Second K8200 Build

I built a second K8200 three months after the first. It was for someone who gave it as a Christmas gift.

My second build went three times faster than the first. The second build/wire/calibrate took about 50 hours. It always puzzles me when I see someone say he did it in ten hours. It took me longer than that to wire it!

The second unit had a different extruder thermistor mount than my original unit. The on-line instructions are updated for the new thermistor mount, but not the downloadable pdf files.

I guess I never realized just how many errors exist in the assembly PDF files until the second time around. Would be very easy to correct at a low cost. It’s a real puzzle why Velleman never fixed the z-axis adjustment problem. I fixed it for the cost of two M3 nuts.

Thank God I had a complete stock of spare parts, because the new unit had many problems including a defective controller board.

In summary, I was no more impressed the second time around. I continue to believe the K8200 could be greatly improved at a very low cost. Most of us have paid for parts and improved the unit on our own. Velleman appears to have no interest in improving the K8200. which is why I would never recommend it to anyone. I got both units working well by doing things that Velleman should have fixed long ago.

The absolute minimum improvement I would recommend to anyone is to replace the z-axis coupler with a flexible coupler that cost about USD $2.