FLSun S1 Assessment: Wonky Delta with Warp Velocity
The S1 is the most recent superfast Delta 3D printer from FLSun, with a futuristic type that feels prefer it was beamed down from the Starship Enterprise. Boasting acceleration charges as much as 40,000mm/s², and a high pace of 1200mm/s, it’s the quickest printer I’ve had in my workshop to date.
FLSun packed numerous options into this 3D printer. The machine is totally enclosed, with a hardened metal high-flow nozzle, closed-loop stepper motors, LIDAR detection, an air filter, and sensors out the wazoo. It may well (sorta) let you know how a lot filament is left on the roll by weight, cease when it finds a clog or particles on the plate, and naturally ranges the mattress for an ideal first layer. It additionally comes with a digital camera for monitoring prints and has a built-in filament dryer. To avoid wasting vitality, the machine may be set to show itself off after a print is completed.
Sadly, the printer is missing within the accuracy division, largely resulting from a slapped-together customized slicer. Although the prints are remarkably quick with attractive floor high quality, I wasn’t capable of get precision elements out of it till I turned the circulate manner down and arrange Orca Slicer. Our Torture Toaster, Calibration Citadel, and collapsible sword all locked up tight at default settings when utilizing its personal slicer. It is like being given a sports activities automobile with bald tires — positive, it’s quick, however it’s no enjoyable to drive when you preserve ending up within the ditch.
The printer was additionally blessed with an overabundance of cooling energy, offered by a CPAP turbofan with 40,000 RPM. The fan is tucked into the printer’s higher compartment and blows air down a tube to the hotend. Its ear-piercing, high-pitched whine may be heard from the opposite finish of the home. Decreasing the fan to 85% supplies sufficient cooling with a tolerable, but sadly nonetheless annoying, stage of noise.
The FLSun S1 was so massive — each in measurement and weight — I couldn’t set it up in my studio. Although the footprint is just below two ft sq., it’s 42 inches tall and might’t clear the RepRack spool shelf I’ve mounted close to the ceiling. The printer weighs 95 kilos, so I had to purchase a brand new heavy-duty shelving unit simply to get it off the ground. The IKEA finish desk I had positioned its predecessor, the FLSun V400, wasn’t sturdy sufficient to carry it.
This machine has a lot wasted potential. FLSun actually dropped the ball with their half-hearted customized slicer. Fortunately, I discovered a profile for OrcaSlicer proper earlier than ending this assessment that gave me hope the printer may be saved. With a price ticket of $1,499, it’s not a printer I’d suggest for newbies, however there’s no denying its pace and futuristic flare. It is probably not the Finest 3D Printer I’ve seen this yr, however it’s positively the quickest.
Specs: FLSun S1
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| Construct Quantity | ⌀320 x 430mm (⌀12.6 x16.9 inches) |
| Materials | PLA/PETG/TPU/ABS (as much as 350 levels) |
| Extruder Sort | Direct Drive |
| Nozzle | .4mm V6 Hardened Metal |
| Construct Platform | PEI Spring Metal, Heated |
| Mattress Leveling | LIDAR Auto Leveling |
| Filament Runout Sensor | Sure |
| Connectivity | USB, Wi-Fi |
| Interface | Built-in coloration contact display screen |
| Machine Footprint | 550 x 595 x 1030mm (21.6 x 19.8 x 19.1 inches) |
| Machine Weight | 41kg (90 kilos) |
Included within the field: FLSun S1
The FLSun S1 comes with every little thing you could get began: instruments to construct and preserve the printer, facet cutters, a nozzle cleaner, grease, and a USB drive. You additionally get a spare hotend package and a 500 gram spool of filament.
There’s a paper copy of the consumer handbook, and the USB drive has a replica of the FLSun Slicer. Take a look at fashions are loaded within the printer’s reminiscence.
Assembling the FLSun S1
The FLSun S1 arrives largely assembled. You solely must plug in a couple of cords, pop the entrance panel containing the display screen on the underside, then connect the entrance door.
Warning: The entrance door is packed in such a manner that it seems hooked up. It isn’t. In case you’re the sort to begin ripping off packing materials earlier than studying the meeting instructions, you’ll be in for a shock.
Leveling the FLSun S1
The FLSun S1 comes with LIDAR and a number of sensors for computerized mattress leveling and calibration. Simply push a button, and the machine does the remaining. I didn’t have any points with mattress leveling.
If you could regulate the nozzle peak for a pesky filament (like PETG), there’s a restricted quantity of z peak obtainable from the tuning display screen.
