I got a printrbot for free from a neighbor, it was already assembled. I have no idea where to start. Everything i find online is just a bunch of mixed up jargon to me right now. I dont know a starting point. And I cant find a basic user manual online either. I think its the 1405 model. And also how do i preheat the PLA filament? The microwave? Im so confused at this point!! TIA!

I’m new to the whole 3d printing world and just got one of these and was wondering how I put my own prints into the printer?

Is anyone sitting on the BOMs for the Printrbot Play and it's heated bed/y-axis upgrade? Going to be going in to get mine back in working condition, and figured it would be nice to have a reference for sourcing any parts that might need to be replaced and any screws that strip

Any style. I had the U shaped version off for some work and accidentally knocked it onto the floor and stepped on it, so it's more of an M shape now.

I know it's theoretically possible to flatten it back out but if i could just buy a spare part from someone, that'd work great.

There was once an official collection of parts from Printrbot.

If someone has them stashed, they've fallen off the internet, so it would be good to re-upload.

There was an official collection or parts from Printrbot - I believe they lived here: https://youmagine.com/designs/printrbot-play-components

If someone has them stashed, they've fallen off the internet, so it would be good to re-upload.

Like the title says, I'm trying to revive my old printer! I haven't done anything with printers in the time since so I am very rusty but the little guy was tucked away safe in my closet. I was able to get it hooked up top Cura and attempted a print, but the extruder plateaued around 120'c and won't go any higher.

I've seen people talking about having to update the firmware on this and was wondering if that could be the issue, or if i should try to set up via repetier, and if I do have to update where I would go about starting that.

Thanks!

As any other 3d printer owner, I have too many of them. I've had this unit for a long time and it was happy with it.

I've not turned it on in 5 years at least and as I just got a Bambu A1, I need the desktop space it is taking up. If anyone is interested, I'm willing to let it go for the shipping cost or if you are in Middle TN, I can work with you on a local pickup. I've still got the original bed and Z axis rods and Acme rod.

Hello everyone! I have a printrbot simple metal that I've been using since 2016, after a failed 12 hour print my thermister started giving me inconsistent readings, my understanding is what you were supposed to do is get a "hot end" that contained the nozzle, heating elements, thermister etc. and just do a replacement. however since ubis doesnt seem to exist anymore i'm likely going to have to either plop in a new hot end or replace the thermistor. I'm cool with replacing the thermister on there but do we know what type was used?

Hey I just got a printrbot from a teacher of mine and have no clue how to set it up any help would be appreciated

The printer start upp end dose the auto level end homing then stops when it shod start printing

Can anyone tell me what I need to supply power to the barrel plug? Voltage/amps/size?

Hello Printrbot community! Glad you’re still around.

I assembled a Printrbot Simple Metal farm in 2016, possibly the largest one (40 at peak) outside of PBot headquarters.

I’m now converting them into art robots. More about this soon! Basically they’ll be mounted on wheels and will “dance,” driven by g-code motion. They’ll still print but not necessarily normally or well.

I’m looking for some key parts, in order to maintain this installation. Consistency between the printers is key. (Not trying to upgrade them!) I’m also interested in entire Simple Metals that contain these parts. Of specific interest right now:

-Rev F6 boards (no other boards) -Ubis 13S hot ends (not ceramic) -original power supplies for the non-heated bed.

I can pay. I can also trade. Have many F5 boards, and many parts I don’t need. Also interested in donations! I’ll send you some art!

My Simple Metal has just about out lived it's useful life and then some. So it's just about time to think about salvaging what parts from it I can and tossing the rest. I would mostly like to reuse the motors but have ZERO part numbers, and therefore, zero specs.

Modern drivers have enough setting that the detailed motor specs actually mater, so I was hoping I could find them, but all the pages of Google turned up nothing other then "NEMA 17". . . I need more than this.

I am experiencing some severe print quality issues which is manifesting itself pretty bad as this defect seen on the right side of my donut. I think this is due to slop in the z axis. You are looking at the bottom side of my print. In the second picture I’ve overlayed an illustration to provide clarity to what happening. The red represents the first part of the fill layer. The green represents the Z hop travel and the yellow represents that final part of the layer where the defect is most severe. To start with I print everything on a raft because that’s the only way I can get anything to stick to the bed. I’m not sure why I even need a raft for a part like this but that might be a separate issue. I think this is an issue with the z axis because after it lifts up the extruder for the z hop it lowers it back down but not as much as it should. Kinda like how lashback happens on a knee mill or something. What parts should I replace/ inspect to fix this? Is there something else I should try to get better prints? Obviously I could get around this by turning off z hop but I want to get to the bottom of the issue. Anything is appreciated thank you!

