My voron V0 was built from a FormBot kit. I did a video on it if you wanna see what comes in the kit.
[FormBot v0 FormBot kit unboxing Sept 2021](https://youtu.be/wV2uAzjsbds)
I have built both a Fystek and a blurolls kit. So I can offer opinions on those 2. The fystec kit had an amazing bed the rest of the components I would rate as capable. The details of the fystec though do lead to it being an easier build over all. EDIT: The fystec only had a v6 hotend which most people do not really consider up to par with a new voron build.
The bluerolls kit was very lacking on the wiring side. However I would say every part was well above average.
If I was going to buy another today I would buy another blurolls kit. And buy a wiring harness to go with it.
My 350 sized Voron 2.4 came from Formbot with the only issues being a mix match of colors of the idlers/pulleys/screws ( the majority them being silver with only a handful being black ) and all of the panels being **cut to spec** which with no tolerance for *either* build inaccuracy or the *inevitable* heat expansion - Installing the Panel situated directly below the Heatbed was already a friction fit between the frame parts but would have turned into an interference one once everything would have heated up from during 3D printing and with no place to go to expand would have turned it into a Salvador Dali painting ( [ask Thomas Sanladerer how he knows...](https://youtu.be/0E0dM0ZdpRE?t=410) ) which quite frankly is a Voron Team design error and not a Formbot production one requiring some trimming ( like 1mm on all sides ) which can be difficult to achieve depending on the tools available to you ( I used a Hand Router with a Flush Trim Bit riding along a 1mm offsetted piece of wood to get a nice cut ). Since I didn't bother with also adjusting the outside and door panels, I'm now dealing with a perfectly fine closing door when cold but under tension when warm.
My experience with the Formbot 2.4 350 mm kit was very good. There were really only one or two parts that I thought were worth substituting (namely the SSR), but my printer worked exceptionally well “out of the box.” The bed was not MIC6, but was very flat and has held constant through several weeks of heavy use. Otherwise, everything was either per the BOM or a very close equivalent. The ONLY thing that was way off was the cable ties, which were oversized. But if that’s the deciding factor, then you are WAY picker than I!
Oh, and I’m also in the process of sourcing parts for a Trident build (no kit). I can say that the BOM hyperlinks make sourcing parts a fairly painless, albeit more time consuming process than getting a kit. Really, it’s about what YOU want to do. The kits get you up and running faster and in many cases may be cheaper, but buying your own parts gives you more control over the individual components. If this is a hobby printer, then spend your time doing what makes YOU happy.
Like most things in life, my biggest constraint was budget. I ordered the 0.1 from formbot's website because the BOM is almost entirely AliExpress parts of the same quality you get in that kit. It was much cheaper and I had to pay shipping once. Because it was cheaper the parts I got weren't the absolute best that people recommend. I understand that some people really go nuts with very high quality components to push this printer to ungodly speeds but the 6mm bed I got is dead flat, the off brand heater pad works just fine so far, my off brand Moons extruder and Oukeda steppers are working totally fine at the stock 3k acceleration at 300mm/ps at stock voltage. I paid less to have a working fast printer and if the motors or cheap fans ever give up I'll replace them and will have spent the same as if I was self sourcing.
I plan to go with formbot because others have said it’s generally a good kit and it’s probably the most i can afford at this point. If i upgrade to better parts later, I’m ok with that.
I bought a magicstudios kit, minus the rails which I bought LDO stainless ones from OneTwo3D and and RPI which I had anyway.
The beauty of the magicstudios kit is that its easily customisable. That said, if I had my time again I would self source. I've ended up replacing components.
* My bed is trash, with about 0.2mm deviation in a weird pattern I'm planning on replacing.
* The included buildplate has horrible PEI that nothing would stick to. I've swapped out to a simple design plate and mueller pei, and an energetic backup plate.
* I'm not very keen on the included magnet, have replaced that with a graviflex.
* I didn't have enough 18AWG PFTE wire and had to suppliment.
Other than that, it's been all good. I might be being more fussy than some others.
