Velleman K8400 Vertex 3D Printer, 1 Grade to 12 Grade, 14" Height, 15.5" Wide, 15" Length

This is a great investment and a wonderful kit. I've had mine for over a year and have made many prints that saved me in fixing things and making things needed that are not on the market. One time we made a special mount for a rear view camera, screen and light with a bank of switches for my whee!chair. What cost about $30 would have cost a minimum of 100 times that had I used the chair maker's option. Another time I made special sliders out of nylon to replace the sliders on an accordion door that had broken off.. Another time I made adapters for casters to put on my garden rack.Having built this kit myself, I can fix what is wrong and upgrade things as time goes onward. They also include many extra parts, so if things get messed up, you have extras. If you lie to build things and tinker, this is the way to go and save a ton of cash. If you are a short tempered and insist on instant gratification, you better pay some company to build and coddle you.After a year, I'm ready to upgrade the hardware and can print out new mounts and other fixes. But having built the machine, I know what to do and why to do it. I also have gotten familiar with different suppliers and their reputation.This printer has a strong user forum and a company with a good reputation that stands behind their product. They have changed the kit with upgraded pulleys and other things after my purchase. In other words they want their customers to have the best and continue to improve the kit.I like the size of the printer and the ability to move it.

the product kep

Hi,I ordered the Velleman k8400 3-d printer kit about 3 weeks ago. For a printer of 600$, I was impressed by its strong plastic frames and the very witty design but aligning the motors was very hard. The online instructions were incorrect and had to redo it three times to achieve smooth printer head movement. Even now, my belts have a little trouble with tension and that was fixed by ordering an external tensioner. I probably spent 20 hours after finishing the online tutorial to get it to the point of printing well which is a lot of time and thus, led to my disappointment in this product. I hope you can fix the online instructions to make the alignment easier for future buyers and maybe even tweak the design of the printer to make an easier setup.Thank you,

This printer, for PLA is a one of the best. The bed levels quickly so consecutive printing is quite easy, especially with a prepared second glass bed. One this I warn about this printer for the modders is pay attention to the voltage. This printer operates on 15v, selection of parts is very limited in that category. I replaced the motherboard on mine and switched over to 24v, the heated bed I purchased required one so I added an MKS Gen 1 to the cart aswell, with a mosfet and now I have the perfect small printer that runs circles around similarly sized Makerbot mini's that coast 3x the amount and I can print PETG, I replaced the teflon tubing in the hot ends with Capricorn Tube so 240C printing isnt difficult. Great machine to start with, once you get familiar with its quirks. Also use Cura as your slicer, not the included Repetier Host.

I read about this printer in a Make magazine review, and the author promoted it as a great kit experience.Assembling the kit is extremely difficult, and can get tedious. Some specialized tools can help solve this, such as snap ring pliers. Overall I would say the build was about average compared to some of the other printers I have built.Calibration was where this printer really struggles. The gantry system used requires that the rods remain perfectly parallel, and it takes about three tries to get it perfect.Where this printer lost stars was its electronics. The mainboard and stepper drivers are practically disposable and I ran through three sets of drivers and two mainboards. Be prepared to replace these parts with better documented and supported systems such as RAMPS.Overall I was slightly disappointed in this printer because it is extremely difficult to get any sort of reliability. The only reason I give the printer three stars instead of one is because of its good value over similar systems.