What have I missed the last 6 months with the K2 Plus / FMS Combo?

Flagship K Series
1

What have I missed the last 6 months with the K2 Plus / FMS Combo?

After being disgusted with belt tension errors and nozzle clogging’s, I gave up on it.
When I first got it, I did do a huge amount of printing with it with zero problems. Then the tube hold in the head broken and the shard broke the filament cutter and then new firmware download and the printed did not work worth a shxt afterwards. Creality would not answer tech support questions and yada yada yada.

Since the beginning of April, I have been working outside on a Jeep restoration project and have not turned it on once. My X1C have been doing all my printing needs and performing like a reliable appliance.

Tonight, I am cleaning the K2MAX up and turned it on and left it download new firmware and am letting it do a lot of self tests. It has not printed yet.

I just hope it will work again. I can start out with a new fresh nozzle after all the testing is done.

I really hope I do not have to get too deep in the printer to make it reliable again. I want a good 3D printing appliance. I do not want to put this printer in to storage.

I have an H2S combo on order from Bambu. I hope it doesn’t have big printer issues the way this K2MAX did.

As I said, when I first got this K2MAX, I loved it and it worked great! I made large drawer divider bases very nicely and quickly and then all the drawer box inserts (gridfinity). It could large Jobs the X1C couldn’t. I could print multiple of an item at once in it, where the X1C could only do one at a time.

I am just very leery of getting started with it again. I probably have forgotten too much about it in these last six months and will need to relearn. Also, I have not been getting daily summary messages from these boards like I used to.

Anyway, thanks for any answer or updates you can give me.

  • Dave
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These 3D printers are really a game changer (not specifically Creality lol) for making modified parts, making test brackets and so many other things on automotive projects compared to the way we use to do things. I have a custom auto shop and these printers run non-stop. From scanning a spindle, rotor, and caliper to CAD and designing a bracket to mount it all, hit a button to print and test fit everything before sending the file to the machinist. I’ve had good luck with the K1 MAX printers even with the small issues they are known for but this K2 has been a problem since I opened the box. When it prints it prints as nice as my modded out K1s but that is “when” it prints.

Now I have learned enough about how they work I built my own CNC Plasma and will be working on a small CNC next using a few parts from this 1200 dollar box to recoup some money.

If you can restore a Jeep you could build a 3d printer/CNC/laser engraver that will do what you want when you want. The control side seems daunting but there is so much info available and open-source firmware for control it is hard not to do it.

3

When the K2 first arrived it worked flawlessly and I was in-love with it. That only lasted maybe a month or month and a half.

Tonight during a calibration, the damn Belt Tension error came up (doesn’t tell me which one, but I think I know). Last night that error did not come up. I figured it was fixed in the new firmware it downloaded. Nope. I had printed out the belt tension tool; didn’t do any good, but I can try again, I guess.

For the last two weeks, the Bambu X1C has been going non-stop, making special part storage form my electronics shop and not one single failed print!

Last night I thought I would try to a bunch of shelf inserts on the K2. I took advantage of its large bed and made a lot of them. Every time I got up last night, during commercials to pee, I checked on it and it was doing well. I woke up at 3AM to pee. I checked on it (only had maybe an hour and a half to two hours to go) and it was still printing well. Got up this morning to a fxcking mess!! In this case, I think it was bed adhesion. about 6 of the smaller inserts and only one of the double size inserts finished. the rest pulled off the bed (or were knocked off, I do not know which). I can not find my bottle of Nano Polymer Adhesive glue. This expensive stuff solved a lot of my problems in the past. So I ordered another bottle from Amazon ($40); and will get it Thursday.

I know six month ago, I just lost patience with this printer. I should have know better than to buy one from the same people that made my first ever 3D printer, the Ender 3+. You want to talk about a piece of shxt printer! One that I had to constantly fxck with to get it to ultra-slowly print out; but it got me started and hook in this hobby (although I mainly make stuff for my shop).

I did order the new-ish Bambu H2S. I don’t care if Chairman Xu has to approve every print, or whatever people are complaining about the Bambu Cloud being needed for network printing; the X1C works solid as an appliance. I hope the H2S is as good.

I just hate the idea of putting this K2Max in to storage (basically throwing it away), because I cannot trust it.

Once I find my bottle of Nano Polymer Adhesive, or the new bottle arrives, I am going to try 7-8 hour print again. If it fails again, I might just throw away the K2MAX, not to have to screw with it anymore. Mental health and stress is not worth the $1500 printer (I think that is wat it was with its FMS last year when it first came out).

-Dave