Lk4 3d printer

Review of the 3D printer LONGER LK4 FDM

Hello, today there will be a review of a budget 3D printer from the manufacturer LONGER. This printer was presented to me in December 2020. on the day of the jam. I have no experience with a 3D printer. But knowing my love for CNC machines, my wife gave me a gift and a surprise.

And so let's start, brief performance characteristics from the manufacturer with my additions;

Equipment model: LK4

Print technology: FDM extruder

Print size: 220*220*250 mm – I have actual print sizes 190*190*200

Printing temperature: 190-250℃

Nozzle diameter: 0.4 mm

Layer thickness: 0.1-0.4 mm

Filament sensor - very handy option

Heated table - up to 100℃

Resuming printing after a power outage - helped me 100% a couple of times

Color touch screen 2.8 – SUPER!!!

Slice software: Cura, Reptier-Host

File format: G-code, STL

Connection: TF card or USB cable

Input voltage: 100-120V AC 7A, 200-240V AC 3. 5 A, 50-60Hz

Output voltage: DC 24V 15A Power: 280 W

Weight 7.8 kg

Printer size: 425*402*505mm

Material: 1.75 mm PLA, ABS

The printer comes 90% assembled, it remains only to twist the U-shaped stand with the base, connect the motors, screen and table. the seller put together with the printer; a set of hexagons, a key, a TFT card with an adapter for USB and 10 meters of PLA plastic. The card had examples of G codes, its own slicer and drivers. The first inconvenience I encountered was connecting a TFT card and a connector for connecting to a computer located on the back of the printer.

I purchased an extension for the card and printed out a case for inserting the adapter on the screen.

.

I think that for a beginner this is what you need.

Also, the disadvantages include the inconvenience of adjusting the table, very small twists. I solved the problem by buying new handles and silicone inserts instead of springs.

It has become much more convenient to set up the table.

A little about the table:

- the table is curved as usual, in the middle of the table there is a small but still bump.

- there is a non-removable cover on the table to which the plastic adheres very well and the part does not come off during printing. On the one hand, this is both a plus and a minus, after the printer has printed the part, it is impossible to tear it off the table. It doesn't matter if the table is hot or cold. in the original version, the kit included glass with the same coating, but then the seller decided to immediately glue the coating on the table.

- the table has uneven heating, it will have to be insulated. Because of this, perhaps I got a small print area.

I can also refer to the disadvantages of the printer the fastening of wires, I solved the problem by printing fasteners.

Now let's touch on some electronics, unfortunately I'm not an expert in 3D printer boards. The SD drivers are not removable and not quiet, the processor is 32 bits, I can’t tell the Marlin firmware version because I couldn’t connect to the computer. If someone tells me about the fee I will be grateful.

The board is covered with a protective perforated casing, the cooling fan is only on the power supply unit (it makes noise like a tractor).

Smooth transition to the touch screen. The inscriptions are all in English, but everything is intuitive. Main menu.

Axle control.

Select files to print.

Filament change, this menu also contains the adjustment of the nozzle heating temperature, in the upper right corner, the choice of the step for heating (1, 5, 10 and MAX)

There are also preset heating parameters for the filament with the ability to adjust the temperature by the user.

Go to the second window of the general menu.

There is a five-point adjustment of the table (with handles by twisting the table).

Go to the next menu item, settings - printer settings.

And the last menu item, brief information.

So far, I see only pluses in the touch screen, it is very convenient, it seems to me that it is better than an encoder. But unfortunately sometimes it became buggy, it turns white during printing. The seller sent a new firmware file via a flash card, we will try. I liked the print quality, the nozzle costs a native 0.4, though I have nothing to compare with this is my first 3D printer. A few print photos. Printed with standard settings on a regular slicer. Please do not scold too much for the quality of the print. I also bought a new card reader and a block of diodes for stepper motors to remove the bounce of the motors.

Of the improvements, I would add auto table calibration, quiet fans, removable and quiet drivers. But it will be a completely different level of the printer and a different price. This 3D printer is a copy of Alfawise U30.

Summing up, I can say that for the money this printer is just a godsend for those who are just starting to learn the basics of 3D printing. The printer is very easy to use, despite the disadvantages that were listed above, I am very pleased with the printer and glad that I got it.

I am writing a review for the first time, so do not scold too much.

THANK YOU ALL FOR READING MY REVIEW.

Longer LK4 Pro 3D printer vs. LK4

Hi all. Today we will consider two FDM printers from Longer from the same line, visually similar, but different in cost. Let's evaluate the complexity of the assembly, understand the differences and compare the print quality. There will be a minimum of improvements, because. and out of the box the result is pretty good

.

