I have one for a couple months. I love it, but its not as polished as the big brands. The performance is there tho! Network controller feels a bit janky, but not trash either. Love the screen qnd charging speed for sure
Hello. Can you please elaborate where you got the information about the IDEX requiring additional X length beyond what's specified on the V-Core 4 specifications site? I cannot find any information about this anywhere from official RatRig communications. Wouldn't this require a full re-build to upgrade to IDEX, contrary to what has been marketed, where the only addition required for IDEX being the additional toolhead + purge covers? I have a space built for my soon-to-come 500mm v4, and an additional amount of X length would ruin this and require a complete re-work of the platform + plans for spacing. EDIT: After further research, I believe you have divulged incorrect information about the IDEX kit regarding the VCore-4 and it requiring a "+100 mm per build increase" as you claimed at 2:55 in the video. Per the Rat-Rag V-Core 4 site: " - The IDEX add-on will be offered as an add-on soon, and it’s not available for reservation. These are “drop-in” upgrades: no rebuild of the machine is necessary, converting between modes is just a matter of swapping a few components on your existing build." Please correct the video, as this is confusing information for a large channel like yours to release to consumers.
@@Personnenenparle Same here: Didn't expect to love it THAT much as I do. Gaming with it is SO much fun. My old phone (iPhone 11 Pro) has performance issues (at normal use, not even gaming) after using it for over four years now and the RM9 pro is just such a boost using it. Android has become great too meanwhile.
You've got to decide; do you want a slit in the plate for accurate temperature, but have the bed expand unevenly and therefor bend or do you want a flat bed?
That is crazy they didn't add the orbiter filament runout sensor, especially with how well it works. It is an absolute necessity to have one these days.
To be fair and I absolutely forgot to mention: They sent me one afterwards and stated that assembled printers can be opted to be used with run-out sensor!
@@247printing when compared to the orbitor filament sensor I have it but I prefer much more the BTT SFS V2. Not only it is a filament sensor it also measures how much filament goes in so it can detect clogs or under extrusion, it saved me many times and payed for it self many times over on big prints!
@@247printingI see you say assembled ones, what about pre ordered ones ? My first time coming across you channel and absolutely love your content. I understand stand 20% of it simply because also I own 7 different printers I’ve never dived so deep as you do here . Your video makes me want to learn so much more ( if or when I get time between learning home assistant and other random tech I’m fairly bad at 😅).
Great review I’m also interested in a fully built 500, hope they take on board your review and add the tweaks and test it before shipping top stuff it would be a nice addition to my farm and I can safely retire old faithful CR10max which as at the moment been chugging for 3 days
Thanks for honest, entertaining, and informative review for Ratrigs V-Core-4. Nice to see you perform real world stress tests and feedback from someone who knows how to push the boundaries and find solutions as well.
@@247printingHow difficult would this be to put together if you'd never put together or taken a printer apart? Like I'm talking full noob, only ever owned 2 pre built printers..
As an engineer I have to correct something you mention. This has to do with the increase of frequency and the proposed likely cause of this (mentioned at 11:06 ) Firstly we assume dominant second order behavior (i.e. assuming that there's a dominant pair of poles of the openloop mechanical system), which I think is a fair assumption. Damping doesn't do anything to shift first mode mechanical eigen frequency peaks, it merely dampens them (as the name implies) and thus would manifest as a lower magnitude peak. Resonance frequency is directly related to a mass-stiffness combination. In this case, the mass of the toolhead barely increases, yet the driving stiffness approximately doubles, as you are placing the belts essentially in parallel. Doubling the driving stiffness of a 2nd od system by 2x would lead to an increase of frequency of sqrt(2), thus we expect an eigenfrequency approximately 1.4x higher. This is exactly what we see in the result (an increase of ~1.38x according to your data). Using belts that are ~2x the thickness or height would do the same for 'regular' core x-y (or really any other kinds of) printers (I would recommend a 2x change in height, as that would not affect the minimum bending radius as much). Just ensure that you take into account an increased need for torque from the actuators due to the higher accelerations. Although I like the attempt to innovate with the hybrid system, just using wider belts would honestly be a more elegant solution, as you are not dealing with as many overconstraints, and it is much simpler and less costly. But! The hybrid system does make a lot of sense if you opt for the IDEX system that they will offer in the future! There it would be a necessity.
First of all thanks for the correction and detailed explanation. I repeat in short: It's not the "dampening effect" as I stated, it's the increase of the driving stiffness due to additional belts. Theory matches measurements, what's great to see.
@@ScottHess Yes they would. But the way belts are mounted to steppers in most printers is not the way it should be done. Bearings in motors and gearboxes are not very well suited for large radial loads. Usually an actuator spindle is decoupled with a flex coupling, and the pulley is mounted on its own axle with a bearing on either side. By mounting bearings on either side you won't have any issues with leverage, no matter how wide the belt is. The disadvantage of this setup is quite obvious: Its more costly compared to directly mounting the pulleys onto the motors.
I am not sure how relevant and/or new this is to you and your 8mm thick 500 bed but here is my experience with V-Core 3 500 I have had for almost 3 years now: Thermal expansion is a very serious issue on the 500 and can lead to some puzzling results. It is one way to get your first layer issues even if the physical geometry of the printer is absolutely perfect. I can say from experience this is non-existent on the 200 and from what I hear the 300 has no such issues either with the 400 showing maybe some of it. In more detail there are two sources of the problem: - when the bed temp sensor reaches the set temperature the top surface is not yet at the temperature as shown in this video. This means the bed plate is deformed downward in the middle (hot and expanded bottom, cooler less expanded top). If you run a print starting with cold printer the bed mesh will probably be done before the bed is in its final shape which it will only reach when at final thermal equilibrium. So your first layer starts fine and then keeps getting more and more thin as the bed gets heat soaked and rises back up mainly in the center. How noticeable it is will depend on timing and bed temperature. - the gantry is cold it has some sag/natural shape to it. As it heats up the aluminium extrusion wants to expand more than the steel rail on top so the sag in the middle increases. This also means the nozzle is slowly getting lower and lower after the start of the print and makes your layer thinner. The two things obviously compound each other. If you just finished a print, swapped the bed surface and started the next print in the same material right away you will not notice any problems at all - the shape of the bed and gantry did not move enough to be significant. If you have the printer at room temperature and try to do a large first layer in ASA/ABS right away you might have to babysit the first layer and slowly raise offset by several tenths of a milimeter. What I found works well for me is to set the bed temperature, set the hotend to 150°C and home all axes, which parks the toolhead just above the center of the bed. Then I go prepare the model, slice it etc. By the time I send it to the printer the bed has had time to soak up the heat and the gantry is warmed up too having been sitting above the hot bed and having the hotend fan blow air onto it. Since RatOS start print macro sees axes are homed and bed temperature and 150 nozzle are reached it will skip those steps and go to bed mesh and printing. With my printer it turns out about 20 minutes of such heat soaking is perfectly enough for PLA, around 30 minutes for PETG and about 40-45 for ASA/ABS. That is if everything was at room temperature before. Shorter if it has not had time to cool down from prefious print. With such heat soaking I can fire off the print and forget it. I can skip the heat soaking but then I watch the first layer and slowly increase offset as needed. The heatsoaking happens during the first layer so the subsequent layers are fine.
@@kilianlindlbauer8277 yes, you can get away with not doing it but it depends on lots of things, and how long of a heatsoak is needed varies depending on several things. But following your short rule will work as long as you heatsoak long enough.
Thanks for the in-depth review! This Hybrid system performs even better than I'd expected, nice work RatRig! I've often dream up kinematic designs that make use of additional redundant axis.. Like, is this a way to higher accelerations and faster infill times : Lightweight servo/piezo driven X-Y stage between the Gantry and the Hotend ,capable of a few mm of X-Y deflection Firmware would decide when to move the X-Y gantry or the U-V toolhead axis ..I'm just a layman, so idk.. ..but the idea being to only have to jerk the Hotend weight during eratic XY moves
You’re without a doubt one of the best 3d printer reviewers in the game right now, imo. You deserve all the subs! Really appreciate your authenticity and honesty in your reviews, and i’ll take every word to heart and discuss it with the team. We’ll get those points addressed 💪
Thanks a lot Mikkel. As I said: It’s nitpicking at a high level and I am sure that there is not many news for you and Rat Rig there. Really, really mature stuff!
@@247printing i Just ordered a 500x500 and im so curious about this. Also about Index, was toying around with a k1 b4 but this is a completely different Thing. Grüße aus Hannover
Any updates? You seem to be the only person whos gotten one and made a review video on it. They continue to oush back ship dates on these and am beginning to think these dont actually exist.
