Unboxing, build, and calibration
The Artist D Pro comes mostly assembled and the instructions were fairly good. It doesn’t take long to put together a mostly assembled machine like this. I still remember my first kit. It took me about 8 hours to build and then another 2 hours to wire manage. I couldn’t imagine doing that again. Just a few bolts, electrical connections, and a few odds and ends and the build is complete.
After building any printer with aluminum extrusion and wheels, I have come to expect to tighten eccentric nuts, tighten belts, etc… In addition to the normal once over, I had to tighten the 2 extrusions the bed rides on. I moved the bed back loosened the 2 bolts holding the extrusion in place and pushed them apart. Then tightened the bolts again. Then repeat the same process on the 2 rear bolts. I tweaked the eccentric nuts and this resolved the bed issue. I then trammed the bed to the first nozzle.
I lied, 1 more thing to do. I use my calibration tool to find the best retraction settings. I have been getting some posts on the Facebook group with unreadable results and haven’t been able to get to the bottom of why sometimes it does not work. Finally, I received a printer that the default settings didn’t work out of the box. I wasn’t getting good results and narrowed it down to temperature. I reran the test 10 degrees cooler to get readable results.
JGMaker Artist-D Pro Teardown
MKS Robin Board. Exceptionally tidy in here. I would say the cleanest I have ever seen.
The hotend assembly is unique. They have a proprietary nozzle system that allows for quick changing nozzles. I purchased some larger nozzles but have not used them yet
Production Machine
I have been 3d printing for quite some time now and almost 100% of the time I use the printer as a tool now. Printing 2 colors is of no interest to me anymore. But what if I told you this printer can print twice as fast as most other printers.
Above you can see the nozzle in the parked position. It rests directly on metal bristles and I could tell that it had the potential to be messy with a hot nozzle resting in bristles with oozed filament in it. I was right and It ended up causing fine wisps of filament between the purge bucket and the model being printed. I went to trusty old Thingiverse and found my buddy already created a replacement purge bucket. He only modeled the left side and I was able to use one of the first special modes of an IDEX printer. That is mirror mode. In the menu of the printer, there is a place to choose the mode you want. In mirror mode whatever you set to print with extruder 1 will be mirrored on the second extruder. I just pushed the model to the left side of the build plate in my slicer. I did go a little further than I needed but I was being cautious. It printed brilliantly and this is when I had the aha moment. I started conservative @ 60mm/s and essentially I printed twice as fast because both nozzles were going at the same time. There is a gotcha with this. If you recall the nozzles aren’t perfectly lined up on the z-axis. I had to drop the left side of the bed to account for this. I went a little too low initially and got a little lifting off the bed as you can see in the picture.
Interesting Print
Artist-D Pro sample prints
I was looking for something to print and my son showed me this corner finding contraption video. I was curious if someone made one for printing and again Thingiverse to the rescue.
It is not really functional but a neat little toy. Just doesn’t have the resolution necessary to use it seriously.
Some more random prints. It prints small pretty well.
Final thoughts
IDEX. I like it. I can see a bunch of potential with it. Of course, with any dual nozzle printer, there can be big challenges to overcome. There is a lot more complexity. But my mind wanders. This makes me want to make a 4 nozzle printer for kicks. Not totally independent like an IDEX. I am suggesting sharing motion to only achieve duplicate mode. I can see printers like these used in printer farms. If the printer could achieve a 45-minute benchy. That would put it in the realm of 11.25 minutes a benchy….Which is very respectable. See Speedboat Challenge.
I am a little disappointed. I would hope there would have more fixes applied before releasing a newer version. I am not the only one who had these hiccups. Like I always suggest joining a Facebook group for a while before making any decisions. On the flip side, you have to keep an open mind. There is always disproportionately more negative feedback.
I would like to thank JG Maker for sending over the Artist-D Pro for review. It can be found on Amazon currently $600 but has a $60 coupon available. Or direct from JG Maker here currently $529.
Karl is a technology enthusiast that contributes reviews of TV boxes, 3D printers, and other gadgets for makers.