Seconding the confused Voron noises. I mean, I’d be really curious to see the 3d printer firmware market share beak down, but I feel like anybody building a custom printer is going to have a far easier time with Klipper, just because of how much easier it is to get dialed in.

Right? I tried to switch my primary computer (framework laptop) to Linux earlier this year and ended up going back to windows after I had absolute nightmares with my type-c KVM. Coupled with performance issues while gaming (and the absolute hassle of having to force games to use my graphics card). Add in whatever random issues I was getting trying to remote into other windows machines on my domain (for CAD work). My day job is in software engineering/ programming, so I’m not exactly a stranger to digging through documentation and fixing computer issues, but spending time fixing my computer instead of using it got old pretty quick.

Perfectly happy with Linux in my HomeLab and on my steamdeck though!

Not to burst your bubble (it’s super neat to see a major company starting down the road to repairability; fingers crossed they commit to the bit), but this was posted to this community relatively recently: https://sh.itjust.works/post/37825020

True, I knew that my Voron would work out to be more expensive than the leading competitor, but I also highly value the open source ethos and saw it as an opportunity to put my money where my mouth is. No regrets and I’m happy to champion it, but I do try to present other options on the field.

My broke college student days aren’t that far behind me and I can appreciate the hell out of a value option. I’m very curious what route you have in mind.

Sure, happy to help! (Plus, I’d feel really bad recommending a Voron build and then just leaving you in the dark to figure everything out). Sorry in advance for the long post though…

Yes, Klicky Switch is the probe. Mechanically, it’s pretty similar to a BL-Touch, but is way cheaper (bonus points for also being harder to break and easier to fix) since it’s just a switch and some magnets.*

Clicky Clack is a replacement for the stock door (acrylic and some VHB tape), it makes a better seal with the printer frame. Nice to have (especially if you’re trying to keep fumes down), but by no means necessary.

Belt gauges are most handy for 2.4 builds, since they run 4 belts instead of lead screws (plus 2 for the Core XY platform) that you want to have all tensioned the same, so that every motor is moving it’s corner the same amount. Technically, you can do this by plucking the belt and using the mic on your phone to measure the frequency. (More info here). The gauge is mostly just to make it easier to compare the belts against each other rather than an empirical measurement tool. Again not a need, just a nice to have. I’ve never used the Amazon gauges since I went the kit route as it was “cheaper” (I’m also reasonably sure most of the gauges on Amazon are just modified tire depth gauges, which can be had for way cheaper and with a bit of quick modeling could be relatively easily be converted into belt gauges (or maybe someone’s already done that somewhere). There’s also printed models like this or maybe this that seve the same function. In short, haven’t tried them, but anything that can give you the same measurements repeatedly should do just fine (you can always sound tension one belt, measure it and make the others match the measurement).

Whoops typo, sorry extrusion backers. These guys: steel, titanium

Not super sure about the Tridents being self leveling, I think they are, but it would kinda depend on how they’re wired up (3 independent motors vs all 3 driven off the same control signal). The 2.4’s are absolutely self leveling though- they do a probe of each corner and adjust the gantry to be as parallel to the bed as you specify( example). From there, they’ll also probe a bed mesh, just to help deal with any deviations in the bed/ plate.

Octopus is the main control board, I think they were used for commonly for a while, but I’m not sure if they’ve been superseded by something else. Plus, I don’t have one and can’t speak to it. Mini123864 looks to be the display screen (used for Klipper Screen). You’d probably want to check the kit contents to see if a Pi is included, but based on those two alone, I’d say probably not.

(Personally, it’s a big part of why I went with the LDO kit, (this is the one I bought. More expensive, but came with high quality parts, minor upgrades, and everything short of the printed parts in the box, plus Fabreeko was running a sale when I bought mine (Voron folks like to Celebrate Clee day (was 5/25 last year) in honor of one of the outstanding community members/ Voron team members (?)/ I’m not actually entirely sure))

Uhh… Slice is not particularly well liked in Voron circles. They are very litigious with their patents, which doesn’t sit well with a crowd that is open source, well, everything (previous comment of mine with more info/ links). I think remember reading somewhere that there might be some bad blood between the Voron team and Slice, but I don’t have a link/ hard proof (beyond the fact that mounts for Slice hotends aren’t officially published with the toolhead files. If your deadset, user mods exist (and slice also sells parts)). Personally, I wasn’t all that impressed with my Mosquito Magnum, especially after I managed to irrecoverably jam the heatbreak (probably my fault. the cooling fan unplugged and heatcreap took care of the rest). Online reviews of Slice’s customer service are mixed mixed, but generally skewed negative, so I wrote the hot end off as a loss (also managed to strip one of the tiny ass m2 screws that hold the thing together trying to take it apart after the aforementioned heatcreap incident), and put Slice on my do-not-buy list. The heater and thermistor were fine- I stuffed them in a Phaetus Dragonfly though (less flow, but a solidly reliable hot end, especially on an Ender 3), and decommissioned them when I noticed that the insulation had worn though on the heater.