No chamber temp sensor?.. Seems like an odd thing to leave out of this kind of printer. Either way, this printer is one of the most innovative things I've seen in a long time. I'll probably pick up a 500 eventually.
crazy how fast 3d Printing is evolving in the last few years! can't imagine in the next few years how will this scene look. Of course machines like this one rat rig or Voron types are not entry level demanding an extensive knowledge in the matter. Love also everything about the structure of the video. You gained a new subscriber!
Nice Video! i recently built 2 vcore3 500 and i have to say that i really dont like how the gantry is connecting the belts to the head. It looks like this system is also present in the vcore4. The problem is that it is depending on the preload of the belts if the gantry is in 90 degree to the frame. In my opinion this is a very bad design decision since this moves over time and strains the components such as the linear rails and also the connecting abs parts. IMO the better solution is the way voron was going where all 4 ends of the belts are coming together on the frontside of the head.
I was soooo curious to see that hybrid concept of the corexy!! The results are stunning 🤯🤯🤯 this could be the start of a new chapter!.... And great job on improving already the first flaws of the printer so quickly and sharing with the community. This is mad german engineering quality 🤩
Awesome video!!.... I bet the 3d printing companies are craving for your consulting as you are improving every 3d printer with your expertise. You should go all in and do your own printer 👌
Beautiful machine. And 500x500? That's HUGE!! I'd love to have something like that. The price isn't bad, but they're still not selling them on their website. Just a queue to joint to eventually maybe get one. I'm hoping, with more feedback from people like yourself, they'll be able to further improve this printer and it'll really be something great to own, without too much fuss. I don't think I'd like to build one myself, so it would have to be a pre-built for me. Looking forward to more reviews of this printer.
Fantastic review! I'm saving up for a 500mm model. I will probably order sometime early next year,, hopefully these early issues will be well resolved by then.
Great review; I love your nit-picking. I placed my VC4 500 hybrid order on the 2nd of May, so have some time before the kit arrives. I've subscribed to your channel and await more videos on this exciting printer!
Great review my friend. Your attention to detail and honesty is much appreciated. Very glad to hear they are going to sell a fully assembled one for those of us who look at printers as a tool, no different than my table saw. I will be keeping a close eye on this printer to see how it evolves and I can easily see myself purchasing one of the assembled versions. I heard you say you love printing in PETG, have you tried Elegoo Rapid PETG? It is about all I print with now unless I need a color they don't have. I am able to print it perfectly with the same profile I use for Rapid PLA on my Qidi XMax 3. Best of all it is very reasonably priced. Looking forward to your next review of the VCore 4.
After this video i once again got shocked when looking at your sub count and realising you're STILL not at 100k... Youre a huge inspiration to me and i also had many eyes on hybrid corexy and therefore also the RatRig... definitely a strong compeditor against Voron, even tho i am really happy with my 2.4 and it has thought me alot of things hybrid-corexy is just better 😅 Really needa get a RatRig myself one day as i am unfortunately currently not able to. Huge thanks for the awesome video, really outperformed yourself on this one, and finnaly i have really seen the awesome engineering of the v4... Please keep up the great work mate ❤💯
@@247printing tips: americans love accents, but bro... second: you talk like a shill. other than that I love absolutely love your content and never really thought too much of it until this comment, I say these things with much love as I think you deserve much more !
That long filament feeding path would hugely benefit from that - I was thinking about adding a second orbiter for just feeding the filament to toolhead more conveniently, but supporting the direct one would be a super nice side effect 👍
As I was falling asleep last night, I had the same thought. I'll be feeding most filaments from a dry box I'll build within the printer stand, so my path will be a bit longer than most. It wouldn't be difficult to include a 'booster' extruder.
@@leroycasterline1122That's effectively how single extruder multi material feeder systems work so should be very doable, could even go the whole way using something like the ERCF from the Voron project (even if you don't do multimaterial prints it can still automatically manage filament loading/unloading from inside the dry box so there's still a benefit to it)
I have a interesting idea, people sometimes use a heat pump to cool extremely overclocked PCs, it could be really efficient to heat your print chamber (or help heat the bed) with a heat pump.
The rail-on-top gantry will have temperature deflection issues due to the different in expansion between the rail and extrusion. These result in similar drooping issues at higher temps you see and attribute to parking the tool head in the center. It’s possible think are seeing these temperature deflection problems than drooping due to tool head mass.
I wish they had incorporated a chamber heater. While 40C 'can' be ok for ABS its be no means ideal and if you want to do PC-ABS or anything similar its way too cold. Its not hard to add one but a properly integrated solution would obviously be better. They are just such a benefit that I won't go without one again
Probably underrated, in terms of attention received... As to the price, sure it's an expensive printer but not seeing in the wild has other reasons: 1. People who purchased it are simply not making videos or even discussing it - like me, I almost finished my V-Core 4 Hybrid 500. I don't do forums, videos etc.Don't have time for that. I'm even waiting for the IDEX add-on to be released and would get that immediately, as it's one of the main reasons I purchased the V-Core 4. 2. Don't know how many people ordered, the V-Core 4t but back orders go 12+ weeks, so I would say many people have placed their orders, which mean you may starts seeing more of those
@@yavorminkovyou had one two months ago when folks who paid for theirs two months ago when pre-orders opened up are getting notices their ship dates have been pushed back? 🧐 I'm calling BS on that claim.
@@ebaziuk I placed my order, within 15min. of receiving the pre-order email and my printer was shipped on 13.6.2024, I received it 5 days later and assembled it in about 4 days. It's a kit, mine is Hybrid 500, as IDEX was not available 'till a few days ago.
@@BackwoodsTinkerer Order shipped on 13.06.2024, if you prefer I can upload my shipment and tracking email (from RatRig), or my DHL parcel slip? Or my video and photos of checking for damages, filmed on 19.06.2024?
Really great to see a deep review on the new Ratrig machine, keep up the good work! I had my rounds with first layers on my 3.1 400, the bimetal effect on the gantry (because of the top-rail design) can cause substantial negative Z offset at the middle of the gantry, mine had around 0.3mm difference before and after heating the chamber.
According that you said there is still a lot of drag in that ptfe tubing: could you push the filament by hand a little bit in the tubing and do the flow rate test again to see if it was limited by this?
I feel like it would be a great printer at some of the smaller sizes like 300, since ive noticed in some of your slowed down clips that the belts wobble a lot. Like at 10:30. I dont really know if thats an actual issue with the printer, or if the belts are just not tensioned properly. I feel like it could create some issues.
That clip is at 20% speed, in slow motion you can see a lot of things flex and wobble in ways you wouldn't think possible. If it can print cleanly at those acceleration values I don't think it's an issue. But of course if you know you don't need those sizes a smaller model will definitely perform a bit better.
@247printing didn’t you notice that the top belt on the left isn’t tightened enough at time 10:09 of the video? It look terrible. Can you fix it and let us know if it fixed anything or improved anything?
@@bosstowndynamics5488 i read many comments and at least the half of them says ERCF is a mess…maybe there is more positive comment about annex trad rack , they say its more simple more stable (but there is a few trad rack user)
i have to say first, thank you for going over all this its very insightful... and i'm sure you know volumes more than i probably will about the subject i'm sure. i'll add my 2 cents and probably state the obvious in that i'm always surprised by filament paths to the extruder being so convoluted (and this is not at all unique to rat rig or any one mfr ive observed and in many ways is more of a user choice or assembly decision based on how fast one wishes to run their unit)... but when printing is happening so much faster than before with higher end corexy's and klipper now it seems obvious that any resistance at all caused by reverse bowden setups of any significant length will degrade quality of the print one way or another, teflon tube or not its still added resistance per unit of length and then especially per curve or tight corner in the filament path. the easy solution to me has always been to do away with as many bends as possible and orient the filament spool in a location where path of least resistance is possible (directly above on a bearing roller unspooling almost straight to the extruder regardless of convenience or my desire for prettier more compact solutions) even with my slow as molasses enders any kind of reverse bowden i've tried including out of short pieces from a dry box has always turned out to be a hindrance to quality and speed upon close observation. anyway... like i said i'm sure i'm stating the obvious here. probably already known by yourself and most reading this. but again thanks for the video. looking forward to putting my 400 together shortly
1000 mm/s seems like it will be above the speed at which the steppers start losing torque due to back-EMF. That would explain why the acceleration doesn't double at that speed... you will probably find it more than doubles at lower speeds though.
