Whereas different 3D printers try to catch our consideration with pace, the LotMaxx Shark V3 is preaching versatility. It prints in two colours and laser engraves due to a swappable instrument head.
The Shark has an uncommon “2 to 1” hotend – that means it has two units of extruder gears and two Bowden tubes feeding into one Y-shaped hotend. This eliminates the calibration woes seen in an IDEX printer, however nonetheless wants a purge tower to dump filament between shade swaps.
The included laser could be very easy, with restricted software program and security precautions. I wouldn’t purchase the Shark V3 for the laser attachment alone – however maybe deal with it as a curiosity to see if I wished to spend extra on a desktop laser.
At present on sale for $359, the Shark V3 has an intriguing design, however is a little bit too irritating to make use of to be thought-about one of many greatest 3D printers. It’s positively simpler to make use of than an IDEX, however the truth that it could actually’t learn fashionable MMU recordsdata utilized by Bambu Lab or PrusaSlicer limits its inventive potential.
Specs: LotMaxx Shark V3
| Construct Quantity | 235 x 235 x 265mm (9.25 x 9.25 x 10.43 inches) | Row 0 – Cell 2 |
| Materials | PLA/PETG/TPU (as much as 260 levels) | Row 1 – Cell 2 |
| Extruder Sort | Bowden | Row 2 – Cell 2 |
| Nozzle | .4mm (MK8) | Row 3 – Cell 2 |
| Construct Platform | Glass | Row 4 – Cell 2 |
| Mattress Leveling | Auto Leveling | Row 5 – Cell 2 |
| Filament Runout Sensor | Sure | Row 6 – Cell 2 |
| Connectivity | MicroSD Card, LAN | Row 7 – Cell 2 |
| Interface | Shade contact display | Row 8 – Cell 2 |
| Machine Footprint | 436 x 450 x 485 mm (17.2 x 7.7 x 19 inches) | Row 9 – Cell 2 |
| Machine Weight | 7.1 KG (15.6 lbs) | Row 10 – Cell 2 |
| Laser | 1.6 Watt | Row 11 – Cell 2 |
LotMaxx Shark V3: Included within the Field
LotMaxx Shark V3 comes with every thing it is advisable to construct and preserve your printer. You get a pair of facet cutters, a set of Allen wrenches and screwdriver, a microSD card and USB adapter, spare nozzles, a spare Z restrict swap and thermistor, a picket board to laser and two small coils of PLA.
The USB flash stick comprises a number of check fashions, a PDF copy of the guide and a LotMaxx branded slicer. A paper fast begin information has instructions to get the printer up and operating. The LotMaxx YouTube channel has useful movies tutorials that decide up the place the information leaves off.
Design of the LotMaxx Shark V3
The LotMaxx Shark V3 is visually placing and appears like it will be at residence in a comic book e book superhero lab. Its twin spool holders jut out like antenna, a large S pulses blue on the fan shroud and a Shark brand is painted on the glass mattress surrounded by a comic book e book dot sample. I instantly preferred the enjoyable vibe and thought it will be interesting to teenagers and cosplay makers.
Sadly, the dots are simply painted on the reverse facet of the glass, and never a superhero coating to assist with mattress adhesion. I’m not a giant fan of glass, and the Shark V3 behaved as I feared, requiring villainous quantities of elbow grease and a depraved chisel to take away prints. Although it held on to my check fashions with a grip to rival Spider-Man, it wasn’t sufficient to maintain my purge towers from toppling and ruining a number of prints.
The Shark V3 is a twin shade 3D printer with a secret id as a laser engraver. Extra about that later; let’s dive into the hotend first. You don’t see 2-in-1 hotends fairly often, but it surely’s an ingenious technique to obtain multicolor with out a whole lot of {hardware}. The Shark V3 has two Bowden tubes feeding filament from two spools into one Y formed hotend. The filament is swapped forwards and backwards on the chilly facet, so it should mix for a short while (if you happen to don’t use a purge tower) however it could actually’t mimic twin shade filament (opens in new tab).
The two-in-1 hotend is just $19 on the LotMaxx web site ought to it is advisable to change it. Although the design is uncommon, there are different third celebration hotends if you happen to wished to improve (opens in new tab). The nozzles are the usual MK8 design and simply changed with something made for a conventional Creality hotend.
The Shark V3 is a well-made 3D printer. The {hardware} is strong, with three cooling followers on the hotend and exceptionally quiet efficiency from each followers and stepper motors. The auto mattress leveling labored like a appeal and the removable contact display is massive, vivid and simple to know. It solely has one Z axis rod, however at this dimension, it’s not a lot of a difficulty.