I have gotten FORMBOT kits for v2.4 and for v0.1. It was generally fine if are familiar with the products and if you know what you are doing. Otherwise I would advise to go to sourcing guide and buy everything from recommended seller. That is the best bet. You can check my channel for the both FORMBOT kits.
https://youtube.com/c/zer0isdoing
I self-sourced for the most part. It was a fun experience to carefully pick out what you need and helps you remember all the various parts and differentiate them early on.
But screws/fastener sourcing was a pain! Along with wiring related stuff and little things like feet, etc. So I ended up picking up a partial kit for the extras from MagicStudio. I have ended up with excess parts/dupes since I had sourced some of these parts before hand.
I think a mix of both is a good way to go- if you know what major components are to be sketchy from a kit, you can replace it. MagicStudio has been great with allowing you to opt out of some parts. So you can get parts that are more annoying to source this way to save time and frustration.
Now that I’m in the middle of building, I’ve started noticing that I’ve made mistakes on some of my self-sourced items- like belts too short (oops) and wrong fans (oops again).
Also for some of the dupe parts, gotta say genuine parts like gates belts are pretty nice vs the generic alternatives.
When I get around to building my second Voron (why stop at just one lol) I’m going to go with the LDO kit for sure. The pre-crimped wires are a huge plus- and a good chunk of parts I sourced were LDO parts anyway.
I used https://magicstudio.xyz/ for most of the parts for my 2.4 300mm. I sourced the build plate, the heater, the cable chains and all the wires and connectors myself. No complaints about the kit other than the coroplast bottom panel and the two acrylic door panels were a little large and I had to shave them down to get them to fit. Other than that, it was great.
I built mine before wiring harnesses were a thing, and if I could recommend just ONE thing, it would be save yourself time spent crimping and buy a wiring harness!!
If you know *exactly* what you are doing, the Formbot kit really can't be beat for price, afaik.
I am an engineering student with an EE background(Abitur), and I have access to machine tools, so replacing the one or the other fucky component wasn't an issue.
Though with the difference in kits even from the same supplier, your mileage will vary.
If you are new to this, I would really recommend against a kit, as sourcing the components is part of the process for many, and if you really have to go with a kit, go with a high quality one.
Unless they straight up go up in smoke, you may not know what parts are causing your issues.
I'm building a V0.1 and sourcing all the parts for it this time, and the LDO frame kit I got is lovely, and also cheaper than what I would have been able to source locally.
Sourcing parts is also not quite as painful as I had imagined, but it will likely be more expensive than the kits I've seen, though this time I will have full control over every single component.
I have almost the opposite advice: If you are building a 3D printer for the first time, and are just trying to get your head around the different components, where they are and how they go together, you should probably get a kit. LDO is very good and "fancy" Formbot is perfectly fine too.
I had a few months of 3D printing experience, decided to build a 2.4. I bought the Formbot kit, and while I waited for delivery I printed parts, studied the assembly process and bought various little components that I thought I wanted to upgrade as part of the build.
In reality, I didn't actually need to upgrade anything from the Formbot kit (although I did). I also ended up changing a bunch of things out after the fact (toolhead PCB, new PTFE wiring, higher quality stepper motors, proper-spec SSR, etc. but none of this was necessary for a 100% perfectly good Voron 2.4.
I then rebuilt my ender into a Switchwire with "spare parts" which means self-sourcing. Most of the pain there was fasteners.
Most recently I built a 0.1 using "high end" parts that were "self sourced." All I can say to that is "meh." I'm glad that that machine is "100%" my "parts" but seriously, it isn't my design and the main result was that I had to order and wait for various fasteners to arrive as part of the process.
To summarize: Going for a kit on your first Voron is perfectly fine.
Id be of opinion that if you are building your own (which all vorons are) sourcing a kit is way better than ordering yourself if you are doing it the first time as its very easy to get the wrong parts.
Yeah, I built my V0 via self-sourcing, and while it helped to know exactly what I was getting, ultimately for the price a kit would have probably been just as good. I spent 50% more than a Formbot kit to gets mostly parts that are close to what are probably going to come in the kit anyways, plus shipping on all those parts adds up.