I have a Ratrig V-Core 4 500 CoreXY, and it is great but your video has given me some good insights. I also struggle with first layer drift which is apparently quite common on larger printers and have the same issue with high drag on the PTFE tube. This keeps triggering the orbiter smart filament sensor because it keeps thinking that the filament is tangled (but I only fitted it last night along with an enclosure so I still need to iron out a few things). Did you post the link to the reverse bowden guide - not seeing it? Awesome video btw.
If the break that the tool head rides in has deflection/sag in it when the tool head is in the middle, it’s to thin and or the alloy of aluminum is to weak. A 7000 series alloy (if they’re using a cheaper 6000 series) would help dramatically as 7075-T6 for example is almost as strong as mild steel and in this way shouldn’t add weight.
It's more of packaging problem, I think. No support (foam) was added to hold the gantry and toothead, during transportation and parking it in the middle was a stupid idea.
I was really disappointed about the space inefficiency of the V-core 4. Namely having rails on top/bottom, but the belts inside the square of the gantry, when you can gain space by having rail AND belts on top, like HevORT or Rook.
Looking forward to the official klipper integration of hybrid core XY, so i can cram 2 more motors into my Voron. I hope that one spare motor port + One unused slave axis port is enough for that...
7:30 to good temp measure with IR dat, you can use blake tape or another tape, which have good radiation specs, and you can test error of this method, by place tape on can with boil water (98deg C).
Nice informative video! I also have a question with a suggestion for, maybe, one of your future videos: what pressure_advance_smooth_time do you use on this printer? I've been struggling on finding optimal value (and still am) for this parameter, but every time either faster infills look ugly, or slower outer walls have bad corners. I'd really love to see a more in-depth investigation into this parameter and how to tune it properly for fast printing, because it feels like quantum physics to me - our laws just don't apply to it)
1500w print bed!? Here in north america we've got 110-120v power systems and household fuses and breakers are typically only 15a and are only rated to 80% max sustained duty cycle or roughly 1320-1440w max sustained power. in order to use such a printer reliably, I would have to get a dedicated 20a circuit installed (not cheap)!
The hybrid CoreXY concept ask the question of if there are going to be 2 more motors anyway are their more advantages to use them for hybridizing the CoreXY, doubling it or even going for a different approach entirely ? I guess that the point of the hybrid is to equalize the load on each motor by helping move only the heavier gantry. But that is still two extra motors, that can afford a lot of different configurations. Maybe the added cost of the motors could be better put in finally going for servos instead and allow for higher speed as the few cases were steps would be lost wouldn't lead to any issue.
A conventional Cartesian setup would mean some of the motors are riding on the gantry, adding weight to the Y axis, presumably this is why they went with a hybrid approach
Your extruder is spitting out chewed up filament, or something @8:30 ish. I thought it was oozing at first, but it is solid debris. I still need to build my 3.1, and they snuck this this 4 out! Guess I'll throw my beacon on the 3.1 and take a loan out for this v4.
From time to time I print engineering grade materials and so a mains bed is a must, there are a lot of things that need to be ironed out with this printer before I even think about buying one, great review video, as always.
I print exclusively engineering materials, mainly Polycarbonate and I got the V-Core 4. Haven't tested it yet (that would happen in a couple of days) but I don't see a problem there. Especially one, that cannot be easily corrected.
I must say Im welmed after all the problems. My biggest disappointment is thst we aee in current year and still having to do things like set z offset. I really think a camera should be included as well. The hybrid is also cool, but what I really was interested in was idex plus an mmu. Lastly, for the filament feed issue, Im utterly baffled at why no one is copying the Bambulab solution to long feed distances that they use with the ams with the buffer that always gives the extruder the exact same consistent light drag amount. Im very interested but I think Ill wait to see which of these are addressed. For me having to do any manual calibration at all is actually a deal breaker. I want a printer that has the prerequisite sensors to do that itself. I dont want to babysit and mange it. The first layer should be perfect with literally no effort whatsoever and the filament path should not cause inconsistencies. These are the most major problems to me. I want a printer to print big things anr multi material things. I dont want a printer as a hobby, just as a small subsection of my hobby. This is why I love my X1C and I was really hoping the VCore4 would deliver a sort of open source large form factor equivalent or near to experience.
Z-offset calibration is gone with beacon contact, it's fully automated and works out of the box with RatOS 2.1, perfect first layers every time. Of course you need to heatsoak to make sure everything has expanded / contracted before starting, that's just physics. If you don't want to do any tuning of your printer at all, don't buy a DIY kit.
@@miklschmidt I dont think your conclusion is reasonable. Firslty there isnt any reason a kit cant remove the need for tuning. Secondly they will also be selling assembled versions so its not at all justification. Its good to hear about contact if that works, but there still remain the other issues so its very mucj wait and see, especially for idex.
@@BeefIngot I make RatOS, which is arguably the closest you'll get to an "out of the box" experience on current DIY printers, so i'd say i have some idea what i'm talking about. It's a question of software, it's a LOT of work on a modular system, i know because i'm doing it. We've gotten a lot closer with 2.1, but that's been a year in the making, the last 6 months i've been working 18 hours a day just to get it ready for the VC4 launch. There's still a ton of stuff to automate (which we're working on). "Secondly they will also be selling assembled versions so its not at all justification." I'm not justifying anything, i'm telling you how it is. It's still a software problem. Pre-tuning before shipping will only get you so far, every micron matters - and you're still going to be swapping things on that thing, so you still need the software to support the modularity. Further more this is all open source free software. Contact works - it's working right now on several rat rig machines out there in the wild, running RatOS 2.1. "so its very mucj wait and see, especially for idex". We've gotten IDEX in a really good place IMO, but it's also by far the hardest system to tune if you don't know what you're doing. I think you should consider a mass produced printer, with the demands you have, you're gonna need a very deep wallet :)
@@miklschmidt I have an X1C and it does excellently. I dont think what Im looking for is impossible. I even think its possible for the VCore4, but just some things need to change. You mention pre calibrating from the factory, but I dont think thats really necessary. The X1 for isntance doesnt have much calibrated from the factory apart from basic bed levelling (and its not even a supremely flat bed). A Vcore wouldnt even need that because of the gantry levelling. Whats left? Well contact covers some, but also what would be needed is a fix for the filament. I dont think it would take much to fix very nicely and even for a while when I was still a klipper head 3d printer tinkerer I experimented with trying to make a buffer system similar to what is on the x1 as well as an mmu system (just 4 cheap extruders feeding into the not so great first sttempt at a buffer). I think the VCore4 could fix that issue using the same thing as well (the buffer) with a relatively simple 2 injection molded part solution and an extra extruder. Basically Im saying that Im aware of what the problems are and Im aware of what the challenges are too. I think its possible but its not there yet hence my conclusion that I'll wait and see. Im not trying to devalue the work done here, I think its a big step up generally. I think given the advancement in the reduction of hassle from the VCore3 to the VCore4 they (which I guess includes you) seem to be tackling usability issues (like with the far easier pre crimpled back panel box making assembly easier). So basically I _do_ know what Im doing and Im also not saying that I think this is unsalvagable or bad, I just have wishes and fixes I would wait for before buying something like this, because assembled or kit form the hope would be that I could set it up and print reliably just as easily on my X1 and then if I decided, due to the opennes I couod experiment at my leisure as opposed to feeling forced to. Good base profiles, reliable mechanisms, decent feature set, no required tinkering. Those 4 would be great. Like I mentioned the 500 idex does excite me and a large part of that has been the usability upgrades over previous kit/foss type printers. Basically I dont think being pre built is a requirement for what I want and feel this kit could likely achieve it. Thats a long ramble but I wanted to be more clear, establish what I was going for and my perspective. As for the mass produced part of the comment Im not sure thats true. Bambulab is rumoured to release something very similar and I doubt itll be out of range. If anything I see it hitting similar to the VCore4, but the VCore 4 has the open source appeal, fast idex and that 500mm build area. Edit: And btw, I so think RATOS is a great thing for the direction I want these foss printers to head in terms of usability, so no discounting that. Oh and about modularity I think forming a strong set of presets for a base config for the idex and hybrid would be great, forming around one toolhead setup for reducing complexity and having a garunteed platform ease of use wise.