Switching it to laser mode requires eradicating two screws from the instrument head and reattaching it to the higher gantry for storage. That is intelligent and will get it out of the way in which, while not having to take away all of the tubes and wires.
The laser could be very fundamental and have to be hand targeted. Instructions on the best way to use the laser are restricted, as is the software program included to run it. The 1.6-watt laser isn’t for chopping, however can engrave wooden, leather-based and paper.
I would like the laser to return with an enclosure for higher security. Even a low energy laser might injury your eyeballs if you happen to take a look at it. LotMaxx contains one pair of security glasses, so I might advocate that you simply solely work with the laser in a room with a door so you’ll be able to stop different folks, pets and babies from wandering in unprotected whereas it’s in use. Further security glasses could be bought from quite a lot of producers on Amazon. Search for lenses rated for a 450 (blue) wave size. (opens in new tab)
Assembling the LotMaxx Shark V3
The LotMaxx Shark V3 comes principally assembled. You’ll want to connect the gantry to the bottom with 4 massive bolts, screw within the spool holders and show, then connect the second extruder. There’s no slot to suit the gantry onto the bottom, so that you’ll have to take care aligning every thing, Nevertheless, the bolts are very straightforward to begin by hand and end with twist of the Allen wrench.
The wiring itself is labeled. Nevertheless they might do a greater job of illustrating the place every connector attaches. I ought to level out that the web site has a supplemental photograph of the board – although it is listed because the “V3 Adaptor plate wi-fi information” as a substitute of “wiring”. I solely clicked it as a result of I hoped there was a WiFi module, however there may be not.
One other small difficulty is cable administration. The printer comes with a handful of zip ties and no suggestion the place to place them. In the event you’re unfamiliar with 3D printing, you might not even understand what to do with the zip ties till you get tangled on the unfastened wiring.
Leveling the LotMaxx Shark V3
The LotMaxx Shark V3 has computerized mattress leveling with a sensor constructed into the nozzle. It additionally has mattress leveling wheels, so the preliminary leveling requires guide adjusting to get it inside a suitable vary. Switching from guide to computerized leveling is completed inside the setting menu, quite than contained in the leveling menu. This placement is quite unusual, and if you happen to’re not following the guide carefully, you would possibly suppose that the machine doesn’t even have auto leveling.
Guide leveling is straight ahead. The machine will transfer the nozzle to 4 corners of the mattress for you. Slide a bit of atypical paper below the nozzle and transfer the knob beneath till the nozzle simply scrapes the paper. Try my article on the best way to manually stage a 3D printer mattress for extra ideas and illustrations.
After the mattress is manually adjusted, click on on the setting menu and swap to auto leveling. It is going to rapidly faucet 9 factors across the mattress and return to the middle at 0 Z top. Click on “Set Z top Comp” to good your Z top. I discovered the inventory setting to be a bit tight and raised it up a fraction of a millimeter.
Loading Filament on the LotMaxx Shark V3
The LotMaxx Shark V3 has two extruders situated on both facet of the construct plate, each with filament run out sensors. One extruder is within the standard place on the left, and the opposite is on the best on the prime of the gantry.
To load filament, click on Management on the principle menu, then preheat. There may be an computerized setting for PLA and ABS. Click on PLA and it’ll warmth to 210 levels. You possibly can change this preset by clicking the gear.
Click on the again button, then click on Extrusion. Choose which extruder you’re loading – left or proper. Feed the filament into the run out sensor and push it in opposition to the extruder opening. Click on “quick” then “load” and it’ll seize a maintain of the filament and quickly feed it about 75% of the way in which to the hotend. Click on load once more, and cease as soon as it’s on the prime of the hotend.
There’s no have to push filament all the way in which into the hotend. Gcode written within the LotMaxx Slicer (which could be copied over to Cura) will advance the filament 100mm earlier than beginning to print, which is satisfactory to achieve the nozzle and a bit past.
On the finish of every print, the Shark V3 backs up the extruder and parks the filament on the chilly facet of the hotend. Once you wish to change colours after a print, there’s no have to heat up the hotend, simply launch stress on the extruder stage and pull the filament out.
There are unload buttons within the Extrusion menu if you wish to use them. You have to to heat up the hotend first – as a security measure the extruder won’t power filament from a chilly hotend.
Getting ready Information / Software program for LotMaxx Shark V3
The LotMaxx Shark V3 comes with a duplicate of LotMaxx Slicer, which is a rebranded model of Cura. I might extremely advocate beginning with this slicer in case you are unfamiliar with two-color printing.