Loading Filament within the FLSun S1
Loading filament within the FLSun S1 is somewhat tough as a result of completely spool-shaped gap within the built-in filament drying on the highest of the machine.
I discovered it crucial to carry the spool in my left hand and feed the strand into the Bowden tube with my proper. When you attain the instrument head (a number of ft of Bowden tube later), you should utilize the short launch on the tubing and shove the previous few inches residence.
Although I used to be capable of feed TPU the traditional manner, it’s far simpler to make use of a desk mounted spool and use the secondary filament path. You’ll have to show off the filament runout sensor, which you are able to do from the management panel.
There’s a severe flaw within the Klipper config file that controls unloading filament. The printer doesn’t know to push the filament ahead a bit to melt and launch it from the nozzle. Nonetheless, that is simple to repair — when you don’t thoughts entering into the code.
Right here’s what the altered macro seems like:
[gcode_macro UNLOAD_FILAMENT] #unload filament
gcode:
M117 unload_filament heating accomplished!
G91 ; Change to relative positioning
G1 E10 F300 ; Advance the filament by 10mm
G1 E-60 F300 ; Retract the filament by 60mm (10mm greater than the unique retraction to make sure it clears the hotend)
G90 ; Change again to absolute positioning
SET_STEPPER_ENABLE STEPPER=extruder ENABLE=0
M117 unload_filament completed!
Design of the FLSun S1
The FLSun S1 is a delta printer with three slender carbon fiber arms that slide up and down on belt-driven rails. It’s a really tall, very broad machine wrapped in a metal enclosure and weighs about 95 kilos. Put together accordingly.
It has a smooth, futuristic look with the very best management display screen I’ve ever seen on a 3D printer. The glass panel blends seamlessly into the machine’s entrance and gives massive, clear textual content and graphics, together with a speedometer to indicate off how briskly the print head is whirling.
The spool holder is about inside a built-in filament drier. It may well function whereas the printer is working or idle, permitting you to prep filament earlier than use or preserve it dry throughout printing. There are not any temperature settings for the dryer – simply an on/off change and a timer. A humidity gauge suggests how moist the chamber is however appears to be wildly inaccurate. At one level it mentioned the humidity was 2%, whereas a separate hygrometer says it was 45%. The temperature can be off by a drastic quantity, with the display screen saying 54.8C, however it was 80.7F (26.6C) on my thermometer. For the file, we wish the dry field to be between 40 and 50C for PLA and as much as 65C for PETG.
The spindle is mounted on a load sensor to estimate how a lot of the spool has been used. Nonetheless, it assumes you’re utilizing an “common” 1kg spool with none method to regulate for the beginning weight of the spool or half-sized spools. I feel the function continues to be helpful to offer you a common concept of how a lot materials is likely to be left.
The FLSun runs Klipper with a vanilla Mainsail interface. It comes with a digital camera mounted inside, so there’s no fuss getting monitoring arrange. The digital camera may also take timelapse movies, however it solely saves separately. It has a fish eye lens to suit its monumental construct quantity contained in the body.
The machine has two USB ports on the entrance, and likewise connects through Wi-Fi.
The FLSun S1 boasts speeds as much as 1200mm/s, which it makes use of for journey strikes. Its print pace tops out at 800mm/s and is used for infill. The partitions are tried at 500 mm/s. And I say try as a result of working the printer at full pace typically leads to poor high quality or prints knocked up and about. The photograph beneath exhibits a sword pommel that was spoiled as a result of the machine vibrated a lot the half was consistently wiggling.
The S1 makes use of a CPAP blower to supply the big quantity of cooling wanted for a printer working at these speeds. It’s violently noisy, with a high-pitched whine that makes pondering troublesome. Fortunately, you’ll be able to flip the fan all the way down to 85% to get some noise aid whereas nonetheless cooling your elements sufficiently.
Mattress adhesion at full pace is troublesome for this printer, regardless of the great PEI coating on its versatile plate. The handbook advises utilizing glue stick for all prints, however there is no such thing as a reminder such as you would see on the cool engineering plates of different manufacturers. This can be a onerous lesson to study, and forgetting is painful. I bought a print wrapped across the nozzle so dangerous it traveled upward into the fan. This required changing a lot of the instrument head, and FLSun was sort sufficient to swap out all the printer and let me strive once more.
That mentioned, the FLSun S1’s hotend is superb. The throat of the hotend is drilled out like a CHT nozzle to supply excessive circulate, whereas the nozzle itself is a normal detachable V6.
Getting ready Information / Software program
FLSun determined to make its personal slicer, piggybacking off PrusaSlicer from the seems of it. The slicer itself is okay, however the presets are missing. I needed to do some severe tuning to get the printer to cease over-extruding and making my ears bleed with fan noise.