@@BeefIngot There's a thousand things you're forgetting. You can multiply those thousand things with user assembly and wiring errors. It's extremely complicated to do things automatically on highly modular DIY printers, because if something's off, wrongly assembled or wired, that automation results in damage. So you need sanity checks upon sanity checks, self checks, self calibration and self verification for every single process. That includes dimension calibration (position_min/max/endstop), belt tensioning, resonance calibration, toolhead offset calibration, kinematic verification, temperature calibration, flow calibration, pressure advance calibration, gantry twist calibration, nozzle thermal expansion coefficient calibration, beacon model calibration, etc etc etc. I wish i could adequately explain to you how challenging it is to do that for 12 different printers (many of which have varying sizes and several different toolhead designs), 45 boards and countless different hotends, extruders, thermistors etc etc. Now add macro's on top of that to handle all the routines and features (for all combinations of the aforementioned hardware) that you also expect from a modern printer. It might look easy from the outside, but it's a lot of painstaking work to get anywhere near full automation. That said, we're are working as hard and as fast as we can to make all that happen (for free i might add, i don't make a living off of this). Bambu doesn't have to do any of that, all of it is static, proprietary and there's only 1 size.. Small. Bambu can't scale the printers they have with their current design, kinematics and materials, a lot will have to change, the bigger you go the more issues you're going to have to deal with. If they come out with a 500mm sized IDEX machine with the same level of automation as the X1C it's going to cost at least as much as a maxed out Prusa XL. We do have presets defined for all printers, but all that does is preselect hardware and dimensions, it won't know how you built your printer or what happened during shipping. All the checks and calibration i mentioned before still has to run, or you won't get the perfection you're looking for, and someone has to write the code and test it on a wide variety of printers and hardware to make that happen. I wish it was just "slap some sensors in it", that would've made my life a lot easier (and the printer more expensive).
Great Video...our 400mm V-core 3.1 had too many challenges to keep it....even this one that was pre-assembled had issues. Hopefully they figure this out. Increased acceleration is pointless when the printer wont lay down a consistent, repeatable first layer...the lack of a runout sensor proves that the team at rat rig doesnt recognize the true use case for a printer this size. Amazing hardware but still a long way from the user experience customers are now demanding.....Bambu ruined all of our expectations.
At 11:02, the recommended shaper differs between the two results. Wouldn't that mean that you have to compare the MZV result on the left with the ZV result on the right?
1:47 ok but is it binning pixels or is it actually 50 all the time? My phone has a 50 as well but it normally only takes 12.5mp because it cant get good enough signal to noise ratio otherwise.
I tried your speed test gcode generator but I cant reliably make diagonal moves with my Hevort SPAWD with motors at 24V/2A 😮💨 Sometimes it fails even at 10k what is starting point and highest I could get was 14k accs. Also I can't set "0" value for speed number of steps... Is ratrig vcore 4 using 48V?
How does hybrid CoreXY do anything for the X axis though? Would adding a standard X axis drive system (so full carthesian + CoreXY) improve performance further?
Adding a conventional X axis system would increase the weight of the gantry since motors that operate the X axis in isolation would need to be mounted to the gantry, reducing performance.
I didn't expect that it doesn't include a filament runout sensor. That's a very cheap add-on. Also I, as yourself, expected more from that phaetus hotend. I believe they advertise a maximum 70mm³/s mvs. I suppose you could try a high flow pla but I doubt you would have gotten that big of a number. Nonetheless, a very good job at this review. I expect more videos with the rat rig and maybe some high flow testing with a cht nozzle if it doesn't already include one. I suppose it use a v6 nozzle.
The flow is limited by the 0.4mm nozzle, physics makes it quite hard to squeeze out much more than 40 mm^3/s out of a 0.4mm orifice. The marketing numbers you see are usually done with large nozzle diameters. There's a few tricks that help though, CHT nozzle, 8T gear motor on Orbiter 2, Annex Belay etc.
@@AngelVenomous i can 100% guarantee you that's not with a 0.4mm nozzle. I doubt it'll do 110 mm^3/s at all, but i like to be surprised. Talk is cheap though :)
If there is a lot of tinkering, hours and hours, to get everything right, to get first layers right, I am out! I am done with the printer being the hoby! I need the printer to be my tool in order to print the designs I need to print! For me it should be plug and play, like the Bambu Lab printers
Everywhere. If you don’t have problems, you’re fine. It’s a combination of off-spec thermistors and the nut/spring on the thermistor being exposed to the air cooling the hotend.
@@miklschmidt just thinking out loud. If there would be problems, and somehow we would know the bad batch of R2 is the issue, wouldn't an offset of 20 degrees would solve this issue (that we would have in the firmware as a boolean of sorts in case the offset value is really stable)? I know that in the very distant past (~1990), there were some issues at an iron ore smelter, where the sensors they were placing were burning out due to the extreme temperatures, and they simply decided to move them somewhere where it was cooler and just add a delta temperature to any measures they took with those sensors (eg: they read 800, but they considered it 950...something alongside this idea.
@@ktakna Yes, it seems to work OK. RatOS has an optional variable for that under [gcode_macro T0] called "variable_temperature_offset". You can set that to -20 for example to make toolhead heater commands automatically set the target 20c lower than instructed by gcode.
for the hybrid model no, for the idex kinda yes. the hybrid version is really a hybrid between corexy and cartesian, the IDEX uses a markforged alike kinematic. the calculation is identical but the belt routing to the toolheads is not
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
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I have one for a couple months. I love it, but its not as polished as the big brands. The performance is there tho! Network controller feels a bit janky, but not trash either. Love the screen qnd charging speed for sure
Hello. Can you please elaborate where you got the information about the IDEX requiring additional X length beyond what's specified on the V-Core 4 specifications site? I cannot find any information about this anywhere from official RatRig communications. Wouldn't this require a full re-build to upgrade to IDEX, contrary to what has been marketed, where the only addition required for IDEX being the additional toolhead + purge covers? I have a space built for my soon-to-come 500mm v4, and an additional amount of X length would ruin this and require a complete re-work of the platform + plans for spacing.
EDIT: After further research, I believe you have divulged incorrect information about the IDEX kit regarding the VCore-4 and it requiring a "+100 mm per build increase" as you claimed at 2:55 in the video. Per the Rat-Rag V-Core 4 site: "
- The IDEX add-on will be offered as an add-on soon, and it’s not available for reservation.
These are “drop-in” upgrades: no rebuild of the machine is necessary, converting between modes is just a matter of swapping a few components on your existing build."
Please correct the video, as this is confusing information for a large channel like yours to release to consumers.
@@Personnenenparle Same here: Didn't expect to love it THAT much as I do. Gaming with it is SO much fun.
My old phone (iPhone 11 Pro) has performance issues (at normal use, not even gaming) after using it for over four years now and the RM9 pro is just such a boost using it. Android has become great too meanwhile.
@@TrueRewire all models have the additional length already, for idex you jsut need a secondary toolhead and the hybrid motors
You've got to decide; do you want a slit in the plate for accurate temperature, but have the bed expand unevenly and therefor bend or do you want a flat bed?
That is crazy they didn't add the orbiter filament runout sensor, especially with how well it works. It is an absolute necessity to have one these days.
To be fair and I absolutely forgot to mention: They sent me one afterwards and stated that assembled printers can be opted to be used with run-out sensor!
@@247printing when compared to the orbitor filament sensor I have it but I prefer much more the BTT SFS V2. Not only it is a filament sensor it also measures how much filament goes in so it can detect clogs or under extrusion, it saved me many times and payed for it self many times over on big prints!
@@247printingI see you say assembled ones, what about pre ordered ones ? My first time coming across you channel and absolutely love your content. I understand stand 20% of it simply because also I own 7 different printers I’ve never dived so deep as you do here . Your video makes me want to learn so much more ( if or when I get time between learning home assistant and other random tech I’m fairly bad at 😅).
Great review I’m also interested in a fully built 500, hope they take on board your review and add the tweaks and test it before shipping top stuff it would be a nice addition to my farm and I can safely retire old faithful CR10max which as at the moment been chugging for 3 days
Thanks for honest, entertaining, and informative review for Ratrigs V-Core-4. Nice to see you perform real world stress tests and feedback from someone who knows how to push the boundaries and find solutions as well.
Just a small correction no panels are included in the kit. you need to self-source them all
Didn't he say that? Edit: ok he said the back panel is included
That, is a big mistake by ratrig. Why TF would they not include panels come on
Getting a prebuilt vcore would be pretty neat
It is!
@@247printingHow difficult would this be to put together if you'd never put together or taken a printer apart?
Like I'm talking full noob, only ever owned 2 pre built printers..
@PaddyFromPaddistan lol when my kit gets here I will let you know. 100% jumped in head first.
The hybrid concept is really great.
I hope this becomes the new standard for CoreXY printers.
