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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • FWIW I just looked at the AliExpress-tier options and they are much cheaper

    Those low cost Aliexpress hdmi over RJ45 are “last gen” HDMI limiting yourself to 4k@30Hz. This place already has CAT7 cabling so this would have been so much easier but sadly it isn’t good enough and the current gen are to expensive.

    I didn’t even know HDMI cables went up to 15m for the copper version.

    They are fiber optic with copper for power supply and side channel. For some reason they are fairly affordable compared to OM3 fiber solutions. Probably due to them running multiple fibers allowing the transceiver to be slower and simpler. With OM4 cables there is only one fiber per direction. I think HDMI is 4 pairs so it is 5GB/s for 4 fiber compared to 20GB/s for the OM4 cable.

    I personally hate copper cables. There are so many bad cables out there that it can be hard to find one that works reliably (2-5m range). Knowing now that you can buy 5m fiber optic for 30€ I probably will move forward only buying fiber optic and just coil up the excess length.









  • Prusa XL is a difficult machine.

    On the one hand, it pushes toolchangers to the mainstream. On the other hand, it is utterly unreliable for it’s price.

    Paying $5k for a printer and then finding out that the printed parts they used deform causing repairs, the heatbed title issues and some more and this is already after a massive delay (launched a few years later than they initially “announced”).

    The previous goat of toolchangers was the E3D toolchanger. While not perfect it at least had the build quality to match its price point (btw. lower cost than the Prusa XL) and if you fix one minor design oversight they are reliable.


  • There is no clear answer to what is better.

    CoreXY:

    • lower moving mass (benefit)
    • stationary bed (benefit)
    • compact dimensions, easy to build an enclosure (benefit)
    • VERY long belts (downside) => you can upgrade to high pitch ball screw and servos (no longer coreXY) => even superior are linear induction motors like those used in pick and place machines but both options would cost significantly more (will never be seen on consumer printer).

    bedslinger

    • short belts are good for dimensional accuracy
    • independent axis makes it easy to get a high rigidity with good dampening characteristics further benefiting the print quality
    • bed is moving this is a significant limitation for fragile/tall prints. You can pretty easily simulate the distortion this will cause. To keep it fair: Even with coreXY there will be some forces/drag from the molten material/nozzle to the printed parts.

    TL;DR/Opinion?

    • CoreXY it is for the consumer market. Those machines look nicer, are smaller and print quality matches expectations.
    • For the (ultra) high end it gets blurry. There are outstanding bed slinger options out there made of granite frames, precision linear rails, and so on. These machines aren’t designed for high speed but for ultimate reliability and quality with price tages in the $10k+ range for a 200x200mm machine.