A profile for OrcaSlicer has been launched to the FLSun Wiki, which helps, however you continue to must tone down the fan and filament circulate. I set the half cooling fan to 85% and materials circulate to 0.9, making it extra manageable.
Printing on the FLSun S1
Floor high quality on the FLSun S1 could be very easy, however the included customized slicer does it no justice. My prints utilizing FLSun’s slicer had been terribly inaccurate, horribly over extruded and vulnerable to fails. Switching to OrcaSlicer improved the standard, however I nonetheless needed to tone down the circulate to 0.9 within the filament profile.
The pace boat for this Delta printer is the quickest I’ve printed on any machine. The five hundred-gram pattern spool was extra beneficiant than most, however you’ll nonetheless need to purchase a full-sized spool straight away. Try our checklist of the greatest filaments for 3D printing right here.
A Velocity Benchy must observe sure guidelines: two partitions, three high and backside layers, 10 % grid infill, a 0.25 layer peak, and a 0.5 layer width. Like a number of the newer quick printers, this machine is quicker than my default settings of 300mm/s. The S1 ripped via the earlier file with a blazing 12-minute and 48-second boat, topping our checklist of the quickest 3D printers.
This boat is somewhat squashy on the roof, and the porthole is a bit oval. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless so much higher than many pace boats I’ve run previously yr or two.
Keep in mind: When racing a 3D Printer, it is extra about printing a “Benchy Formed Object” than actual high quality.
This was printed in bizarre grey Inland PLA, so not one of the defects are hidden.
I printed a couple of checks with the pattern spool of white PLA supplied with the printer. You’ll positively want to buy some extra. To see my favourite supplies to make use of, take a look at our information to the Finest Filaments for 3D Printing.
I printed numerous PLA whereas testing this printer, however essentially the most irritating was this collapsible sword with an admittedly troublesome hilt. You want a really dependable printer to get these sabers to end up, however no quantity of tuning with the customized slicer was capable of make this work, with bits of spaghetti showing on the high and the blades oozing collectively on the backside.
Switching to Orca Slicer lastly gave me a print that labored. Utilizing Creality Hyper PLA, the ultimate sword was printed with a 0.2 layer peak at 500mm/s and took two hours and 28 minutes to print. The print was easy, with no seen layer traces, aside from the underside of the guard, the place it bought somewhat sloppy. This print would have taken an bizarre mattress slinger, just like the Prusa MK4, somewhat over seven hours to print.
The drier got here in helpful for this PETG print. You may see the advance in high quality, with the undried filament on the left wanting a bit tough and the smoother dried print on the appropriate. This print makes use of Greengate Translucent Purple Petg with a medallion and lid of Polymaker Gold PLA and Proto Pasta Empire Strikes Black. It was printed utilizing FLSun’s slicer turned all the way down to 60mm/s and a pause at peak command to swap the filament colours. The jar took one hour and 58 minutes to print, plus one other 22 minutes for the lid, and about 6 minutes for the medallion. That is rather less than two and a half hours of whole print time.
It did surprisingly nicely on TPU as soon as I slowed it down a bit. Operating the filament via the secondary entry level is extremely advisable, as that bypasses a number of ft of Bowden tube. I made this bone formed canine toy in TinkerCad that turned out with good easy layers and an excellent high end. I used the Inland Rainbow TPU and it printed in 52 minutes at 0.2 layer peak and 60mm/s pace.
I examined ABS (utilizing Polymaker Galaxy Orange ABS) for this RC automobile half with the customized slicer, and it was solely too quick – inflicting poor layer adhesion. It additionally knocked over the tree helps every of the 3 times I attempted this print. With a little bit of tuning, I might make this work. I gave up and printed this half on the QIDI Tech Q1 since I wanted it for MRRF and couldn’t waste extra of my orange ABS.
Backside Line
The FLSun S1 is a irritating hunk of equipment that’s so near great and but so removed from it. Nobody ought to pay $1,500 for a machine that wants this a lot tuning to carry out nicely. The plus facet is it runs vanilla Klipper firmware and may be switched to OrcaSlicer for individuals who don’t thoughts an costly tinkering mission.
For everybody else, I counsel they wait and see if enhancements are made to the firmware to filter the odd little bugs.
In case you’re nonetheless fascinated about an amazing Delta printer, the FLSun V400 has seen nice enhancements in its firmware since we reviewed it, and it’s on sale for $549. Or when you want an excellent enclosed printer with a big construct quantity, I’d suggest the Creality K1 Max, at present going for $759.
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