Even in case you are comfy with multicolor printing, you’ll nonetheless wish to load this slicer and duplicate the beginning and finish gcodes to your most popular model of Cura. Although LotMaxx has had a shade printer in the marketplace for quite a lot of years (we reviewed the Shark V2 in 2021) they haven’t submitted a two shade profile to the UltiMaker Cura workforce.
The Shark V3 got here with a file referred to as “Cura Parameter Installer” on the SD card. I can’t inform you what the parameter installer is meant to do, as a result of on my PC, it broke Cura so badly that I needed to delete all my saved profiles and reinstall Cura from scratch. This included customized profiles I hand constructed for different manufacturers of machines. I might advise you to disregard this file and simply lower and paste the gcodes from LotMaxx Slicer.
LotMaxx Slicer makes use of Cura defaults on the Twin Extrusion settings. The quantity to concentrate to is the “Prime Tower Minimal Quantity” which is the quantity of filament purged into the tower with a view to swap colours. It is best to run a check print (like McGybeer’s Cali-Dragon) to see if the amount is sufficient to swap colours to your satisfaction.
Please observe that the Shark V3 doesn’t perceive Prusa Slicer’s or Bambu Lab’s “paint on” multicolor recordsdata. It solely understands old style MMU recordsdata the place every half is saved as its personal stl file. These elements are then assigned to the left or proper nozzle within the slicer and merged collectively in a single print.
Not understanding newer MMU recordsdata is disappointing, as this severely limits the variety of designer created multicolor recordsdata you’ll be able to entry. It’s doable to separate recordsdata your self when you have a sophisticated understanding of design software program.
Printing on the LotMaxx Shark V3
The LotMaxx Shark V3 comes with small samples of PLA in two colours. You’ll quickly want extra materials, so take a look at our information to the greatest filaments for 3D printing for strategies.
The next check prints are principally two shade, however I ought to level out that it does single-color prints equally properly and in much less time. To make use of it as a single shade printer, you’ll solely want to decide on the one shade possibility from the print menu. Once you load a file to print, the Shark V3 will ask if you wish to use left, proper or each spools.
The Shark V3 has a number of check prints on the SD card, for each single and multicolor printing. I can’t say that I used to be tremendous impressed with the standard of the pre-sliced canine check print, which had a poorly positioned skirt and a whole lot of tough layer strains.
I resliced the canine and the fortunate cat, they usually got here out very clear as single shade prints. The cat has a little bit drooping below one paw, which is typical when this mannequin is printed unsupported. Beneath is the Fortunate Cat, sliced in Cura 5.2 utilizing a .2 layer top and 65mm/s pace. It took 1 hour and 4 minutes. Within the center is the pre-sliced canine, no recorded stats. Each of those are utilizing the pattern filaments. On the best is the canine sliced in Cura 5.2 utilizing a .2 layer top and 65mm/s pace, additionally taking one hour and 4 minutes, printed in Flashforge Burnt Titanium PLA (opens in new tab).
Proper off the bat, I knew that the Shark V3 wanted to print a contemporary copy of the Tom’s {Hardware} brand I slide into assessment images. The previous one has very pronounced letters, which simply catch shadows from my digicam lights. This print took 4 hours and 16 minutes, utilizing a .2 mm layer top an 65mm/s pace. I printed it in Matterhackers Construct Collection PLA in purple and black. (opens in new tab)
To check PETG, I ran this flexi chain wrench. The mannequin was tough because it had 45 diploma angles and plenty of bridging, however I didn’t use any help. As an alternative, I turned on bridging in Cura and received fabulous outcomes. The print was shrunk down 80% to suit the Shark V3’s mattress and printed rather well. This took 2 hours and 54 minutes at a .2mm layer top at 50mm/s pace. I printed it in Prusament Carmine Crimson PETG (opens in new tab) and Printed Strong Soul Black Glitter PETG.
I wanted a giant print, so I ran a vase from AbbyMath. This one wanted some care in slicing because it’s two prints nestled into one design. Fortuitously, Cura permits a whole lot of leeway between print settings on the left and proper filaments.
Your entire mannequin is strong, so you would set it up as a vase mode print, however you’ll be able to’t do two-color vase mode. As an alternative, the best facet was programmed to run the outer vase like a daily print – 3 partitions and lightning infill. The internal vase was run with 2 partitions, no infill and no prime layer. The purge tower was knocked off its brim across the 60% mark, making an enormous mess. I made a decision to let it proceed in hopes it will clear up (it did). So long as I hold the unhealthy facet in opposition to the wall, nobody will discover.