Or awd with motors on top like this would be even better
@@kristian6087it might not because the hybrid has the extra 2 belts that are 9mm wide instead of the standard 6mm wide
As an engineer I have to correct something you mention. This has to do with the increase of frequency and the proposed likely cause of this (mentioned at 11:06 )
Firstly we assume dominant second order behavior (i.e. assuming that there's a dominant pair of poles of the openloop mechanical system), which I think is a fair assumption. Damping doesn't do anything to shift first mode mechanical eigen frequency peaks, it merely dampens them (as the name implies) and thus would manifest as a lower magnitude peak.
Resonance frequency is directly related to a mass-stiffness combination. In this case, the mass of the toolhead barely increases, yet the driving stiffness approximately doubles, as you are placing the belts essentially in parallel. Doubling the driving stiffness of a 2nd od system by 2x would lead to an increase of frequency of sqrt(2), thus we expect an eigenfrequency approximately 1.4x higher. This is exactly what we see in the result (an increase of ~1.38x according to your data).
Using belts that are ~2x the thickness or height would do the same for 'regular' core x-y (or really any other kinds of) printers (I would recommend a 2x change in height, as that would not affect the minimum bending radius as much). Just ensure that you take into account an increased need for torque from the actuators due to the higher accelerations. Although I like the attempt to innovate with the hybrid system, just using wider belts would honestly be a more elegant solution, as you are not dealing with as many overconstraints, and it is much simpler and less costly. But! The hybrid system does make a lot of sense if you opt for the IDEX system that they will offer in the future! There it would be a necessity.
Would wider belts start to have issues with leverage against the stepper spindles?
First of all thanks for the correction and detailed explanation. I repeat in short: It's not the "dampening effect" as I stated, it's the increase of the driving stiffness due to additional belts. Theory matches measurements, what's great to see.
@@ScottHess Yes they would. But the way belts are mounted to steppers in most printers is not the way it should be done. Bearings in motors and gearboxes are not very well suited for large radial loads.
Usually an actuator spindle is decoupled with a flex coupling, and the pulley is mounted on its own axle with a bearing on either side. By mounting bearings on either side you won't have any issues with leverage, no matter how wide the belt is. The disadvantage of this setup is quite obvious: Its more costly compared to directly mounting the pulleys onto the motors.
I am not sure how relevant and/or new this is to you and your 8mm thick 500 bed but here is my experience with V-Core 3 500 I have had for almost 3 years now: Thermal expansion is a very serious issue on the 500 and can lead to some puzzling results. It is one way to get your first layer issues even if the physical geometry of the printer is absolutely perfect. I can say from experience this is non-existent on the 200 and from what I hear the 300 has no such issues either with the 400 showing maybe some of it.
In more detail there are two sources of the problem:
- when the bed temp sensor reaches the set temperature the top surface is not yet at the temperature as shown in this video. This means the bed plate is deformed downward in the middle (hot and expanded bottom, cooler less expanded top). If you run a print starting with cold printer the bed mesh will probably be done before the bed is in its final shape which it will only reach when at final thermal equilibrium. So your first layer starts fine and then keeps getting more and more thin as the bed gets heat soaked and rises back up mainly in the center. How noticeable it is will depend on timing and bed temperature.
- the gantry is cold it has some sag/natural shape to it. As it heats up the aluminium extrusion wants to expand more than the steel rail on top so the sag in the middle increases. This also means the nozzle is slowly getting lower and lower after the start of the print and makes your layer thinner.
The two things obviously compound each other. If you just finished a print, swapped the bed surface and started the next print in the same material right away you will not notice any problems at all - the shape of the bed and gantry did not move enough to be significant. If you have the printer at room temperature and try to do a large first layer in ASA/ABS right away you might have to babysit the first layer and slowly raise offset by several tenths of a milimeter.
What I found works well for me is to set the bed temperature, set the hotend to 150°C and home all axes, which parks the toolhead just above the center of the bed. Then I go prepare the model, slice it etc. By the time I send it to the printer the bed has had time to soak up the heat and the gantry is warmed up too having been sitting above the hot bed and having the hotend fan blow air onto it. Since RatOS start print macro sees axes are homed and bed temperature and 150 nozzle are reached it will skip those steps and go to bed mesh and printing. With my printer it turns out about 20 minutes of such heat soaking is perfectly enough for PLA, around 30 minutes for PETG and about 40-45 for ASA/ABS. That is if everything was at room temperature before. Shorter if it has not had time to cool down from prefious print. With such heat soaking I can fire off the print and forget it. I can skip the heat soaking but then I watch the first layer and slowly increase offset as needed. The heatsoaking happens during the first layer so the subsequent layers are fine.
In short: heat soak that thing, otherwise you are asking for trouble, even for pla not a bad idea.
@@kilianlindlbauer8277 yes, you can get away with not doing it but it depends on lots of things, and how long of a heatsoak is needed varies depending on several things. But following your short rule will work as long as you heatsoak long enough.
Thanks for the in-depth review!
This Hybrid system performs even better than I'd expected, nice work RatRig!
I've often dream up kinematic designs that make use of additional redundant axis..
Like, is this a way to higher accelerations and faster infill times :
Lightweight servo/piezo driven X-Y stage between the Gantry and the Hotend ,capable of a few mm of X-Y deflection
Firmware would decide when to move the X-Y gantry or the U-V toolhead axis
..I'm just a layman, so idk.. ..but the idea being to only have to jerk the Hotend weight during eratic XY moves
You’re without a doubt one of the best 3d printer reviewers in the game right now, imo. You deserve all the subs!
Really appreciate your authenticity and honesty in your reviews, and i’ll take every word to heart and discuss it with the team. We’ll get those points addressed 💪
Thanks a lot Mikkel. As I said: It’s nitpicking at a high level and I am sure that there is not many news for you and Rat Rig there. Really, really mature stuff!
This is what we love to see from manufacturers! Open transparent comms and really listening to the community - everybody wins 🥰
@@247printing i Just ordered a 500x500 and im so curious about this. Also about Index, was toying around with a k1 b4 but this is a completely different Thing. Grüße aus Hannover
Any updates? You seem to be the only person whos gotten one and made a review video on it. They continue to oush back ship dates on these and am beginning to think these dont actually exist.
No chamber temp sensor?.. Seems like an odd thing to leave out of this kind of printer. Either way, this printer is one of the most innovative things I've seen in a long time. I'll probably pick up a 500 eventually.
crazy how fast 3d Printing is evolving in the last few years! can't imagine in the next few years how will this scene look. Of course machines like this one rat rig or Voron types are not entry level demanding an extensive knowledge in the matter. Love also everything about the structure of the video. You gained a new subscriber!
The belts are looking all chewed up there at 10:00 :/.
Nice Video!
i recently built 2 vcore3 500 and i have to say that i really dont like how the gantry is connecting the belts to the head. It looks like this system is also present in the vcore4. The problem is that it is depending on the preload of the belts if the gantry is in 90 degree to the frame. In my opinion this is a very bad design decision since this moves over time and strains the components such as the linear rails and also the connecting abs parts. IMO the better solution is the way voron was going where all 4 ends of the belts are coming together on the frontside of the head.
I was soooo curious to see that hybrid concept of the corexy!! The results are stunning 🤯🤯🤯 this could be the start of a new chapter!.... And great job on improving already the first flaws of the printer so quickly and sharing with the community. This is mad german engineering quality 🤩
Awesome video!!.... I bet the 3d printing companies are craving for your consulting as you are improving every 3d printer with your expertise. You should go all in and do your own printer 👌
This would be speedprinting madness combined with german engineering all over. I like that!
Beautiful machine. And 500x500? That's HUGE!! I'd love to have something like that. The price isn't bad, but they're still not selling them on their website. Just a queue to joint to eventually maybe get one. I'm hoping, with more feedback from people like yourself, they'll be able to further improve this printer and it'll really be something great to own, without too much fuss. I don't think I'd like to build one myself, so it would have to be a pre-built for me. Looking forward to more reviews of this printer.
Ratos 2.1 is simply amazing, love what it has done for these machines
Fantastic review! I'm saving up for a 500mm model. I will probably order sometime early next year,, hopefully these early issues will be well resolved by then.
Great review; I love your nit-picking. I placed my VC4 500 hybrid order on the 2nd of May, so have some time before the kit arrives. I've subscribed to your channel and await more videos on this exciting printer!
Great review my friend. Your attention to detail and honesty is much appreciated. Very glad to hear they are going to sell a fully assembled one for those of us who look at printers as a tool, no different than my table saw. I will be keeping a close eye on this printer to see how it evolves and I can easily see myself purchasing one of the assembled versions. I heard you say you love printing in PETG, have you tried Elegoo Rapid PETG? It is about all I print with now unless I need a color they don't have. I am able to print it perfectly with the same profile I use for Rapid PLA on my Qidi XMax 3. Best of all it is very reasonably priced. Looking forward to your next review of the VCore 4.
