I ordered a SV04 on Amazon when the $70.00 coupon was offered. It will arrive tomorrow. After reading this Solvol forum and reddit, I am getting the idea I have made a horrible mistake. I am an experienced 3d printer hobbyist. I converted my Zonestar P802QR2 to the BTT V1.4 Turbo board and I own a Prusa MK3S. I am concerned that many people reported infant mortality issues, inferior parts, burning up power supplies etc. I also noted that the SV04 board is advertised as “silent” but the firmware does not enable the TMC2225 drivers. I am not looking for another “project” printer. So I am thinking about just refusing delivery of the printer. I would like to ask the community if anyone has opened the box, assembled the printer, attempted to get it to work satisfactorily, failed and was able to return it to Amazon for a full refund within the first 30 days. If a successful return is possible, I may consider giving the SV04 a chance. If people have had problems with returns in the first 30 days, I won’t.
I’ve never had an issue returning anything to Amazon, in the past I’ve returned 2 3d printers without any problem or any issues with refunds. Although they did make me wait on the 2nd return for a refund because the courier was late getting it to the warehouse. By the way both printers were well over the 30 days but still within the warranty period. I hope this helps.
I hope you find the opportunity to try the SV04.
I’ll admit that I thought about returning my SV04 when I first received it, but had some time to work with it. At this moment, I am very glad I did not return it! It is now almost to the point that I just turn it on, load material and print away.
At first, I didn’t like the flex bed, but now hate to be without it. I initially worried about the CRTouch not working all the time, but it has yet to fail. I’m sure I am forgetting a few things that I think need adjusting/modification, but they are not enough that I wish I returned it.
Others may not agree, but since I first thought about returning it and glad I didn’t, I wanted to reply.
I have had the printer for less than a week now and here are issues that I am seeing:
The outboard top roller for the E1 (right side facing the unit) does not contact the track on the gantry vertical support. The inside single roller is much too tight
The right x axis stepper motor is not level
The bottom x axis belt is already starting to fray after just a few prints
When I power down the printer while the USB port is plugged into my computer the printer MB and screen are powered over the USB port
The align Z axis menu choice in the leveling section references the build plate not the top of the gantry
Two successive level measure commands (G29) produce different meshes
There are errors in M140 the Sovol slicer gcode
;FLAVOR:Marlin
;TIME:17717
;Filament used: 10.3395m, 0m
;Layer height: 0.2
;MINX:21.003
;MINY:12.286
;MINZ:0.2
;MAXX:288.004
;MAXY:279.284
;MAXZ:3.4
;Generated with Sovol Slicer 1.3.0
T0
M82 ;absolute extrusion mode
;Dual start
M140M140 S60;
M104 S190;
M280 P0 S160;
G4 P100;
It appears the printer extrudes plastic before the Z axis settles onto the layer 1 position
These are pretty severe issues for a printer that has been in production over a year.
Just before I was ready to return mine, I started over with all setup steps. The one thing I did before any documented setup this time was to go over all axis eccentric adjustment nuts. I believe the Y axis was loose enough that it gave me inconsistent print results maybe due to a wobbling bed. I don’t think these adjustments were mentioned in the manual, but maybe I missed it. That may take care of few of your issues.
The align Z axis does reference the build plate. Shouldn’t it as the Z axis and bed would be the relative relationship?
I use a fresh install of Cura startig with 5.3.0 and now have seemingly consistent gcode output.
Just a few more comments from a non-expert. Hopefully the real experts will be along soon for you.
Edit: Does your printer have the latest firmware?
Thanks much for your reply. I have properly tensioned all the rollers. The Z axis right side will not fall into alignment through its full range. I think it is because the bracket the second extruder motor is mounted on is not level. The axis’s stepper motor is visibly tilted.
In every system I have seen Z axis alignment, the alignment is with the gantry frame. This includes the Sovol SV06 and the enitre Prusa Mk line. Even though I leveled the bed to the gantry as the first alignment step, as you say not mentioned in the instructions, this is not conventional, even in Sovol’s line of printers. I think the reason they took this shortcut is that they are treating the TMC2209’s as A4988’s. This means even in the latest 1.1.0 firmware they have not enabled stall guard. Running the TMC in dumb mode for over a year may indicate that there is a problem with the Creality board or the printer and the more advanced modes of the TMC stepper drivers will not work.
The fact that the Creality board and the touch screen both draw power from the USB port when the printer power supply is turned off is another red flag for the electronics.
I am partial to the prusa slicer and used Gamps as my starting point. However I run every test in the distributed outdated Sovol slicer before declaring any sort of problem. Even AuroraTech has sighted obvious problems with the Sovol Slicer.
Maybe you are not a expert, as neither am I, but you strike me as a well seasoned 3d printmaster. Again, thanks for the reply.