Characteristics

Model: LK4 PRO
Print technology: FDM
Extruder: single
table size: *220*250 mm Press Tempeis Nozzle Diameter: 0. 4mm
Layer Thickness: 0.1-0.4mm
Bar Sensor: Yes
Heated Table: Yes
Print Continuation: Yes
0016 4.3" color touch screen (2.8" in LK4)
Print speed: up to 120 mm/sec. (recommended 60-80mm/s)
Software: Cura, Reptier-Host
File format: G-code, STL
Connection: TF card or USB cable
Input voltage: 110-220V, 50-60Hz
Output voltage: 24V 15A
Power: 280W
Net weight: 7.8kg
Gross weight: 8.6 kg
Printer size: 425*402*505mm
The size of the parcel: 467*412*187mm
operating temperature: 20 ℃ -40 ℃
Relative humidity:

The boxes for the two models are the same

LK4 Pro is delivered almost assembled, here are three Z-axis profiles twisted on top

The table is already in place, the X-axis carriage is ready

The wires are also connected

It remains to screw the motor with the Z-axis limit switch, there is a spare filament sensor in the kit

Fix the Z-axis shaft, install the screen, fix the glass on the table and you can start setting up

LK4 has only the main components assembled glass, film pulled together, clothespins were also thrown in0013 Pro model

And it is just as easy to assemble

But in my case, I have to assemble the carriage (the most tedious), the Z axis (three profiles), screw the table into place

By the way, the complete springs are normal, with flat coils

Well, then everything is like in the Pro version, we just screw everything into place. Assembly instructions are available both on paper and on a complete USB flash drive in video file format, just repeat step by step and there will be no assembly problems

Perhaps they sent me a sample from an old batch and now they are delivering in the same form as the Pro model. But in any case, these were flowers compared to the assembly of my first printer, which at the initial stage looked something like this)

Assembly flaws

walked relative to the body, which is not very good for models with an exact fit. I leveled it with a corner, you can also use a ruler, after which I tightened these four screws well

I also noticed that the belt of the axle X rubs on the corner of the profile. I loosened the clamping bolts

And pressed the pulley a little on the shaft so that the belt ran exactly in the middle. Do not forget to tighten the bolts

Well, I also checked the other connections and tightened them just in case

Differences

The first thing that catches your eye is the covers of the controllers, in LK4 the cooling is passive

The Pro model has active cooling. It is certainly good, but the fan is the noisiest design element

At the same time, the board LK4 does not heat up very much, the maximum that I have seen is 50+ degrees

In LK4 , the coil is installed from the side below, which is somewhat more convenient in Pro , according to the classics, it is in the upper part

Another noticeable difference this is noise, in the Pro model, as I wrote above, the board cooling fan makes the most noise, so in standby mode it behaves louder than its counterpart, but after the start of printing, LK4 catches up with engines, because. The drivers it has installed are simpler. No, it is not louder than the same anets, simply due to the use of TMC2208 engines 9The 0013 Pro models are virtually silent, so when they are running at the same time, the difference is quite noticeable. Also, updated drivers make movements smoother, which also affects print quality, but more on that below.
Well, LK4 also has a USB and flash drive connector located on the back, and not on the side like Pro , which is less convenient.

Interface

In LK4 the screen is smaller, it does not have its own controller and it is connected to the board with a rather wide cable.
The interface is not as colorful, but there are a few more options. The first item is moving

The second seal. You can put parts that consist of many models into subfolders, which is quite convenient

Third for extruder control, can be used to change filament There are three settings for different plastics and manual temperature adjustment

Recovery is inactive, in the sixth they hid the table alignment at 5 points

And quite subtle settings for the printer, which I do not advise beginners to climb into

Firmware version 2.15 based on marlin. They write that there is a new version, but it is being tested. extruder

The preheating and extruder points were combined into one, which is quite logical, next to the table alignment

Well, the last tab is the file selection for printing, only files in the root directory are indexed

Well, version

It turns out that in the Pro version, the interface seems to be more convenient, but somewhat simplified, you can’t scatter files into directories, during operation the end time is not shown, the status of blowing (only in the adjustment tab), well, there are no detailed firmware settings, which I would not show to a beginner, but in the future they may well be useful. Okay, let's move on.

