Luckily I was at home to receive the parcel. The fall to the bottom of our green bin (a safe place to leave parcels of unknown value, apparently) might have caused some damage, especially considering it weighed nearly 4.5kg.
On opening, the first signs were encouraging:
but the packaging was not entirely successful. The contents were split between about 10 themed plastic bags (fixings, electronics, printed parts etc.), but there was no attempt to stop the bags sliding around. Some contained quite heavy parts, some quite delicate parts. The main controller PCB, pictured below, has a 6 pin header in one corner that was only protected by a scrap of polystyrene. Several of the pins were quite bent, but the picture of the final build shows this connector unused.
Documentation consists of an invoice, a comprehensive packing list, and a welcome letter from Dr Adrian Bowyer which contains a link to the latest build instructions, at reprappro.com/Huxley. The full hardware contents look like this:
The packing list details 450 individual items (330 of which are miscellaneous mechanical fixings). I have identified almost all of them, and have not come across any that are mentioned but definitely missing. Some of the quantities of mechanical fixings do not match the packing list, but these are probably only approximate numbers, and I will have no problem finding, say, an M6 nut after years of salvaging parts. The remaining unidentified items are in the bag labelled 'Hot End', which will have to wait till stage 7 of the build.
One bag contains all of the 3D printed components. They are white, and after some discussion with nophead I believe they are PLA. Most of them have a smattering of small knobbles on the surface (smaller than 1mm), and some have warping at the corners of what would have been the first layer. Most of the larger components are hollow, and I initially thought that some of these had burn marks, but it seems they have small regions where the fill has pinholes, allowing you to see inside. Only after building the printer will I know if these deficiencies will cause a problem.
