Hi Brian (@Worrierking)!
Thank you for taking the time to inquire about the usefulness of “Lefty”!
It’s true that he doesn’t get as much love as the other printers; however, he does get used by members who have taken the time to be trained on using NinjaFlex and wish to use him to print NinjaFlex when he’s configured to do so.
Recently, he was configured to use ABS for several weeks straight. It seems every time he is configured for ABS, that’s when someone suddenly has a need (or desire) to use NinjaFlex.
Just this past week, I received a request from someone to be trained on NinjaFlex. It wasn’t until the weekend that our schedules coincided so it could happen. Since I knew that we were going to be meeting one evening this past week, I made a point to leave him configured for NinjaFlex.
At any rate, at the end of this month we will be building a PrintrBot Metal Simple; plus the Mendel90 that Mitch and Co have been working on should be ready to use within the next week or few… Once these two are built and configured, “Lefty” will only rarely be configured for NinjaFlex (most likely only for 'Special Occasions" (like big events, etc…).
To address your final suggestion: We do not have plans to authorize anyone other than PolyPrinter, myself and soon Mitch (as soon as someone from PolyPrinter or I can train him) to swap out the extruders. The primary reason is to minimize the potential for damage/downtime. Swapping the extruder out excessively puts unnecessary wear and tear on the connector. Not to mention, we still constantly struggle with members damaging the printers “just printing”. [Examples: It was not too long ago that one printer was down for just over a day because someone had pressed down too hard on the extruder and snapped it in half! Around the same time, another printer had significant damage to the cover from what appears to have been someone’s carelessness in (likely) opening the cover too (fast? hard?) - resulting in breaking the hinge as well as one of the rails on the cover. Not to mention the (way too regular) reports of “Z height issues” - as a result of members adjusting the Z Height too low, causing problems with print jobs at the least; and, on a couple occasions greater damage (once someone adjusted it so low that it left a groove in the Metal bed; and, it’s fairly often that members adjust it low enough to damage the tape on the bed… plus it contributes to the nozzles wearing out too soon…).]
On that note ~ REMINDER: Only Authorized members are supposed to be adjusting the Z height manually. If the Z is not set correctly, please make a note in the Maintenance Log, tape a notice (from the maintenance log) on the printer, and send an e-mail to: [email protected] to report the issue. Please include detailed description, as well as screenshots/errors/photos, if possible.
Thanks again!
Lisa