my RepRap Prusa i3 3d Printer - unboxing

[miriam_e]

A week ago I bought a RepRap Prusa i3 3D printer kit online from Sunhokey for AUS$360 via PayPal (free shipping). It has already arrived! Just 7 days between order and arrival from China to Queensland countryside in Australia. Amazing!

When I opened the box I was impressed. As everybody says in all the reviews, the packaging is truly a work of art! I have never seen anything so carefully and meticulously protected.

I went through the packing list. All parts on the list are there, plus 2 end-stop pieces. The end-stop pieces look a little different from the ones in videos I'd watched, so that's promising as other people had not been too keen on the old end-stops. It will be interesting to see how they go, though it hardly matters; anything that attaches to the rods to trigger the microswitches will do fine.

A few things that I am especially happy about:

- I neglected to specify in my order the color and type of plastic feeder filament. A couple of times I almost went online to order one of PLA* and one of ABS**. I wanted a white one and a black one and was envisioning being sent whatever outrageous colors never get requested. However I was sent one spool of black PLA and one spool of white ABS. Excellent! (Incidentally, I think one reason my package arrived so quickly is that I didn't specify about the filaments, so they simply grabbed a pre-boxed one and sent it. Picky orders might take a little longer depending on supplies.)

- a nice extra that they don't need to include, but do anyway, was an SD card (actually a microSD inside an adapter). Videos I'd watched and reviews I'd read said it was just a 2GB card, which might seem small, but is in fact plenty big enough for the job. So I was surprised to find an 8GB card with mine. Very nice. :)

- I received the aluminium heated bed instead of the glass bed. I've heard the aluminium one is superior, so that's a nice bonus.

Sunhokey seem to go that little bit extra to keep their customers happy.

Now I've cleared space on my bench to assemble it. My fingers are tingling in anticipation. More later...

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* PLA (polylactic acid - a non-toxic biodegradeable plastic made from starch)
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid
** ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene -- what LEGO bricks are made from)
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styrene