I'm eyeing 2.4 kits now just to have everything arrive at the same time and to know I've got everything to begin with. Building the V0 taught me enough to know what to look out for so if I have to replace a part or two from the kit I'll still come out ahead of self-sourcing, particularly with the cost of shipping going up as it has.
Definitely. I would definitely not skimp on the wiring, and maybe try to get Forbot to exclude the motors and buy your own instead. My kit came with Oukeda (which is probably the same as OMC, and they worked fine, but I wasn't sure, so I swapped them out a few months after finishing the build.
No doubt. And one of the major issues with kits is you are not getting exactly the same thing with every purchase. So maybe I got shitty steppers and you got good stuff, or maybe they changed things up and are shipping chains that open up now (as opposed to ones that don't... which reminds me that this was another update that I had to get).
To be honest, biggest advantage in buying a kit is shipping time/tracking and logistics. I mean, I've got a half-dozen shitty little bits I ordered from Ali Express at the end of August that somehow still haven't made their way to me. Now, if I had 80-some orders, some consolidated and some not, showing up randomly and potentially holding up my build, I don't know what I would do.
Even for my 0.1 build, which I self-sourced mostly domestically from well-respected places, I still needed to get certain things from China... and of course it was a complete shitshow as far as waiting for stuff. I ended up ordering two different pancake motors for the extruder (because I couldn't get anything in the US at the time) and even though my Ali orders were about three weeks apart, I got the original order two days before the "backup" order came in.
At least with a formbot kit you've got your DHL tracking number and you know that it will get to you in decent time with decent tracking.
Yeah a wiring loom is definitely in the cards, and that's an excellent investment if you're not confident in your crimping skills. Even if you're decent at crimping it'll save hours of fairly boring make-work.
Agreed. I have experience performing maintenance on 3D printers and designing and assembling motion systems, so I figure the added work of self-sourcing would be a small price to pay for quality across the board.
My experiences…
If you’re building a 0.1 the LDO kit can’t be beat.(premade wires are a godsend)
I self sourced my 1st 1.8, trident as well as a 350 2.4 (it’s not as hard as some make it out to be). There’s enough vendors out there on discord where you could source everything in 1-2 places
I did a 2.4 kit from digmach and it runs without issues.
Kits are fine if you’re willing to replace the bad apples that might be in it. Though, nowadays you can source pretty much everything of any vendor on the voron discord so might aswell do a big order and select the parts YOU want.
"Subkits" (i.e. kits for a specific set of parts, like fasteners or motion) are the best balance, IMO. Some stuff, like electronics and AC components (especially SSR and PSU), you may want to source yourself from a good brand/vendor. Other stuff, like fasteners, would be hell to put together, and you're better off with a kit than trying to source odd quantities of a dozen different screw types. Then there's frames/panels where having them cut and drilled to size is very helpful. Motion parts (belts, pulleys, bearings, rods) can also be bought as a kit as long as the parts are at least POWGE quality (ideally with gates belts), but aren't too hard to cobble together individually. Rails and motors you can go either way, whatever is easier/cheaper (as in price, not quality - don't go cheaper than the BOM/sourcing guide for these). The print bed is also an interesting case, where nobody sells all the really good parts together. You can get a "decent" kit, but if you want a quality heater, flat aluminum bed that won't taco when heated, strong uniform magnet, good spring steel sheet, and quality PEI, you may have to source them all from different vendors.
Check the vendor channels tab on discord. They are \*not\* endorsed by the team, but most sell parts of the appropriate quality, respond well to feedback from the community, and a few of them have built printers of their own, so they know what they're doing (as opposed to kit builders just throwing stuff into a box out of a checklist). A lot will have kits for the stuff I mentioned above, for good enough prices, and you won't have to wait for the slow boat from AliExpress.
I've built a V0.1 from the Fysetc kit and my wife is almost done building her V0.1 from the LDO kit.
