iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I've seen a metal plate in some people's builds. I asked Rick who founded MakerGear about it and he didn't have any real recollection of what the deal was. It's not going to make it that much thicker. Just need to use smaller clips, etc.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 23/03/2026

Day 81/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. Old Printer, New Parts, New problems, Who would've guessed?

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 21/03/2026

Day 79/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. Taz 1.0 Parts confirmed. Lower those PCB bed temps!

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 20/03/2026

Day 78/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. We're back and making up for it... Maybe.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 17/03/2026

Anything newer likely has alot of value to companies that need certification like UL and operating lights out. I haven't kept up with what certs they go for but they are one of the few companies that bothers.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 17/03/2026

I quite often see 1-3 go for $100-200 which for what they are is expensive but the farms that still run the 2 and 3 it's a great deal and they go quick. The 3 was widely disliked and pretty sure I've seen quite a lot of them tossed instead of sold.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 17/03/2026

Day 75/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. What if we couldn't legally collect old printers?

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 16/03/2026

Day 74/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. Time lapse only.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 15/03/2026

Day 73/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 14/03/2026

Day 72/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. Out of town timelapses. Deal hunting newer hardware in TX.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 13/03/2026

Day 71/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. Boring episode, current events, repairs, new printers coming!

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 12/03/2026

Day 70/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. 3 Generations of MakerBot at the same time! #3dprinting

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 10/03/2026

Day 68/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. One last Thing-O-Matic test before going back to the Cupcake.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 09/03/2026

Day 67/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. #Makerbot Thing-O-Matic on Sailfish. #3dprinting

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 08/03/2026

Day 66/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. Thing-O-Matic Firmware Update!

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 07/03/2026

Day 65/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. Returning to the root of the project. Pain and suffering.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 06/03/2026

Day 64/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. New acquisitions in!

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 05/03/2026

Day 63/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. Cupcake printing Gridfinity parts?

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 04/03/2026

Day 62/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. We're back live! First time using the single extruder replicator.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 03/03/2026

Day 61/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. That's not CoreXY and that's not reverse CoreXY either!

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 02/03/2026

Day 60/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. What was your first printer?

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 01/03/2026

Day 59/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. We read comments while I assume everyones a dude, my bad... I caught myself while editing captions but it's almost 2 am and can't rerecord this one.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 28/02/2026

Day 58/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. The Impossible Tour?

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 27/02/2026

Yeah I'm not sure if Flash Print 5 functions on Apple silicon. Marlin is also an option. I have rough write ups for Marlin or Klipper configs I need to polish and post at some point along with literally every other printer in the collection lol.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 27/02/2026

I've only seen 2 i3 MK1s so far. I let Pooch from Repkord have the one I would have acquired. Frame wise it's essentially the same as the MK2. But the MK3 replaces the threaded Y rods with 30mm extrusions. We have a MK0 era 3mm build that has been updated with MK2 and MK3 parts but keeping it 3mm.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 27/02/2026

Nothing necessarily replaced anything at any given point in time. But the first few RepRap printers were threaded rod frames. Very quickly the majority of sold kits were plywood. From 2012 onward it was a pretty healthy mix. But current i3 descendents using threaded rod? Would love some examples.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 27/02/2026

Not on anything decent after 2017. Prusa i3 MK3 has no threaded rod. Creality, Sovol, Sunlu, Tevo, etc all used extrusion frames for their i3s. MendelMax, Lulzbot, etc went extrusion very early on. Threaded rod Mendel's have way too much side to side movement.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 27/02/2026

Day 57/365 Printing on Vintage Hardware. Second day of caption testing and time lapses.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 27/02/2026

Thermal runaway protection is firmware based and the stock firmware didn't have. When the temperature is out of expected range while heating it halts the printer. This doesn't solve everything but it's important. Reminds me the XT60 connector on the bed cable is known to be faulty on the OG version

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 27/02/2026

I am struggling to come up with a hotend recommendation but .6 will print faster often due to larger layers but it won't always flow more plastic volume per period of time. Modern high flow hotends can offer more speed at any given nozzle size so it's something to think about.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 27/02/2026

I can't speak for the early board safety. Most of the added safety is in software. Better boards give you more features. The ability to control all 3 fans instead of just the part cooling fan. Silent drivers which back when I ran an Ender also fixed a pattern issue in prints I had.

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This Old 3D Printer @thisold3dprinter.com · 27/02/2026

The original hotend and even on many of their newer models has a PTFE lined heatbreak where the PTFE goes all the way to the nozzle. This makes temperatures approaching 240C unsafe for human breathing but also tends to have heat creep and other clogging issues.

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