix my problem.  I sent pictures of my setup to support and was instructed to wait.  After a day or so I posted the same pictures on their user forum and the users found the problem within a few hours.  Two of solder points on the LCD controller board were bad, according to the users this was a common problem. Their support then asked me to try to fix the bad solder joint before they'd send me a replacement.  I removed the excess solder and things still did not work, so I waited another week for a new LCD controller.   I installed this and was up and running after a month and a half of back and forth.  Contrast this to my friend who was up and running in two days producing beautiful prints problem free.

After a few prints I ran into my next problem.  My printer continually said the hot end was 0.  I assumed there was an issue with the thermistor and ordered a replacement.  There is no way to screw this device in, it must be installed using a silcon like heat resistant compound, which takes 24 hours to set.  I set the new thermistor and was again, all good.  I'm fairly confident this first thermistor blow out was my fault, caused by crappy wiring skills on my part.  After about 2 more weeks of printing however, I ran into my next thermistor death.  I again ordered a replacement, waited for it to arrive, and then the 24 hours for the compound to set.  This time I was only up and working for a few days before the new thermistor crapped out, but instead of getting a 0 temperature I got an error code.  Thinking this was again a bad thermistor I reached out on their facebook page for advice on installing a screw in thermistor.  I described the issue, and was told it sounded like I had a bad board, not a bad thermistor and to contact their support.  I did so, and was asked to bring the unit to Goshen Indiana so they could check it out prior to them giving me a new board.  Meanwhile my new thermistor had arrived so I installed it.  The next week I drove the 2 hours to Goshen, and was promptly told there wasn't any issue with my board the thermistor was just loose (Which is what I told their support individual I believed the problem was in the first place).  The error code I was seeing was apparently something new on the firmware.  I drove home extremely irritated, however I haven't had a thermistor problem since.  Meanwhile my buddy was still cranking out prints problem free.

Two months after this my hot end stopped working entirely.  I was getting a steady reading from the thermistor of 24.4 C, so I was fairly confident that hadn't broken.  I once again tried to reach out to support but after being asked to purchase an IR Thermometer I gave up on that route.  Inspecting the hot end I found some of the silcon used to seal the resistors that make up the hot end had somehow become exposed, either through all the messing with the thermistor or by a bad print.  The resistors had melted.  Rather then replace them with another set from SeeMeCNC I bought a stock heater cartridge off of a reputable repRap seller on eBay and was back up and running. -=Note for people buying the V2, do this.  Don't use the resistors included in the kit=-.  Again, my friend had absolutely zero problems and had his stock hot end until he upgraded a month ago to an E3D V6.

I was printing with no issues for around 5 months after this.  Great beautiful prints in a wide variety of materials (HIPS, PETG, PLA and ABS).  The printer performed like a champ and I thought my problems were behind me until I checked on an over night print and found a black spot on the bottom of it.  I wasn't sure what was going on but cleaned everything up and tried to print another file but could not get my bed to heat up.   I took the bed apart and checked for loose wiring, and retried.  Still nothing, its then that I found the board was mostly scorched.  How the thing was even booting up I'll never know but the leads running to the bed were completely melted and the board itself warped and blackened.  I've since removed the board and am presently still working on fine tuning a Duet3d Wifi setup in its place.  My friend built an enclosure for his in the meantime to print larger ABS prints and has not had a single problem or hiccup.

I can not personally recommend this printer based on my experiences.  I've had nothing but problems with it, and while the community was extremely knowledgeable and awesome, I found the companies tech support to be not so great.  That said, I know for a fact that I'm in the minority when it comes to this printer.  Most people seem to have completely problem free experiences, and when I've described my little adventure most owners don't believe me.