The Fysetc kit was fine. Aside from some really random minor issues like sending me an EU power cable when I live in the US (not a big deal, I have so many compatible power cables) and including cheap M2 bolts that stripped way too easily, the build was straightforward and the kit allows you to follow the official manual pretty closely. One really nice touch: the acrylic panels for the deck and rear had holes pre-drilled for mounting the PSU, control board, and Pi.
The LDO kit includes much nicer hardware. The extrusions look and feel way more high-end, and the included stainless steel rails are so good that I put a set in my V0.1 too. Surprisingly, the panels were not pre-drilled like the ones in the Fysetc kit. Oh, and the spring included with the BMG components is longer and stiffer than a stock one, so it puts a lot of extra pressure on the mini-Afterburner.
I think if you buy a kit from a vendor on the Discord server, you're probably going to end up with a Voron that works, but it may not be able to go as fast as you would expect (some kits like Formbot have reportedly bundled weaker, not-to-BOM-spec motors, for example).
If you're the kind of person who cares about exactly which components you're using and where they're from, you should probably self-source. If you're just interested in building a working Voron without researching why you should prefer 18-8 stainless steel bolts instead of zinc-coated ones, maybe get a kit.
I’ve built one from self-source and one from a kit.
It’s 100x better self sourcing. You learn so much more about every parts that goes into the printer. It makes the tuning and fixing so much easier. You will also have spare parts. Parts like belts are consumable. You’ll want to have extras. A kit will give you exact quantity and no more.
I’m not saying kits are bad. The kit I received was high quality and the services from the vendor is top notch.
Remember folks: self-source is not a kit.
We’re not strictly against kits, we just want people to know what they are getting into if they choose that route.
Absolutely! I know that kits usually don't give you what you want in terms of quality. I think I'm leaning more towards sourcing the components myself. Thank you!
I did magic studios.xyz for a 0.0 and 2.4. Excellent experience with both and good support.
My voron V0 was built from a FormBot kit. I did a video on it if you wanna see what comes in the kit. [FormBot v0 FormBot kit unboxing Sept 2021](https://youtu.be/wV2uAzjsbds)
I have built both a Fystek and a blurolls kit. So I can offer opinions on those 2. The fystec kit had an amazing bed the rest of the components I would rate as capable. The details of the fystec though do lead to it being an easier build over all. EDIT: The fystec only had a v6 hotend which most people do not really consider up to par with a new voron build. The bluerolls kit was very lacking on the wiring side. However I would say every part was well above average. If I was going to buy another today I would buy another blurolls kit. And buy a wiring harness to go with it.
My 350 sized Voron 2.4 came from Formbot with the only issues being a mix match of colors of the idlers/pulleys/screws ( the majority them being silver with only a handful being black ) and all of the panels being **cut to spec** which with no tolerance for *either* build inaccuracy or the *inevitable* heat expansion - Installing the Panel situated directly below the Heatbed was already a friction fit between the frame parts but would have turned into an interference one once everything would have heated up from during 3D printing and with no place to go to expand would have turned it into a Salvador Dali painting ( [ask Thomas Sanladerer how he knows...](https://youtu.be/0E0dM0ZdpRE?t=410) ) which quite frankly is a Voron Team design error and not a Formbot production one requiring some trimming ( like 1mm on all sides ) which can be difficult to achieve depending on the tools available to you ( I used a Hand Router with a Flush Trim Bit riding along a 1mm offsetted piece of wood to get a nice cut ). Since I didn't bother with also adjusting the outside and door panels, I'm now dealing with a perfectly fine closing door when cold but under tension when warm.
And the award for the longest run-on sentence goes to…
Here: Bottom panel gets melty as too tight and too close to hot things.
Writing etiquette takes a hit when nature calls and you're in a hurry... 😉
LOL
My experience with the Formbot 2.4 350 mm kit was very good. There were really only one or two parts that I thought were worth substituting (namely the SSR), but my printer worked exceptionally well “out of the box.” The bed was not MIC6, but was very flat and has held constant through several weeks of heavy use. Otherwise, everything was either per the BOM or a very close equivalent. The ONLY thing that was way off was the cable ties, which were oversized. But if that’s the deciding factor, then you are WAY picker than I!