After this video i once again got shocked when looking at your sub count and realising you're STILL not at 100k...
Youre a huge inspiration to me and i also had many eyes on hybrid corexy and therefore also the RatRig... definitely a strong compeditor against Voron, even tho i am really happy with my 2.4 and it has thought me alot of things hybrid-corexy is just better 😅
Really needa get a RatRig myself one day as i am unfortunately currently not able to.
Huge thanks for the awesome video, really outperformed yourself on this one, and finnaly i have really seen the awesome engineering of the v4...
Please keep up the great work mate ❤💯
Thank you very much for watching and commenting my videos - very much appreciated every time!
honestly i thought this channel was way bigger.
@@247printing tips: americans love accents, but bro... second: you talk like a shill. other than that I love absolutely love your content and never really thought too much of it until this comment, I say these things with much love as I think you deserve much more !
what about a second extruder motor mounted in a fixed position? It would manage the pull forces on the spool and you won't need the ptfe tube.
there should be a "Hybrid" extruder type where a direct drive and bowden extruder work together in tandem
That long filament feeding path would hugely benefit from that - I was thinking about adding a second orbiter for just feeding the filament to toolhead more conveniently, but supporting the direct one would be a super nice side effect 👍
As I was falling asleep last night, I had the same thought. I'll be feeding most filaments from a dry box I'll build within the printer stand, so my path will be a bit longer than most. It wouldn't be difficult to include a 'booster' extruder.
@@247printing Can you think of any downsides to this? My path will start in a dry box under the printer, so will be even longer.
@@leroycasterline1122That's effectively how single extruder multi material feeder systems work so should be very doable, could even go the whole way using something like the ERCF from the Voron project (even if you don't do multimaterial prints it can still automatically manage filament loading/unloading from inside the dry box so there's still a benefit to it)
I’m surprised they didn’t upgrade to the orbiter 3.0 with included filament run out sensor…
Excellent video as always Albert. Makes me excited to build a 500 V-Core 4 myself.
Thanks a lot Alan, that video was fun from arrival to upload - I hope you’ll have too!
Glad to see more folks using hybrid corexy and putting out hybrid corexy systems.
Really nice to not limit overall speed and acceleration to the worst performing axis
I'd like to see a comparison between standard, hybrid, and AWD coreXY to see which one's best
No need, they’re not mutually exclusive, you can run Hybrid AWD (8 motors).
I have a interesting idea, people sometimes use a heat pump to cool extremely overclocked PCs, it could be really efficient to heat your print chamber (or help heat the bed) with a heat pump.
Congrats, your channel is growing nicely.
Love my V-core so don't trick me into getting this one too! :)
The rail-on-top gantry will have temperature deflection issues due to the different in expansion between the rail and extrusion. These result in similar drooping issues at higher temps you see and attribute to parking the tool head in the center. It’s possible think are seeing these temperature deflection problems than drooping due to tool head mass.
All new core XY designs should mount all steppers outside the chamber. Should be looking at ways to increase chamber temps.
Those are HT motors, and can print at ambient of 80-100. I print exclusively engineering materials and my chamber is steady 70C - no problems so far
Stepper motors can handle surprisingly high temperatures with no ill effects
Fantastic video!
It's always so cool see how you test new 3d printers.
Thank you very much, Jan!
I wish they had incorporated a chamber heater. While 40C 'can' be ok for ABS its be no means ideal and if you want to do PC-ABS or anything similar its way too cold. Its not hard to add one but a properly integrated solution would obviously be better.
They are just such a benefit that I won't go without one again
It’s one of the upcoming add-ons.
Iirc chamber heaters have only just come off patent so they're only just now starting to turn up in consumer printers
its not underrated, its too expensive for the majority of hobbyists, that's why there aren't much in the wild.
Probably underrated, in terms of attention received...
As to the price, sure it's an expensive printer but not seeing in the wild has other reasons:
1. People who purchased it are simply not making videos or even discussing it - like me, I almost finished my V-Core 4 Hybrid 500. I don't do forums, videos etc.Don't have time for that. I'm even waiting for the IDEX add-on to be released and would get that immediately, as it's one of the main reasons I purchased the V-Core 4.
2. Don't know how many people ordered, the V-Core 4t but back orders go 12+ weeks, so I would say many people have placed their orders, which mean you may starts seeing more of those
@@yavorminkov How did you even get it, it's not available to buy as far as I can see. Is it a kit and a BOM?
@@yavorminkovyou had one two months ago when folks who paid for theirs two months ago when pre-orders opened up are getting notices their ship dates have been pushed back? 🧐 I'm calling BS on that claim.
@@ebaziuk I placed my order, within 15min. of receiving the pre-order email and my printer was shipped on 13.6.2024, I received it 5 days later and assembled it in about 4 days. It's
a kit, mine is Hybrid 500, as IDEX was not available 'till a few days ago.
@@BackwoodsTinkerer Order shipped on 13.06.2024, if you prefer I can upload my shipment and tracking email (from RatRig), or my DHL parcel slip? Or my video and photos of checking for damages, filmed on 19.06.2024?
9:18 makes sense, as the weight of the gantry is much heavier so toolhead weight doesn't matter as much as rigidity and weight distribution.
Really great to see a deep review on the new Ratrig machine, keep up the good work!
I had my rounds with first layers on my 3.1 400, the bimetal effect on the gantry (because of the top-rail design) can cause substantial negative Z offset at the middle of the gantry, mine had around 0.3mm difference before and after heating the chamber.
Always enjoy your rat rig videos, not just pure speed on the V0
According that you said there is still a lot of drag in that ptfe tubing: could you push the filament by hand a little bit in the tubing and do the flow rate test again to see if it was limited by this?
I feel like it would be a great printer at some of the smaller sizes like 300, since ive noticed in some of your slowed down clips that the belts wobble a lot. Like at 10:30. I dont really know if thats an actual issue with the printer, or if the belts are just not tensioned properly. I feel like it could create some issues.
Indeed.
I saw that as well. Also I suppose with the smaller printer you could achieve higher speeds/accelerations because of the lighter gantry.
That clip is at 20% speed, in slow motion you can see a lot of things flex and wobble in ways you wouldn't think possible. If it can print cleanly at those acceleration values I don't think it's an issue. But of course if you know you don't need those sizes a smaller model will definitely perform a bit better.
@247printing didn’t you notice that the top belt on the left isn’t tightened enough at time 10:09 of the video? It look terrible. Can you fix it and let us know if it fixed anything or improved anything?
What I really really waiting for…is an open source reliable filament changer unit (MMU) on the market
I would expect the ERCF to be reliable since it's part of the Voron project, although haven't tried it myself
@@bosstowndynamics5488 i read many comments and at least the half of them says ERCF is a mess…maybe there is more positive comment about annex trad rack , they say its more simple more stable (but there is a few trad rack user)
i have to say first, thank you for going over all this its very insightful... and i'm sure you know volumes more than i probably will about the subject i'm sure. i'll add my 2 cents and probably state the obvious in that i'm always surprised by filament paths to the extruder being so convoluted (and this is not at all unique to rat rig or any one mfr ive observed and in many ways is more of a user choice or assembly decision based on how fast one wishes to run their unit)... but when printing is happening so much faster than before with higher end corexy's and klipper now it seems obvious that any resistance at all caused by reverse bowden setups of any significant length will degrade quality of the print one way or another, teflon tube or not its still added resistance per unit of length and then especially per curve or tight corner in the filament path. the easy solution to me has always been to do away with as many bends as possible and orient the filament spool in a location where path of least resistance is possible (directly above on a bearing roller unspooling almost straight to the extruder regardless of convenience or my desire for prettier more compact solutions) even with my slow as molasses enders any kind of reverse bowden i've tried including out of short pieces from a dry box has always turned out to be a hindrance to quality and speed upon close observation. anyway... like i said i'm sure i'm stating the obvious here. probably already known by yourself and most reading this. but again thanks for the video. looking forward to putting my 400 together shortly
1000 mm/s seems like it will be above the speed at which the steppers start losing torque due to back-EMF. That would explain why the acceleration doesn't double at that speed... you will probably find it more than doubles at lower speeds though.
Maybe you use a spring at the bowden for better springiness and better protection?
I have a Ratrig V-Core 4 500 CoreXY, and it is great but your video has given me some good insights. I also struggle with first layer drift which is apparently quite common on larger printers and have the same issue with high drag on the PTFE tube. This keeps triggering the orbiter smart filament sensor because it keeps thinking that the filament is tangled (but I only fitted it last night along with an enclosure so I still need to iron out a few things).