Print preparation

The first thing to do is calibrate the table. The matter is simple. We go to the corresponding menu item, put a piece of paper on the table and launch the first point. The extruder will crawl home, after which it will drop to the zero position in height above the left adjustment screw. We twist it in the right direction until the paper begins to squeeze between the table and with the nozzle with little effort. We repeat for the rest of the points, the central one usually leaves a little, because. the surface of the table and glass is not perfectly flat, so it can be skipped. I usually repeat the calibration twice. The only problem that may arise at this stage is the loss of one or more limit switches, I just forgot to connect along the X axis. The extruder hit the profile a little and an error popped up on the screen. Connected the wire, restarted the power and everything worked

Next, insert the USB flash drive into the PC, go to the folder with the manual and software

By the way, I still recommend watching the video before assembly, the process will go faster

Done

And… in front of us is a circumcised chicken. The file is automatically saved to the flash drive after any changes

Quick settings

If you wish, you can go to detailed settings

Of which there are not so many

There are even several types of imaging, classic

Transparent walls

X-ray

And layered. It is strange that it is not set by default

In general, that's enough for a start, it's not difficult to figure it out and the result will be good, but I would switch to a full-fledged chicken as soon as possible so that later it would not seem too confused.
We download from the official site, it is free, the installation will be similar, at the stage of choosing a printer we find Alfawise U30 , this is the closest full LK4 clone. There are a lot of settings here, but usually there are about a dozen from model to model, so don't be alarmed. There are many guides on the internet.

Seal

The table was calibrated, the model was prepared in a slicer and put on a USB flash drive, the USB flash drive was inserted into the printer.
Go to the "Print" tab, select our file, confirm that we are ready to start. You can change the table temperature, extruder temperature, airflow rate, travel speed, and bar feed ratio at any time.

There is another problem with the Pro model. The table heated up, the extruder too, the carriage went to zero coordinates and the task was reset. If this happens, don't be alarmed, I've experienced this several times before. This happens because of buggy cheap flash drives. We just take the tested one up to 16GB and use it without problems.
We make sure that the first layers seize normally and you can go about your business, PLA and PETG are unpretentious, if everything sticks right away, there should not be any surprises, the main thing is that the light does not go out or the rod does not end. It's especially disappointing when this happens after 15 hours of printing. But these models have a function to continue printing after failures.
Here the light went out, after switching on, a window pops up with a suggestion to continue from the place where you finished.

We agree, wait for warming up and finish off the model. At the very beginning, of course, it was more reasonable to start again

And then the bar suddenly ran out, they didn’t watch it or it broke at a break. In order not to melt the wall for nothing, the nozzle is retracted to the far corner of the table and a window pops up offering to insert a new rod

where needed. After the plastic comes out of the nozzle, you need to press "OK" and the feed will stop, after which you will be prompted to continue printing

As a result, after two problems that have arisen, we will have an influx on one of the walls and in the corner of the table.
Agree, a small price for the opportunity to finish the process, which before that could take ten hours

If everything went well, the result will be quite good out of the box with stock settings I'm used to printing PLA on glass (just turned it over). You can tear off the figs from the complete cover of the model, you have to literally knock them down with a spatula, after which each time you calibrate the table. I use this glue, I bought it in absmaker

It is sufficient to spray several coats on cold, clean glass. After heating the table to 60 degrees, PLA will already hold quite well

And after cooling to 30, it is removed without much effort, parts from ABS often bounce

At the same time, the “sole” remains mirror-smooth

Works with many types of plastic, under the ABS table you need to heat up to 110 degrees, otherwise the edges may come off

To compare the quality and speed of printing, I peeled a model with the same settings and threw it into both printers, simultaneously started the task. LK4 started printing about a minute earlier, although the initial temperature was the same. The table warmed up longer, but the manufacturer declared a different type of glass, so it may well be due to the fact that it is more massive in the Pro model

But by 20% he caught up with his brother. By the way, LK 4 can still show the time until the end, at 15:15 it was 8:53

At 50%, the gap increased in favor of LK4 Pro

At 97%, LK4 was already 15% behind

And at 22:46 he promised to finish for 1 hour 58 minutes

But at the same time, the work time was 20 minutes behind the Pro (09:19 vs 09:42)

Okay, one could start counting at the start of heating, and the second after the start of the extruder, but not by 20 minutes. Fortunately, there are photos with different time periods. LK4 at 15:15 announced 2:06 work, at 22:46 already 9:19, that is, in 7 hours 31 minutes he counted only 7 hours 13 minutes, that's our lost 20 minutes. So I haven’t met a single model yet that would ideally calculate the time until the end of work, but usually it just adjusts a little, first it writes 2 hours, and after 2 hours there are still 10 minutes left, but here’s the main time to move ... the priority may be incorrectly set in the firmware, for 32 bit controllers marlin is still damp.
Well, okay, it's not so critical, anyway, the shift of 20 minutes for 11 hours of printing seems not so significant, let's compare the result better. Left LK4 , right Pro

Closer

Layers lay evenly, there are small differences in width, but it’s hard to get away from it

In Pro similar to

But in order to see these flaws, you still need to choose the right angle and turn on the flash. So, the built-in slicer, although it can cut in this mode, does not ignore the wall thickness parameter, what happened in the picture on the left.

