I have toyed with the idea of getting an Extender kit for my E3V2 and finally looked up the info. Danger Will Robinson.
Now for the rest of the story. In addition to the kit you need a new bed heater for the 400mm kit (not absolutely necessary but if you don’t want the problem of low bed temp). A new Y axis stepper is needed to prevent problems with prints, the stock one isn’t powerful enough for the best operation. A new bed surface IE: glass etc. And best of all apparently they use a broker to ship to Canada with the entailed cost of that.
So for the 400mm upgrade the costs are in US dollars:
Kit $190 (stock height, much more if you get the X axis kit)
Bed heater $100
Bed surface, glass $20
Stepper $20
Us taxes (conservatively) $20
Shipping/brokerage $100 or more and could be as much as the kit in its self.
Total so far $450.00 US
And maybe import tax and duties also. The exchange rate at 21 % adds $100 so about $550 CAN and up.
For less then that I can probably find a used Ender 3 MAX and have a 300mm print area. The 300mm kit is less and doesn’t heed the stepper and bed heater, so about $200 US plus the brokerage fees which are a deal breaker for me. Better yet I could just buy the stock frame material and necessary parts for much less then that. I do have the tooling to mill out the frames.
Anyway it seems to be an awfully expensive way to add a couple of inches to the print area.
Once you have the basics of 3d printing down, to increase size isnt all that complicated.
Longer belts, lead screws, extrusions, are all relitivly cheap. The bed can be a bit pricey especially as you increase in size, which to a point may require additional hardware for the increased power requirement.
Ive briefly looked at ideas like this then considered sourcing the parts myself, THEN comparing the option of keeping my printer stock and buying a larger printer already decked out for a larger space. Also considering buildspace, i have had a hard time justifying much bigger than 300mm. Theres plenty of reasons to go big, but most of my stuff has been small enough to likley fall under 100mm3.
Just my $0.02 though
What did you have in mind that would make use of 400mm3 anyway?
I have only had two items that I couldn’t print on the stock sizes so far and I changed the X axis print distance to 235mm to be able to print one of them. Even 3/4" bigger would be a lot better.
I probably wouldn’t go to 400mm, 300mm would be plenty. Plus the bed heater would still work, according to Ender Extenders and it wouldn’t (crossed fingers) need bigger steppers. It would need the top and bottom cross members and the X & Y axis bars to be replaced and making them shouldn’t be a problem. After that it would be new cables, belts, hardware, print surface and a couple of printed parts/brackets. It could be done a lot cheaper. Having a complete kit would be nice and not unreasonable but the shipping and brokerage fees make it un-doable.
The 300mm kit is $160US, $5 for a 12’ Mirror (from Extender) as a print surface and US taxes. With the exchange rate would be under $240 CDN (without tax & duty, made in US should be exempt?) plus reasonable shipping and I would get one. I don’t know why sending it by US postal isn’t an option. Maybe I will inquire.