Did you post the link to the reverse bowden guide - not seeing it? Awesome video btw.
Mines also came without raspberrys, and you said that they send back panel and lateral one, buy my 2 kits came without those panels
If the break that the tool head rides in has deflection/sag in it when the tool head is in the middle, it’s to thin and or the alloy of aluminum is to weak. A 7000 series alloy (if they’re using a cheaper 6000 series) would help dramatically as 7075-T6 for example is almost as strong as mild steel and in this way shouldn’t add weight.
It's more of packaging problem, I think. No support (foam) was added to hold the gantry and toothead, during transportation and parking it in the middle was a stupid idea.
I was really disappointed about the space inefficiency of the V-core 4.
Namely having rails on top/bottom, but the belts inside the square of the gantry, when you can gain space by having rail AND belts on top, like HevORT or Rook.
You are going to need the space for parking the tool-head, when upgraded to IDEX. The other option is to build it taller but that would waste space...
i guess i'm getting rid of the refrigerator and putting this in it's spot
Looking forward to the official klipper integration of hybrid core XY, so i can cram 2 more motors into my Voron. I hope that one spare motor port + One unused slave axis port is enough for that...
My VC500 3.1 is watching me thinking about adding a hybrid system and a thicker bed plate
7:30 to good temp measure with IR dat, you can use blake tape or another tape, which have good radiation specs, and you can test error of this method, by place tape on can with boil water (98deg C).
That thing is enormous. Got a 350 Voron and that's pretty huge. Can't imagine a 500 version 😅
Did you do any resolution tests? Either a standard resolution test or a comparative test with two objects printed on different printers?
Nice informative video! I also have a question with a suggestion for, maybe, one of your future videos: what pressure_advance_smooth_time do you use on this printer? I've been struggling on finding optimal value (and still am) for this parameter, but every time either faster infills look ugly, or slower outer walls have bad corners. I'd really love to see a more in-depth investigation into this parameter and how to tune it properly for fast printing, because it feels like quantum physics to me - our laws just don't apply to it)
1500w print bed!? Here in north america we've got 110-120v power systems and household fuses and breakers are typically only 15a and are only rated to 80% max sustained duty cycle or roughly 1320-1440w max sustained power. in order to use such a printer reliably, I would have to get a dedicated 20a circuit installed (not cheap)!
Yes 110v has its limitations. Just like the imperial system 😂
Could you please provide the link to the 2 STL's missing from the description?
Excellent video! That printer looks awesome. I'd love to see a head to head comparison with the VZ bots AWD
will you be sharing the fix designs you came up with?
Any plans for more videos about this printer?
This really makes me want to try a Vcore over building another 2.4 or trying a trident. Hmm I’m not sure now. The 300 build size would be perfect
Before building another 2.4, build a V-Core 4...
The hybrid CoreXY concept ask the question of if there are going to be 2 more motors anyway are their more advantages to use them for hybridizing the CoreXY, doubling it or even going for a different approach entirely ?
I guess that the point of the hybrid is to equalize the load on each motor by helping move only the heavier gantry. But that is still two extra motors, that can afford a lot of different configurations. Maybe the added cost of the motors could be better put in finally going for servos instead and allow for higher speed as the few cases were steps would be lost wouldn't lead to any issue.
I don't think you've looked up the price of servo drives. Nema 17's are cheap.
A conventional Cartesian setup would mean some of the motors are riding on the gantry, adding weight to the Y axis, presumably this is why they went with a hybrid approach
Your extruder is spitting out chewed up filament, or something @8:30 ish. I thought it was oozing at first, but it is solid debris.
I still need to build my 3.1, and they snuck this this 4 out! Guess I'll throw my beacon on the 3.1 and take a loan out for this v4.
Flawed, way too hot Rapido2, while these recordings.
What I really want to see is the idex 500
From time to time I print engineering grade materials and so a mains bed is a must, there are a lot of things that need to be ironed out with this printer before I even think about buying one, great review video, as always.
I print exclusively engineering materials, mainly Polycarbonate and I got the V-Core 4. Haven't tested it yet (that would happen in a couple of days) but I don't see a problem there. Especially one, that cannot be easily corrected.
Awesome video, I always enjoy your content. Keep it up!
I must say Im welmed after all the problems.
My biggest disappointment is thst we aee in current year and still having to do things like set z offset.
I really think a camera should be included as well.
The hybrid is also cool, but what I really was interested in was idex plus an mmu.
Lastly, for the filament feed issue, Im utterly baffled at why no one is copying the Bambulab solution to long feed distances that they use with the ams with the buffer that always gives the extruder the exact same consistent light drag amount.
Im very interested but I think Ill wait to see which of these are addressed.
For me having to do any manual calibration at all is actually a deal breaker. I want a printer that has the prerequisite sensors to do that itself. I dont want to babysit and mange it. The first layer should be perfect with literally no effort whatsoever and the filament path should not cause inconsistencies. These are the most major problems to me. I want a printer to print big things anr multi material things. I dont want a printer as a hobby, just as a small subsection of my hobby.
This is why I love my X1C and I was really hoping the VCore4 would deliver a sort of open source large form factor equivalent or near to experience.
Z-offset calibration is gone with beacon contact, it's fully automated and works out of the box with RatOS 2.1, perfect first layers every time. Of course you need to heatsoak to make sure everything has expanded / contracted before starting, that's just physics.
If you don't want to do any tuning of your printer at all, don't buy a DIY kit.
@@miklschmidt I dont think your conclusion is reasonable.
Firslty there isnt any reason a kit cant remove the need for tuning.
Secondly they will also be selling assembled versions so its not at all justification.
Its good to hear about contact if that works, but there still remain the other issues so its very mucj wait and see, especially for idex.
@@BeefIngot I make RatOS, which is arguably the closest you'll get to an "out of the box" experience on current DIY printers, so i'd say i have some idea what i'm talking about.
It's a question of software, it's a LOT of work on a modular system, i know because i'm doing it. We've gotten a lot closer with 2.1, but that's been a year in the making, the last 6 months i've been working 18 hours a day just to get it ready for the VC4 launch. There's still a ton of stuff to automate (which we're working on).
"Secondly they will also be selling assembled versions so its not at all justification."
I'm not justifying anything, i'm telling you how it is. It's still a software problem. Pre-tuning before shipping will only get you so far, every micron matters - and you're still going to be swapping things on that thing, so you still need the software to support the modularity. Further more this is all open source free software.
Contact works - it's working right now on several rat rig machines out there in the wild, running RatOS 2.1.
"so its very mucj wait and see, especially for idex".
We've gotten IDEX in a really good place IMO, but it's also by far the hardest system to tune if you don't know what you're doing.
I think you should consider a mass produced printer, with the demands you have, you're gonna need a very deep wallet :)
@@miklschmidt I have an X1C and it does excellently. I dont think what Im looking for is impossible. I even think its possible for the VCore4, but just some things need to change.
You mention pre calibrating from the factory, but I dont think thats really necessary. The X1 for isntance doesnt have much calibrated from the factory apart from basic bed levelling (and its not even a supremely flat bed). A Vcore wouldnt even need that because of the gantry levelling.
Whats left? Well contact covers some, but also what would be needed is a fix for the filament. I dont think it would take much to fix very nicely and even for a while when I was still a klipper head 3d printer tinkerer I experimented with trying to make a buffer system similar to what is on the x1 as well as an mmu system (just 4 cheap extruders feeding into the not so great first sttempt at a buffer).
I think the VCore4 could fix that issue using the same thing as well (the buffer) with a relatively simple 2 injection molded part solution and an extra extruder.
Basically Im saying that Im aware of what the problems are and Im aware of what the challenges are too. I think its possible but its not there yet hence my conclusion that I'll wait and see. Im not trying to devalue the work done here, I think its a big step up generally.
I think given the advancement in the reduction of hassle from the VCore3 to the VCore4 they (which I guess includes you) seem to be tackling usability issues (like with the far easier pre crimpled back panel box making assembly easier).
So basically I _do_ know what Im doing and Im also not saying that I think this is unsalvagable or bad, I just have wishes and fixes I would wait for before buying something like this, because assembled or kit form the hope would be that I could set it up and print reliably just as easily on my X1 and then if I decided, due to the opennes I couod experiment at my leisure as opposed to feeling forced to. Good base profiles, reliable mechanisms, decent feature set, no required tinkering. Those 4 would be great.
Like I mentioned the 500 idex does excite me and a large part of that has been the usability upgrades over previous kit/foss type printers.
Basically I dont think being pre built is a requirement for what I want and feel this kit could likely achieve it.