On the Voron, I’ve been pretty happy with the Revo High Flow that came with my Kit. Well, other than the fact that nozzle clogs are a nightmare (the HF variants are very difficult to clean/ cold pull), the cost for replacements, and general lack of availability (they exist, but my go-to vendors are almost always sold out). I haven’t decided to yet (because I don’t particularly want to recalibrate everything), but I have a Phaetus neXt G as a standby if I ever get fed up with the Revo. The Phaetus Rapido is also a popular option.

Haven’t used the Orbiter either. I don’t think I had any major issues with the stock Clockwork (it’s also been a while). I think I mostly swapped in a Galileo 2 (G2E) as a way to keep a spare extruder around in case of emergency. Overall, G2E has been pretty good- prints fine, just a bit annoying to service in the rare event of a jam (I was playing with TPU), and not known to play well with the Box Turtle MMU project that I’m working on, but that’s a problem from future me (after I get it built)…

* I can’t personally vouch for it, but in the spirit of overkill, I should probably also mention the Beacon probe, which is a stupid fast Eddy current sensor (more info here) (replaces the Klicky switch/ inductive probe).

Realistically, a good sale probably keeps you on budget (all in, after tax), but if we’re fudging that a bit in the name of upgrades, this is about the route I would go if I had to do my machine over (take this with a massive grain of salt since everyone’s goals are slightly different (and also since I bought mostly of my stuff before the tarrif nonsense started)):

Fabreeko:

• LDO 2.4 350 kit
• Backers, mostly for the discount with machine purchase, but also because I print mostly ABS lately and like not having to worry about heat soaking my machine (warm it up in advance so that any warping gets calibrated out) before each print.
• Printed parts, I tried to get the ender to print Voron parts, I really did (and was somewhat successful), but I ended up spending more time and money trying. If you don’t have a reliable source for ABS parts it’s absolutely worth the $150
• Aluminum carriage mount, significantly easier to work with the AB belts and get even lengths and tensions. Plus including in the initial build means that you don’t have the re-do the belts to install it (totally doable, just annoying).
• Nevermore Carbon, not really a mod, but a consumable that you probably don’t just have on hand. Helps cut ABS fumes (when in a filter like the included Nevermore or The Filter) and won’t corrode the nice new rails.

Pre-tax, MSRP: $1,713.21 (ideally on sale for a lower price (the kits don’t tend to get much of a discount, but sometimes they throw in free printed parts or other discounts) and maybe the Clicky Clack door + acrylic if it’s a really good sale)

AliExpress:

• PCB Klicky, x2 to put it over the free shipping limit and for spare parts

total ~$20

To answer your question, Slice stuff off the bat is probably unnecessary (if you’ve got money burning a hole in your pocket, there’s better value to be had in other mods). The nice part about Vorons is that everything can be upgraded pretty easily down the road, hopefully because you’ve identified a specific need or reason to upgrade.

I believe the official Voron recommendation is to build the printer stock first and then upgrade/ mod from there. Which is solid advice, the stock machines are very competent and don’t need upgrades to print well.

The only real day-1 upgrade I’d recommend is called the Klicky switch (or the PCB variant so that you don’t have to do any soldering, just crimping). The stock BoM calls for an inductive probe, which works, but is prone to thermal drift (it gets less accurate as the printer heats up, so you have to do your bed mesh at the same temperature every time). Klicky replaces it with a limit switch- generally more reliable and accurate regardless of temperature.

I might also recommend a belt tension gauge (totally not needed, but more convenient than trying to measure the sound frequency). I use a remix of this one (assembled, kit), but realistically, anything repeatable will do the trick.

Everything beyond that is going to depend heavily on your kit, printer, and needs. For example, the LDO kits actually come with the mechanical parts for the Klicky switch among other nice to haves. Or alternatively, if you’re doing a 350 2.4 and planning on long running enclosed prints (ABS/ASA), extension extrusion backers for the flying gantry may be a good idea (the steel linear rails and aluminum have different rates of thermal expansion, which can cause them to bend as the internal volume of the printer warms up), but they’re not especially necessary if you have a smaller printer or only ever work with PLA (which you can leave the door open/ panels off for).

The official Voron discord is also a phenomenal resource. Plus most vendors run their own discord servers for help/ questions (I’m partial to Fabreeko, because their customer service is above and beyond, but West3D is also really good).

