BLV MGN cube
From a Mendel printer to CoreXY system
Well, after a few years in the 3D printing world, 2 months ago I decided it was time to advance from my old printer, a cheap clone from the first iteration of Prusa i3 printer (I’m not sure about the version) bought on second hand market, I might say that after a bunch of modifications it went from an almost useless piece of trunk to a machine with great performance. And I think it still can do better.
But I feel like I need a little step further, I wanted a bigger print surface, better mechanic and more reliable electronics. Searching in the web, my first choice was Ender 5 plus. huge bed and I really liked the mechanic, but it will need some modifications like another motherboard, extrusor. Eventually the Ender 5 idea was reserved and I begun to look for a coreXY option, there was a model from Tronxy (I dónt remember exactly), same huge print surface, a little bit more tricky to mount, metal rails (I don´t like the wheels from creality). But this printer still need some modification aswell, my list was reduced because there are a few comercial models for coreXY kinetics, the best options are DIY designs.
So, initially I wanted a commercial printer but eventually, the most reasonable idea was one of the DIY designs, I choose BLV MGN Cube by Ben Levi. This printer has good enough documentation, a comunity, very polished design and you can found a complete kit on Aliexpress. So I decided to buy.
I haven’t documented the construction process because I usually am on a hurry to see the final result and forgot to take photos and so, by the way I will tell you article by article making a detailed review of the printer. But roughly, the printer is awesome, the structure is bombproof, the hiwin rails are so accurates adn you don’t see their importance till you have one in your hand. A lot of things depend on a few parts of the kit that maybe if I was choosing individually I would choose wiser and have less issues, but buying the kit is a good start point. Some things are so far from the quality standar of the design, extruder, heatbed, wires. The heatbed is basically useless FR4 PCB that you could see how it lift when heating with your eyes. I decided to buy a 8mm MIC 6 plate and AC heater.
So, in conclusion, the printer’s level is over my skills, it is a big challenge to me and that’s why I bought it. I think is going to performance like a profesional grade printer as soon as I could calibrate and fine adjust everything. You will have notice from me.