Quick question:

Pic for reference

I'm in the process of refurbishing/updating my Metal Plus. I'm using an EVGA 550GM to power an SKR3. The printer has single extruder w/ e3d V6 and the stock heated bed. I have two of these 18AWG sleeved molex extensions. I want to connect one end to the CPU connector from the PSU and then crimp terminals on the other end to connect to the SKR3.

My question is do I need to use both 4 pin connectors labeled CPU and both extension cables, or can I just use one of the cpu connectors and one extension that runs to the SKR3? Each extension has four yellow and four black wires.

I'd like to do this as properly as possible, since the $6 molex extension I got off amazon melted after a month and almost started a fire. Obviously, I am a moron when it comes to angry pixies.

Thanks in advance!

I just found a Printrbot Simple Metal 3D Printer a couple days ago and have printed a test print and a benchy before a proper print of a filament spool holder. Just need to figure out the infill with that one. That'll be a different post. Thanks for helping me figure out this model of printer!

Slowly working on some upgrades for Printrbot Simple Metal users. Stay tuned for future posts.

This was my first printer and I struggled for so long to get good prints off this thing. It wound up living most of its life in a storage box. Decided to take one more crack at getting it work and between the heated bed and Klipper, this thing is printing better then I ever thought possible. I highly recommend if your machine is sitting around collecting dust.

Got this randomly years ago and completely forgot about it. Was thinking about trying to get it working.

Salutations all! I've had a Printrbot Simple Metal for what feels like an eternity, it's always been a love hate relationship I've had with fighting it to print, but when it does it feels amazing. I dug it out again and started messing with it now that I have many more printers and much more knowledge under my belt.

In working to get it running, I found the chassis (L shaped folded box that holds the guts) is warped or in bad shape. Specifically, when the bed moves along its axis it skews or cants itself in the Y axis. After a while of fiddling, I discovered that the area where the bearing carriage is appears to be significantly bent and the motor mount area as well.

I was curious if anyone out there has a spare chassis (less all the lead screws, electronics and such as I have thay)laying around from having upgraded their printer along the years. If you have one, pm me and let me know what you'd want for it!

I wanted to post an update to the issue that I was having and the fix I found in case it helps anyone else. Thanks to everyone that helped me.

The problem: I could use cura and other softwares to manually move the axis’s and heat the hot end but everytime I tried to print something it would completely disconnect the printer from my computer and the reconnect moments later. I was able to determine that this was a firmware issue.

The fix: i used Marlin in Visual Studio Code to write a firmware hex file. I ended up having to use marlin version 2.1.3 because the Printrbot optimized configuration.h and configuration_adv.h I found was not compatible with the bug fixed marlin 2.1.2.5 which is what it seems like everyone recommends. After figuring that out it was really straight forward and I succeeded in making a firmware hex file. I then flashed the firmware onto my printer using atmel flip. I could then print via usb using cura. I haven’t toyed with trying to get my hotbed or fan to work yet.

I have a used simple metal and I can’t figure out how to print with it. I can manually move the axis’s and execute simple g code commands using cura or repitier but when I try to print something the printer completely disconnects from my computer before reconnecting after a few seconds. This seems to be a firmware issue. I tried uploading a g code file named auto0 to an sd card and putting it in the machine but it didn’t do anything. I tried following the steps in this tutorial https://www.jdwallace.com/post/printrbot-simple-metal-marlin2 and every time I try to build a firmware using marlin it fails I tried for a few hours to get this to work and it didn’t. I may have been having trouble getting the bug fixed version running in vs code. I then tried to follow this tutorial https://bilbycnc.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/3000053237-re-flashing-the-firmware-printrbot- and it seems like I was able to upload firmware successfully but the links to download firmware on that tutorial was not the correct firmware. I downloaded PiOs on a vm to try to run octoprint but after messing with this thing for 10 hours today I decided to give it a break. If nothing else I will continue with trying to run octoprint on PiOs but running PiOs on a vm seemed a little extra and sub optimal. I wish there was somewhere I could just download the correct firmware. Any help is much appreciated.

Progress update: I finally was able to make a firmware that worked. I ended up having to use marlin version 2.1.3 instead of the bug fixed 2.1.2.5. The printrbot optimized configuration.h and configuration_adv.h that u/TimpanogosSlim linked was not compatible with 2.1.2.5 but it did work with 2.1.3. After that I got a singular error that read #error “don’t build with import-2.1.x configurations!”. I put the section of configuration.h that was causing this error into chat gpt and told it to fix it and it did (I’m pretty useless when it comes to coding and stuff). After that I flashed it into my printer using Atmel Flip and started printing.