The new printer, hands down (unless your goal is to push the viper beyond its limits). That kind of budget puts you far beyond entry level machines, and usually comes with marked improvements in quality, reliability, and speed. For example, with 1.5k you could probably swing one of the big Vorons 2.4 kits on sale (+printed parts), a Trident kit at retail (also with printed parts), or go the out of the box route and comfortably pick up the Core One (or go Bambu if that’s your jam).

For context, I can run prints on my 2.4 what would take something in the neighborhood of 4 times as long on my old ender 3.

I’m a fan of Martin Fowler, I’ve used his blog post on Tech Debt to explain to managers why you can’t just give a 15-year team-killer of an app to a bunch of newbies and expect smooth sailing. His refactoring book is also pretty great. Not necessarily philosophy, or a gripping cover to cover read, but skimming though it as part of a grad school class got me thinking about how I’d refactor my own code and changed my approach to coding (most notably in favoring a series of linq queries/ streams/ es6 array ops, over ugly loops with a tangle of branching logic inside).

Got a PineTime for Christmas and so far been very pleased with it. I found the PineTimeStyle watchface and it’s been a bit like coming home to Pebble, but I do miss the wide array of watchface choices and effortless customization.

I wanted to echo this by saying that my lab stated as 4 bay Qnap NAS and evolved into repurposed consumer hardware as my interests and needs changed. My current server is an Optiplex that I bought for being small, quiet, and hanging lots of cores and my NAS is just my old gaming PC build with an HBA card (for extra SATA lanes) stuffed into a fancy case. A server is any computer that you say is a server (ideally one with functional network connectivity).

I’ve got a Steam family going with my siblings and it makes me feel significantly better about my backlog, because even if I don’t get to it there’s probably something for everyone in the mix somewhere. Plus every now and again it’s nice to break out a random indy game that nobody’s played and just collectively suck together.

Boost’s ads are mostly there to support the developer, but a one time purchase ($5 irrc) absolutely makes them go away.

Not quite Gengar doing a kick flip, but still delightful!

Also a 2.4 owner, I bought the 350 LDO kit from Fabreeko and it was delivered back in August. Getting it assembled and dialed in was certainly a process, but aside from that it’s been an absolute workhorse (I think I’ve got something like 200+ hours of print time in; completely blows my Thessian Ender out of the water in terms of both speed and reliability). You certainly can tinker with it and make it a project printer, but they print really well stock. The only mod I’d say is anywhere near required is swapping out the magnetic bed meshing sensor, only because the sensor readings tend to drift as the sensor gets hot. You can totally work around it, by waiting for the printer to warm all the way up or cool down to ambient before printing, but I’m impatient plus the mouse switch mod (Klicky) tends to be more reliable and accurate (plus it’s temperature agnostic).

Don’t get me wrong I’ve totally modded mine: swapped out some of the plastic parts for metal ones, added a brush to clean the nozzle before my print (makes for more consistent Z heights), replaced the panel clips with snap latches, but none of it was required to make the printer print better (mostly just to make maintenance easier and partly because it looks cool).

The new hotness in the open source MMU space is ArmoredTurtle’s BoxTurtle project, which seeks to be an open source equivalent of the Bambu AMS. I’m still working on the parts for mine, but from everything I’ve seen the build is way less fiddly (and as a result more reliable) than the ERCF.

Seconding kit Vorons. While they certainly aren’t the cheapest option, they aren’t that much more expensive than other higher end core XY machines. Fabreeko* has the 250/300mm Trident kit at 1.2k and 350mm 2.4 at 1.4k + an extra $150 or so for printed parts. Compared to the new Core One at between 950 - 1.2k or the X1C also at 1.2k you’re looking at an extra $150 to 350, but that also comes with build volume increases (both the Prusa and Bambu are at roughly 250 mm³). Definitely wouldn’t recommend them as a first printer, but Vorons are shining examples of what’s possible with open source (and they’re absolute workhorses too).

* Highly recommend them with glowing praise for being all around fantastic (they also run sales on the regular, though kit deals are usually reserved for special occasions like black Friday, or Clee day)

E3D makes pretty decent stuff and is based out of the UK- it’s just annoying and expensive to get ahold of everywhere else (insert generic grumbles about Revo nozzles). Otherwise, I’ve had good luck with Phaetus nozzles, but I’m not sure that pricing/ availability looks like in the UK.

Why do you print like you’re running out of time?

There’s some community history, but the short version is that the US patent office issued Slice a patent for surgical tube in hot ends* which Slice has then used to litigate away competition. As a result, Slice’s actions have not sat particularly well with the parts of the 3d printing community that value open source and community innovation.

* there’s some debate as to the validity of that patent as there’s evidence that this idea dates back to the early reprap movement. Source.

Additional commentary

Given that the video is over a year old, nice to see that slice hasn’t tried to sue him out of existence.