Thats a long ramble but I wanted to be more clear, establish what I was going for and my perspective.
As for the mass produced part of the comment Im not sure thats true. Bambulab is rumoured to release something very similar and I doubt itll be out of range. If anything I see it hitting similar to the VCore4, but the VCore 4 has the open source appeal, fast idex and that 500mm build area.
Edit: And btw, I so think RATOS is a great thing for the direction I want these foss printers to head in terms of usability, so no discounting that.
Oh and about modularity I think forming a strong set of presets for a base config for the idex and hybrid would be great, forming around one toolhead setup for reducing complexity and having a garunteed platform ease of use wise.
@@BeefIngot There's a thousand things you're forgetting. You can multiply those thousand things with user assembly and wiring errors. It's extremely complicated to do things automatically on highly modular DIY printers, because if something's off, wrongly assembled or wired, that automation results in damage. So you need sanity checks upon sanity checks, self checks, self calibration and self verification for every single process. That includes dimension calibration (position_min/max/endstop), belt tensioning, resonance calibration, toolhead offset calibration, kinematic verification, temperature calibration, flow calibration, pressure advance calibration, gantry twist calibration, nozzle thermal expansion coefficient calibration, beacon model calibration, etc etc etc. I wish i could adequately explain to you how challenging it is to do that for 12 different printers (many of which have varying sizes and several different toolhead designs), 45 boards and countless different hotends, extruders, thermistors etc etc. Now add macro's on top of that to handle all the routines and features (for all combinations of the aforementioned hardware) that you also expect from a modern printer. It might look easy from the outside, but it's a lot of painstaking work to get anywhere near full automation.
That said, we're are working as hard and as fast as we can to make all that happen (for free i might add, i don't make a living off of this). Bambu doesn't have to do any of that, all of it is static, proprietary and there's only 1 size.. Small. Bambu can't scale the printers they have with their current design, kinematics and materials, a lot will have to change, the bigger you go the more issues you're going to have to deal with. If they come out with a 500mm sized IDEX machine with the same level of automation as the X1C it's going to cost at least as much as a maxed out Prusa XL.
We do have presets defined for all printers, but all that does is preselect hardware and dimensions, it won't know how you built your printer or what happened during shipping. All the checks and calibration i mentioned before still has to run, or you won't get the perfection you're looking for, and someone has to write the code and test it on a wide variety of printers and hardware to make that happen. I wish it was just "slap some sensors in it", that would've made my life a lot easier (and the printer more expensive).
Great video, looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the V-Chonk.
Hatte den V4 leider zu spät wahrgenommen und steh nun auf der Warteliste 😅
Very impressive 3d printer, also a very good showcase by you. 👍
Great Video...our 400mm V-core 3.1 had too many challenges to keep it....even this one that was pre-assembled had issues. Hopefully they figure this out.
Increased acceleration is pointless when the printer wont lay down a consistent, repeatable first layer...the lack of a runout sensor proves that the team at rat rig doesnt recognize the true use case for a printer this size.
Amazing hardware but still a long way from the user experience customers are now demanding.....Bambu ruined all of our expectations.
At 11:02, the recommended shaper differs between the two results. Wouldn't that mean that you have to compare the MZV result on the left with the ZV result on the right?
rapido 2 is off by 20 degrees because the "very smart" engineers at phaetus put the damn thermistor above the heater
It looks like an AMAZING MACHINE.
Amazing review, makes me wanna buy one!
1:47 ok but is it binning pixels or is it actually 50 all the time?
My phone has a 50 as well but it normally only takes 12.5mp because it cant get good enough signal to noise ratio otherwise.
You know its a serious machine when it comes on a pallet 😁
How much?
I tried your speed test gcode generator but I cant reliably make diagonal moves with my Hevort SPAWD with motors at 24V/2A 😮💨 Sometimes it fails even at 10k what is starting point and highest I could get was 14k accs. Also I can't set "0" value for speed number of steps... Is ratrig vcore 4 using 48V?
How does hybrid CoreXY do anything for the X axis though? Would adding a standard X axis drive system (so full carthesian + CoreXY) improve performance further?
In corexy you’re limited in accel by Y, not X. Hybrid helps even that out. Adding more to X would still have you limited by Y.
Adding a conventional X axis system would increase the weight of the gantry since motors that operate the X axis in isolation would need to be mounted to the gantry, reducing performance.
Wow….I am making 500x500 voron trident custom printer but never think like this way. Is it better than one nema 23 stepper motor?
I am probably being picky but the 3D printed parts on the printer are very rough looking.
WOW, I wish i could have a printer sent to me like this
Those PETG print speeds are crazy especially when compared to the new FLSUN F1 PETG profiles. Nice work as always.
That RR PETG was a big surprise for sure
And thanks a lot, Lee
Great video. Very nice machine.. 500mm seems so large..
I guarantee you, it is very big in every dimension!
Pre assembled vcore4 500mm³ yes please!
Great job!
Couldnt understand "Hybrid" means instead of core XY.
I didn't expect that it doesn't include a filament runout sensor.
That's a very cheap add-on.
Also I, as yourself, expected more from that phaetus hotend. I believe they advertise a maximum 70mm³/s mvs. I suppose you could try a high flow pla but I doubt you would have gotten that big of a number.
Nonetheless, a very good job at this review. I expect more videos with the rat rig and maybe some high flow testing with a cht nozzle if it doesn't already include one. I suppose it use a v6 nozzle.
The flow is limited by the 0.4mm nozzle, physics makes it quite hard to squeeze out much more than 40 mm^3/s out of a 0.4mm orifice. The marketing numbers you see are usually done with large nozzle diameters. There's a few tricks that help though, CHT nozzle, 8T gear motor on Orbiter 2, Annex Belay etc.
@@miklschmidtwell flsun S1 says that it can achieve 110mm³/s(0.4mm standard) so the phaetus's number is surely not a fiction.
@@AngelVenomous i can 100% guarantee you that's not with a 0.4mm nozzle. I doubt it'll do 110 mm^3/s at all, but i like to be surprised. Talk is cheap though :)
@@miklschmidtyeah we'll see.
Buddy, no need rush for speaking, take your time and it will be more understandable👍
Kindly use the exact subtitles provided.
how do i tell if my rapido is a dudc? is it the whole hotend or just heater/thermistor ?
How does Sunlu PETG perform? I have this working well on a Creality machine but can't get it working well on the Ratrig
I quickly tested it after the official tests: As expected for a “normal PETG - up to around 15 mm^3/s
@@247printing Bambu Labs does a high flow PetG now.
The deal breaker for me it's those long bowden tubes
It's direct drive, not bowden. You don't need to use this long ptfe tube but haven't tested it yet
How does a Corexy idex work? I just don't understand it...
If there is a lot of tinkering, hours and hours, to get everything right, to get first layers right, I am out!
I am done with the printer being the hoby!
I need the printer to be my tool in order to print the designs I need to print!
For me it should be plug and play, like the Bambu Lab printers
Is the bad batch of rapido 2 only from rat rig or just everywhere? How would I know if I have a bad batch?
Everywhere. If you don’t have problems, you’re fine.
It’s a combination of off-spec thermistors and the nut/spring on the thermistor being exposed to the air cooling the hotend.
@@miklschmidt just thinking out loud. If there would be problems, and somehow we would know the bad batch of R2 is the issue, wouldn't an offset of 20 degrees would solve this issue (that we would have in the firmware as a boolean of sorts in case the offset value is really stable)? I know that in the very distant past (~1990), there were some issues at an iron ore smelter, where the sensors they were placing were burning out due to the extreme temperatures, and they simply decided to move them somewhere where it was cooler and just add a delta temperature to any measures they took with those sensors (eg: they read 800, but they considered it 950...something alongside this idea.
@@ktakna Yes, it seems to work OK. RatOS has an optional variable for that under [gcode_macro T0] called "variable_temperature_offset". You can set that to -20 for example to make toolhead heater commands automatically set the target 20c lower than instructed by gcode.
5:24 wait, you don't have mobileraker? It's really convenient and I ditched the screens for all of my printers.
For simple controlling yes, but I had to do a lot of stuff like editing CFGs and gcode as well as more stuff constantly needing keyboard/mouse/PC.
Is the Hybrid kinematic Markforge kinematic byt with corexy routing of the belt for x movement? times 2?
You're top notch engineer, I BET you can figure that out :-)
for the hybrid model no, for the idex kinda yes. the hybrid version is really a hybrid between corexy and cartesian, the IDEX uses a markforged alike kinematic. the calculation is identical but the belt routing to the toolheads is not