Today, our new Printrbot Jr. v2 arrived in the mail. This printer is now added to our collection, bringing our classroom collection to three. Although, to be fair, our original Printrbot (2011) went home with some high school students this summer for experimentation and repair and has yet to be returned. Word on the street is that its electronics board has been updated, but the extruder nozzle has been lost. Stay tuned.Anyway, the kids were very eager to open our new bot. This model is particularly interesting, since it comes with a "travel power source" (like a laptop) and is small enough to fold into a backpack. Pretty slick.
Unfolding it was far more challenging than we expected, and there was no documentation on the web (perhaps because it should have been self-explanatory?) We figured you had to remove the wooden pieces (1 and 2 below) to "unlock" it. But then we didn't realize that you had to slide the entire assembly up (3) - almost removing it from the posts - in order to lower the platform (4), which can then be secured with a couple of plastic screws.
My/our goal(s) with this printer include:
- Allowing more print jobs to be running simultaneously, shortening the time student projects are in queue
- Compare the experience of using PLA to our ABS usage so far
- To try Repetier-Host as an alternative to Replicator G
- To bring it (in a backpack) home to visit family in Chicago so they can experience 3D printing in the comfort of their own, relatively-luddite home :)
We'll keep you posted as we begin our newest Printrbot adventures!
I'll leave you with this image: on my classroom door, there is a dry erase board, which is changed a few times daily (by kids) to reflect what the zebra would be saying... when I was leaving for the afternoon, I saw that, clearly, the zebra approves.
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