But the classic chicken coped well with the task

Again, at a certain angle, the flash highlights not a perfect rounding

But if you look closely, you need to look for flaws from the side with your eyes

The situation is aggravated by the unevenness of the bar, so I lowered the coefficient feed up to 85%, for which he paid the price on the upper layers, where there was not enough plastic to cover the bridges.

Kratos printed first at 100% feed and in some places when zoomed in, excess plastic sags are visible

Yes, and models with many peaks were overgrown with cobwebs, so 85-90% of them disappeared, and the same dinosaurs that were made last already turned out without serious flaws, one was chosen by the son, the second was asked for by friends for the collection

Modifications

I did not find any serious design problems, you can use printers out of the box and nothing will break, so almost all the improvements are more of a cosmetic nature.
The most necessary thing is airflow. The complete one is not the worst of those that I have seen, and the link is also not the ultimate dream, but without additional alterations, the circular one cannot be squeezed out. Look carefully at the installation photo so that it blows on the model, and not on the table. AT Pro used a 2mm spacer instead of the stock one, in LK4 it fits fine without it. I have never broken, but when rubbed, it makes extra sounds, and it looks dumb. In LK4, the coil is located differently and the kink is not so big, so you don’t have to change it. Printed with an SLA printer, because with the same 0.1mm layer, the process is much faster. Well, it looks nice with transparent resin.

For the same reason, the upper filament guide will not be superfluous for the Pro, it slipped in the photo above set fire to, but there were fewer of them and the connection is not so reliable. But you can do it for insurance, I managed to put it in Pro, I didn’t get it in the regular version

Instead, you can use these fasteners, they cling to the engines, one lifts the corrugation of the table, the second the extruder wiring so that they don’t hang out at random. I printed it, but it turned out that extended propellers are needed (2x10 M3 for each engine), the supplied ones are too short

I printed soft footrests from TPU, they are better than stock plastic ones

I tried this plug for the power supply fan, although in LK4 the main noise is made by the engines during operation, and in Pro you need to turn off the main board fan, so the changes are hardly noticeable

And here they already suggested a solution to the main problem of noise in Pro, though you need to buy a fan and a lowerer

I dragged the printers to a temporary workshop, so the noise does not bother me, I have a monitoring camera and in case of problems, the power of each is turned off remotely. I also set up the automation in the outlet from the blitz so that it turns off when the consumption drops below 50W for 10 minutes. Convenient.

Well, that's all, of course, it was possible to analyze some aspects in more detail, but I think some users have not read this far because of the volume of the material (and I prepared it for a week). The rest of the fellows, we did it)

What's inside

LK4 board

LK4 Pro board, dedicated controller for screen

Summary

At the moment, the Pro costs $143 without filament, which is cheaper than the regular LK4 model ( $168 ) and its closest competitors, and for this price the option is really good:
+ Acceptable print quality out of the box. The frame is rigid, the structure does not sway or shake during operation, the rollers certainly do not reach the rails, but everything is better than the linear bearings of the old models
+ The main components are supplied assembled, it remains only to connect them together
+ Quiet drivers that give good smoothing
+ Table heating 24V three-channel, from 22 to 80 degrees it heats up in 5 minutes
+ Quite convenient touch control, there is a continuation of printing after failures, filament sensor

- Noisy board fan. If it were quieter, it would be hard to find fault with it.

The airflow is not ideal and there are already options for converting it to a circular one with additional fans, but the modified side model also gives a good result, so you can not bother too much.
Also in Pro 8-bit controller, but a separate one with its own firmware is allocated for the screen, in the normal version a 32-bit controller is used, but it processes both printing and the interface, so it’s hard to say which option turned out to be more stable in the end, I don’t one model showed no signs of blunting, the only thing was that LK4 was weird with counting the weaving print time. Yes, and marlin for 32 bits is released less often, although a new beta is currently being tested, but there is still silence about a stable release.
In my opinion, you can add a more advanced interface to the LK4 piggy bank (although not so beautiful), a little more information about the printing process is displayed, and in the advanced settings you can adjust many parameters embedded in the firmware, which may appeal to experienced users, otherwise that stumbled inexperienced can be rolled back to default.
It is strange that in Pro this feature was removed, and in general, the more I compared these two models, the more it seemed that PRO in this case is an abbreviation for the word PRO more

As always, constructive criticism in the comments is welcome. Good luck to everyone =)

At the request in the comments, I added a comparison of printing models with small details, as for me, it turned out even better, apparently LK4 copes better with small radii, although this picture shows an arc on the toe, so you can guess which model what printer did it print. And then I had to look for another angle, because. lighting is bad.

Problems are not visible from a different angle

Well, the model from LK4 Pro is closer

Another angle

The striping is a little apparent, but again, you need to look for the right angle to see it

Plastic is not very good, also with inclusions, perhaps because of this, the uniformity of the feed is a little lame, but the same particles also mask minor flaws, so in general it turns out well.

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