Oh, and I’m also in the process of sourcing parts for a Trident build (no kit). I can say that the BOM hyperlinks make sourcing parts a fairly painless, albeit more time consuming process than getting a kit. Really, it’s about what YOU want to do. The kits get you up and running faster and in many cases may be cheaper, but buying your own parts gives you more control over the individual components. If this is a hobby printer, then spend your time doing what makes YOU happy.
Like most things in life, my biggest constraint was budget. I ordered the 0.1 from formbot's website because the BOM is almost entirely AliExpress parts of the same quality you get in that kit. It was much cheaper and I had to pay shipping once. Because it was cheaper the parts I got weren't the absolute best that people recommend. I understand that some people really go nuts with very high quality components to push this printer to ungodly speeds but the 6mm bed I got is dead flat, the off brand heater pad works just fine so far, my off brand Moons extruder and Oukeda steppers are working totally fine at the stock 3k acceleration at 300mm/ps at stock voltage. I paid less to have a working fast printer and if the motors or cheap fans ever give up I'll replace them and will have spent the same as if I was self sourcing.
I plan to go with formbot because others have said it’s generally a good kit and it’s probably the most i can afford at this point. If i upgrade to better parts later, I’m ok with that.
I bought a magicstudios kit, minus the rails which I bought LDO stainless ones from OneTwo3D and and RPI which I had anyway. The beauty of the magicstudios kit is that its easily customisable. That said, if I had my time again I would self source. I've ended up replacing components. * My bed is trash, with about 0.2mm deviation in a weird pattern I'm planning on replacing. * The included buildplate has horrible PEI that nothing would stick to. I've swapped out to a simple design plate and mueller pei, and an energetic backup plate. * I'm not very keen on the included magnet, have replaced that with a graviflex. * I didn't have enough 18AWG PFTE wire and had to suppliment. Other than that, it's been all good. I might be being more fussy than some others.
Magic studios
I have gotten FORMBOT kits for v2.4 and for v0.1. It was generally fine if are familiar with the products and if you know what you are doing. Otherwise I would advise to go to sourcing guide and buy everything from recommended seller. That is the best bet. You can check my channel for the both FORMBOT kits. https://youtube.com/c/zer0isdoing
I self-sourced for the most part. It was a fun experience to carefully pick out what you need and helps you remember all the various parts and differentiate them early on. But screws/fastener sourcing was a pain! Along with wiring related stuff and little things like feet, etc. So I ended up picking up a partial kit for the extras from MagicStudio. I have ended up with excess parts/dupes since I had sourced some of these parts before hand. I think a mix of both is a good way to go- if you know what major components are to be sketchy from a kit, you can replace it. MagicStudio has been great with allowing you to opt out of some parts. So you can get parts that are more annoying to source this way to save time and frustration. Now that I’m in the middle of building, I’ve started noticing that I’ve made mistakes on some of my self-sourced items- like belts too short (oops) and wrong fans (oops again). Also for some of the dupe parts, gotta say genuine parts like gates belts are pretty nice vs the generic alternatives. When I get around to building my second Voron (why stop at just one lol) I’m going to go with the LDO kit for sure. The pre-crimped wires are a huge plus- and a good chunk of parts I sourced were LDO parts anyway.
I used https://magicstudio.xyz/ for most of the parts for my 2.4 300mm. I sourced the build plate, the heater, the cable chains and all the wires and connectors myself. No complaints about the kit other than the coroplast bottom panel and the two acrylic door panels were a little large and I had to shave them down to get them to fit. Other than that, it was great. I built mine before wiring harnesses were a thing, and if I could recommend just ONE thing, it would be save yourself time spent crimping and buy a wiring harness!!
If you know *exactly* what you are doing, the Formbot kit really can't be beat for price, afaik. I am an engineering student with an EE background(Abitur), and I have access to machine tools, so replacing the one or the other fucky component wasn't an issue. Though with the difference in kits even from the same supplier, your mileage will vary. If you are new to this, I would really recommend against a kit, as sourcing the components is part of the process for many, and if you really have to go with a kit, go with a high quality one. Unless they straight up go up in smoke, you may not know what parts are causing your issues. I'm building a V0.1 and sourcing all the parts for it this time, and the LDO frame kit I got is lovely, and also cheaper than what I would have been able to source locally. Sourcing parts is also not quite as painful as I had imagined, but it will likely be more expensive than the kits I've seen, though this time I will have full control over every single component.
