Please check my thinking on a Trident kit

[Dmitriy]

I am a complete beginner at this – never built a printer before. I am ready to jump into a Trident 300 build. My objective is to have a printer that’s as ‘standard’ as possible for serviceability, parts availability in the future and the ease of the build. I want to be able to follow standard manuals without any deviations or upgrades (for now). I am considering a Formbot kit by the process of elimination. It seems to be as standard as possible. There is also anecdotal evidence that they’ve been improving parts quality over time.


Eliminated:

1) LDO – I am willing to pay for quality. But they got some non standard toolhead PCB and wiring. I am also not looking to be locked into the Revo ecosystem and depend on them for nozzles. A Dragon is good enough for me where there are plenty of sourcing options.

2) Fystec – appears to be a hit and miss on both quality and customer service.

3) Siboor – what’s up with purple? Color is a personal preference; but, purple is so...not neutral. More importantly the Spider board appears to be not so reputable. I’d rather go with a BTT. I also don’t know much about their quality. Aren’t hey new on the scene?


My plan is also to toss whichever the SBC a kit comes with. I already got a Raspberry PI 4. Additionally, I plan to source original Bondtech extruder gears. I also got a Dragon and a BTT 1.1 on the way. They will be spares if whichever the kit I select comes with the same.


Please let me know if I am missing any considerations.


Thanks

 

[WhiteWulfe]

Formbot is another popular kit provider. I have mixed opinions on them, but their kit was servicable, and Foxyfluff has seen over 1,200 hours of use. It's just had a few things replaced like the linear rails as well as the wiring in the drag chains that failed after 1,050 or so hours of printing - I refuse to call their wiring a "harness", since it's just pre-cut and terminated wires for a 350mm in all their Trident and v2.4 kits. Oh yeah, and the weird magnet-based XY PCB they used to have in their kits (word is it's now the proper switch based one).

As for that "non-standard" PCB, the toolhead PCB is a very common mod as it makes changing things fairly easy, and LDO's toolhead breakout board also means that replacing the drag chain wires when they wear out is a fairly easy thing to do (it's literally just change that 14-wire harness and you're back in business).

I probably won't buy a Formbot kit again for a few reasons, but the biggest ones are their lackluster customer care (they told me something along the lines of "we don't see how that's our problem" when I mentioned things missed in my kit), the fact they force delivery to your set address (I use UPS MyChoice because I work during the day, so I had to book a last minute day off), and I just greatly prefer how LDO packages things. Oh yeah, Formbot may or may not follow the actual correct specs from the designers, and most importantly for me is the fact that their cost difference "advantage" isn't always as large as it may initially seem (in my case, for my 350mm v2.4, it was about $285 CAD difference between them and an LDO kit based upon my specifications and personal preferences). Many have had good experiences with Formbot, but I prefer to give my money to a company that actively supports the hobby AND provides actual proper customer service... Several people from LDO are regularly replying in their section on the Voron Discord, plus they'll take care of issues, even if it's something as simple as "hey, I got sent the wrong amount of screws because an M5 wound up in one of my M3 bags".

As for the Revo Voron included in Rev C kits, you can always either use it for another project or sell it to someone else and use a Dragon hotend - you aren't locked into using it with their kits.

 

[Sanity Agathion]

No, you're good. VORONs are DIY design, you build your printer however you want

There is also Formbot, and Magic Phoenix. Formbot is pretty good price/performance proposal, just their fans in older kits tend to die, if you get it with Dragon HF get 50W heater cartridge, and their wires tend to break within few weeks of use.

Magic Phoenix kits seem to be very non-problematic and people usually praise them so that's a valid option to look at as well.

 

[claudermilk]

I can only comment on LDO though the Formbot kit seems well regarded now as well. LDO has strong support--Jason is around all the time and is a really good guy. There are some value-added mods included in an LDO kit and they are pretty well documented on LDO's site. Most are very common mods and have a lot of experience and support in the community. In fact, I updated my self-sourced Trident to LDO's tool head wiring; got a 2-piece hartk PCB, so I added the 14-pin cable and LDO's breakout PCB. It's going to be so much easier to replace that wiring down the road.

I don't have an issue with Revo nozzles. There's plenty of availability and considering what they are pricing is reasonable. There are also clones available on Ali already. I will have 3 printers on Revos once the current project is done (Trident, V0.2, and Prusa Mini). IMHO it's a good design is you aren't trying to go super fast and E3D's support has been great. Just my $0.02.

I am currently building an LDO kit V0.2 and the parts are top quality. No complaints at all.

 

[Dmitriy]

Thank you very much, everybody for sharing your insights!

 

[Dmitriy]

I ended up going with a Formbot kit. Assembly is complete. For anyone considering Formbot in the future – my feedback is below. Overall, I have no regrets.

Good: extrusions, brand name hot end (I went with Dragon), genuine belts, hardware is labeled, wires are labeled, the Z-endstop came fully assembled, XY endstop came fully assembled, BTT board (which was my preference), stainless rails with no grease, pegs on rail ends (prevent carriage from sliding off), stealthburner leds are soldered, both the board and the display are same brand (makes wiring easier).

Areas of improvement: there were no 3x10 bolts, the bottom panel wasn’t a great fit (catches on z motor connectors), some nuts had a bad thread, no cable to ground to the frame.

Wish list items that would have been nice to have with a kit, but not expected: genuine Bondtech gears, a proper Raspberry PI, lube for gears and rails, thread locker, gasket sealant, a klicky.