300 mm/s Printing Speed?

It wouldn’t be a Kickstarter campaign without some bold claims, would it? Fokoos is drawing your focus to the claimed speed of this machine. It’s not entirely clear to what printer Fokoos refers to when they say the Odin Smart is six times faster, but a sensible printing pace is about 50 mm/s and the advertised speed for the Odin Smart is 300 mm/s.

A number like 300 mm/s is an impressive speed, but enormously difficult to print reliably and in good quality at. So, the big question here is whether it delivers. Some early YouTube videos suggest it doesn’t.

Fokoos itself points out on its website that speed is “strongly related to the slicing software settings, the quality of the filament and the complexity of the model.” That basically implies you need a perfect storm of things to print well at the advertised speeds.

If it does manage to produce good prints consistently at 300 mm/s, that’s actually quite exciting, but we’re not holding our breath here.

Direct extruder

Fokoos has installed a direct extruder on the Odin Smart. In fact, Fokoos is calling it “ultra-direct”, so we’re expecting to see the distance between the nozzle and the extruder to be minimized. This makes stable printing at high speeds more likely, but not guaranteed. We’ve not been able to get hands on with this machine yet so we certainly haven’t picked the extruder apart, but promotional images on the company’s website seem to suggest that there isn’t a heat sink, which would make it interesting to say the least.

In terms of temperatures here, we’re looking at a hot end that can warm up to 260 °C, meaning it will be compatible with the normal consumer filaments like ABS, PLA, and PETG. Being a direct extruder, it should handle flexible filaments like TPU a little easier than a Bowden extruder, but it’s not like Bowden extruder-equipped 3D printers can’t handle TPU at all.

Dual Z-axis

A dual Z-axis is a respectable 3D printer upgrade known for improving stability. Two stepper motors moving in parallel with extreme precision is better than one.

A pervious Fokoos effort — the Odin-5 F3 — also featured dual-Zs but from what we can see, there’s a slight difference here in that the Odin Smart uses a timing belt that connects to the axis via two screws.

Build Volume

The Odin Smart’s 235 x 235 x 250 mm build volume is bang on par for FDM 3D printers. That’s mostly because most FDM 3D printers are some sort of a riff on a Creality Ender 3, which, as you might have guessed, has a build volume around about this size. It’s fine for most people though, roomy enough to create some cool stuff without taking up too much space, and normally, a bigger build volume means a bigger price tag.

Its build plate, a textured glass slab, can be heated to a maximum of 100 °C, a very standard sort of temperature to reach again.

99% Pre-assembled

This speaks for itself, but it’s a really desirable feature for many people, especially beginners. Fokoos likes to design 3D printers with a folding mechanism, so all that’s needed here is to move the gantry from its folded position and tighten a few screws. That folding mechanism could also make it easier to store away for a bit if you don’t want to use it, under a bed, perhaps?

If you just want to get to 3D printing, this should be perfect. No need to spend time putting things together or trying to something fit. It’s true, some serial tinkerers might not like that, but many (and not only first-timers) will be grateful to have some extra work saved.

Wi-Fi Connectivity

Yes, we love a bit of Wi-Fi connectivity in the 21st century, don’t we? The Odin Smart has it — meaning you don’t have to constantly get up from your desk and/or sofa to go plug in some portable storage in order to begin a print. You just stay where you are.

Remote Control via App and Smart Camera

Thanks to the Fokoos app (compatible with Android and iOS systems), you can control the status of your prints at any time on your phone. You also have the ability to receive notifications anytime something interesting happens, for example, the print is finished, the filament ran out, and so on.

An integrated 1080p camera can also record the progress with pictures or a time-lapse video, which can be stored on the app. You’ll want to download it from the app onto your phone if you want to keep it though, or you’ll need pay for a subscription to the app in order to save more than one time lapse at a time.

The camera itself is fixed into one place, so you won’t be able to experiment with angles much, but it is there as overwatch or an Instagram-friendly extra should you be interested in that sort of thing.

Further Features

There’s a couple of other minor features of note on the Odin Smart too.

• OTA updates: Another benefit to Wi-Fi is the fact you’ll be able to download updates for this printer over the air.
• Self-test function: Find out what’s going wrong with your printer by performing a self-test. If only our pets could do this…
• Manual bed-leveling: If it was really “Smart” surely this would be automatic?