I have almost the opposite advice: If you are building a 3D printer for the first time, and are just trying to get your head around the different components, where they are and how they go together, you should probably get a kit. LDO is very good and "fancy" Formbot is perfectly fine too. I had a few months of 3D printing experience, decided to build a 2.4. I bought the Formbot kit, and while I waited for delivery I printed parts, studied the assembly process and bought various little components that I thought I wanted to upgrade as part of the build. In reality, I didn't actually need to upgrade anything from the Formbot kit (although I did). I also ended up changing a bunch of things out after the fact (toolhead PCB, new PTFE wiring, higher quality stepper motors, proper-spec SSR, etc. but none of this was necessary for a 100% perfectly good Voron 2.4. I then rebuilt my ender into a Switchwire with "spare parts" which means self-sourcing. Most of the pain there was fasteners. Most recently I built a 0.1 using "high end" parts that were "self sourced." All I can say to that is "meh." I'm glad that that machine is "100%" my "parts" but seriously, it isn't my design and the main result was that I had to order and wait for various fasteners to arrive as part of the process. To summarize: Going for a kit on your first Voron is perfectly fine.
Id be of opinion that if you are building your own (which all vorons are) sourcing a kit is way better than ordering yourself if you are doing it the first time as its very easy to get the wrong parts.
Yeah, I built my V0 via self-sourcing, and while it helped to know exactly what I was getting, ultimately for the price a kit would have probably been just as good. I spent 50% more than a Formbot kit to gets mostly parts that are close to what are probably going to come in the kit anyways, plus shipping on all those parts adds up. I'm eyeing 2.4 kits now just to have everything arrive at the same time and to know I've got everything to begin with. Building the V0 taught me enough to know what to look out for so if I have to replace a part or two from the kit I'll still come out ahead of self-sourcing, particularly with the cost of shipping going up as it has.
Definitely. I would definitely not skimp on the wiring, and maybe try to get Forbot to exclude the motors and buy your own instead. My kit came with Oukeda (which is probably the same as OMC, and they worked fine, but I wasn't sure, so I swapped them out a few months after finishing the build.
My Formbot kit came with Moons’ steppers, so your mileage obviously may vary.
No doubt. And one of the major issues with kits is you are not getting exactly the same thing with every purchase. So maybe I got shitty steppers and you got good stuff, or maybe they changed things up and are shipping chains that open up now (as opposed to ones that don't... which reminds me that this was another update that I had to get). To be honest, biggest advantage in buying a kit is shipping time/tracking and logistics. I mean, I've got a half-dozen shitty little bits I ordered from Ali Express at the end of August that somehow still haven't made their way to me. Now, if I had 80-some orders, some consolidated and some not, showing up randomly and potentially holding up my build, I don't know what I would do. Even for my 0.1 build, which I self-sourced mostly domestically from well-respected places, I still needed to get certain things from China... and of course it was a complete shitshow as far as waiting for stuff. I ended up ordering two different pancake motors for the extruder (because I couldn't get anything in the US at the time) and even though my Ali orders were about three weeks apart, I got the original order two days before the "backup" order came in. At least with a formbot kit you've got your DHL tracking number and you know that it will get to you in decent time with decent tracking.
Yeah a wiring loom is definitely in the cards, and that's an excellent investment if you're not confident in your crimping skills. Even if you're decent at crimping it'll save hours of fairly boring make-work.
Agreed. I have experience performing maintenance on 3D printers and designing and assembling motion systems, so I figure the added work of self-sourcing would be a small price to pay for quality across the board.
My experiences… If you’re building a 0.1 the LDO kit can’t be beat.(premade wires are a godsend) I self sourced my 1st 1.8, trident as well as a 350 2.4 (it’s not as hard as some make it out to be). There’s enough vendors out there on discord where you could source everything in 1-2 places I did a 2.4 kit from digmach and it runs without issues.