This was printed in Inland’s Glass Purple PLA (opens in new tab) and Shiny Silk Jacinth PLA. (opens in new tab)
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I used to be stunned at how properly the Shark V3 dealt with TPU. Versatile supplies are harder to run in a Bowden fashion printer, and the floppy filament must be pushed by way of the tube quite than pulled. That is printed in Matterhackers’ Construct Collection TPU (opens in new tab) in Translucent Purple and Translucent Inexperienced. It took 37 minutes to print at .2mm layer top and 40mm/s pace.
Earlier than we discuss concerning the laser module, a phrase of warning. Lasers are harmful instruments that emit hazardous mild that may trigger eye injury. The LotMaxx Shark V3 is an open laser and have to be utilized in a managed atmosphere and nobody – neither pets nor folks – must be inside visible vary of this machine with out eye safety whereas it’s working in laser mode. It must be utilized in a room with a door that may be closed, maybe even locked, to forestall others from getting into the workspace with out eye safety. Wanting on the laser mild could cause eye injury and touching the beam will burn. All the time use correct air flow because the laser is actually burning what it touches like a tiny campfire.
The Shark V3 comes with a low-power, 1.6 watt laser. That is highly effective sufficient to engrave wooden, bamboo, leather-based and paper. It’s not a chopping laser, however it could actually nonetheless set issues on fireplace if you happen to’re not cautious. By no means go away your laser unattended.
The guide is a bit obscure on the best way to focus the laser, solely saying that it is best to engrave a check dot and lift the Z axis till it’s spherical. Additional instructions on the Lotmaxx YouTube channel present that it is advisable to twist a focusing ring – like a digicam lens – till it comes into focus. Clearly placing your hand on the laser whereas it’s working is a nasty thought, so I needed to work in pulses, turning it on and off till I achieved a good end result.
The software program that comes with the Shark V3 could be very fundamental, and sadly doesn’t have any instructions. It will possibly import graphics, dimension them, flip them and add textual content. The grid is deceptive because it’s simply dividing the area into 10.7 squares, which come out to be 22.8 mm every. Go determine.
You possibly can import picture recordsdata (jpg, png and bmp) as both grey scale, black and white or vector. Vector on this case means “define.” The default energy settings barely made a mark on the pattern of pine that got here with the machine, so I pushed it to full energy (1000) and slowed it to 10 mm a minute.
I made a decision to not run the pre-sliced samples since I had no thought how lengthy they might take. As an alternative, I tried to slice the offered black and white shark graphic myself. I used to be in a position to get a ten x 10 mm picture in about 40 minutes.
I loaded a picture I constructed from Canva clip artwork and lasered it onto a precut circle I purchased from Walmart’s craft division. The circle is 8mm in diameter. To get the picture within the appropriate place, I first lasered a 8mm circle into a bit of scrap wooden clipped to the mattress. I then positioned my picket circle on prime of the laser define. This “shark with a frickin’ laser” took two passes at full energy and 40 minutes whole time to burn.
Final, I attempted out a bit of scratch artwork paper (opens in new tab). I enlarged the shark to 9 x 9mm and saved the ability on full ship. This took about 40 minutes and a single go.
I might get higher outcomes by utilizing darker clip artwork, slowing the machine additional or utilizing extra passes. All in all, the laser works, but it surely’s gradual. I might not get this machine only for the laser, but it surely’s an attention-grabbing technique to experiment with the know-how with out getting a separate machine.
Backside Line
The LotMaxx Shark V3 is a strong twin shade 3D printer with very first rate print high quality and auto mattress leveling – all the time a plus in my e book. It does require a little bit tuning to realize clear two shade prints, however the course of is extra intuitive than establishing the multicolor unit on Bambu Lab’s P1P. The two to 1 twin shade nozzle is certainly a plus because it requires no further calibration to carry it into alignment like an IDEX.
The glass mattress is difficult to handle – I’ll all the time desire a versatile construct plate, and the laser is sort of gradual and unshielded. I’m not a fan of open lasers and should warning you to take the utmost care in utilizing this in laser mode. It may need a tough time burning wooden, however your eyeballs are rather more delicate.
The Shark V3 would nonetheless be a enjoyable second machine even if you happen to by no means unbox the laser module. I’m disillusioned that it could actually’t use Prusa Slicer’s paintable MMU colours, but when you understand how to design your personal recordsdata this might not be a giant drawback. Hopefully LotMaxx can add this functionality sooner or later.
If you need a safer, quicker, extra highly effective 3 in 1 machine, take a look at the Snapmaker Artisan. At $2899 it’s a hefty chunk of change, but it surely comes with a deluxe enclosure and gigantic construct quantity. If lasers are all you’re after, the Creality Laser Falcon has a extra helpful 5 watts of energy for $332.
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