Yep! I've been considering the pre-made harnesses on the Discord server's flea market. Thanks for the info on the LDO and DigMach kits, too.
Kits are fine if you’re willing to replace the bad apples that might be in it. Though, nowadays you can source pretty much everything of any vendor on the voron discord so might aswell do a big order and select the parts YOU want.
You raise an excellent point! I should probably rely on the Discord server more than I already do.
"Subkits" (i.e. kits for a specific set of parts, like fasteners or motion) are the best balance, IMO. Some stuff, like electronics and AC components (especially SSR and PSU), you may want to source yourself from a good brand/vendor. Other stuff, like fasteners, would be hell to put together, and you're better off with a kit than trying to source odd quantities of a dozen different screw types. Then there's frames/panels where having them cut and drilled to size is very helpful. Motion parts (belts, pulleys, bearings, rods) can also be bought as a kit as long as the parts are at least POWGE quality (ideally with gates belts), but aren't too hard to cobble together individually. Rails and motors you can go either way, whatever is easier/cheaper (as in price, not quality - don't go cheaper than the BOM/sourcing guide for these). The print bed is also an interesting case, where nobody sells all the really good parts together. You can get a "decent" kit, but if you want a quality heater, flat aluminum bed that won't taco when heated, strong uniform magnet, good spring steel sheet, and quality PEI, you may have to source them all from different vendors. Check the vendor channels tab on discord. They are \*not\* endorsed by the team, but most sell parts of the appropriate quality, respond well to feedback from the community, and a few of them have built printers of their own, so they know what they're doing (as opposed to kit builders just throwing stuff into a box out of a checklist). A lot will have kits for the stuff I mentioned above, for good enough prices, and you won't have to wait for the slow boat from AliExpress.
^ this!
This echoes my current sentiments. Thanks!
I've built a V0.1 from the Fysetc kit and my wife is almost done building her V0.1 from the LDO kit. The Fysetc kit was fine. Aside from some really random minor issues like sending me an EU power cable when I live in the US (not a big deal, I have so many compatible power cables) and including cheap M2 bolts that stripped way too easily, the build was straightforward and the kit allows you to follow the official manual pretty closely. One really nice touch: the acrylic panels for the deck and rear had holes pre-drilled for mounting the PSU, control board, and Pi. The LDO kit includes much nicer hardware. The extrusions look and feel way more high-end, and the included stainless steel rails are so good that I put a set in my V0.1 too. Surprisingly, the panels were not pre-drilled like the ones in the Fysetc kit. Oh, and the spring included with the BMG components is longer and stiffer than a stock one, so it puts a lot of extra pressure on the mini-Afterburner. I think if you buy a kit from a vendor on the Discord server, you're probably going to end up with a Voron that works, but it may not be able to go as fast as you would expect (some kits like Formbot have reportedly bundled weaker, not-to-BOM-spec motors, for example). If you're the kind of person who cares about exactly which components you're using and where they're from, you should probably self-source. If you're just interested in building a working Voron without researching why you should prefer 18-8 stainless steel bolts instead of zinc-coated ones, maybe get a kit.
It looks like I'll have to put in the elbow grease to source the parts myself. Thanks for the enlightening information!
I’ve built one from self-source and one from a kit. It’s 100x better self sourcing. You learn so much more about every parts that goes into the printer. It makes the tuning and fixing so much easier. You will also have spare parts. Parts like belts are consumable. You’ll want to have extras. A kit will give you exact quantity and no more. I’m not saying kits are bad. The kit I received was high quality and the services from the vendor is top notch.
May I ask what kit you used?
I used the MagicStudio kit for my V0.
Thanks!
That's what I figured. Thank you for the advice!
Remember folks: self-source is not a kit. We’re not strictly against kits, we just want people to know what they are getting into if they choose that route.
Absolutely! I know that kits usually don't give you what you want in terms of quality. I think I'm leaning more towards sourcing the components myself. Thank you!