Checking in with my Ender3 pro

modi123

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 6, 2006
Messages
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I picked up a: SainSmart x Creality Ender-3 PRO 3D Printer from woot over black Friday. Figured the entry price point was low enough for me to tinker with, and not something I would be angry at if I left on the curb. ($155)

Assembled it over Christmas, and have been dickering with it ever since.

Upgrades to it:
- Creality 3d upgrade kit of new springs, better tube couplers, metal extruder, and capricorn tubing. ($20)
- BIGTREETECH SKR Mini E3 V1.2 (new main board) ($35)

All the upgrades have gone in.. the mainboard has better firmware support and silent steppers so a plus.

The springs were super to keeping the manual bed leveling less of an issue, couplers to keep the tube in, metal extruder because the plastic one will wear out with filament rubbing on it, and tubing for heat/retraction issues.

I also picked up some digital calipers and ferrules crimper but the latter was overkill as the pro's power supply and mainboard were pretty rock solid.

I use Cura for my slicer. Never thought how much time it sucks to print. .that may be the death of my love for this project.
https://ultimaker.com/software/ultimaker-cura

My boss picked up a Sovol3d on his friend's recommendations. It has a lot of nice upgrades for an Ender3 over mine, and wouldn't be a bad entry model.
https://sovol3d.com/collections/3d-printers/products/sovol-sv01-direct-drive-extrusion-3d-printers


After a lot of futzing, swearing, and drinks I think I have this thing tuned in for PLA. The cube and level verifier helped quite a bit.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1278865
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3235018

Oh geeze, and yes.. CALIBRATE THOSE ESTEPS! That seemed to be the last blocker to get this really humming.
https://letsprint3d.net/how-to-calibrate-the-extruder-steps-ender-3-5-cr-10/



Things I've printed:

H2iaka1.jpg


iw1JnXQ.jpg


WTfbbqZ.png


aP9uwAd.png

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:707936

The makerbot fidget gear was especially a great moment. After failure and failure and more failure I finally have things tuned enough withing tolerance to print functional gears - in their housing! Super neat.

I am off to inspect 'OpenCad' to see what I can come up with on my own.
 
I also grabbed this deal on Woot. I have not upgraded it at all and I'm really pleased with the performance stock. (Compared to my Monoprice MP10, which sucks ass)

I'm very interested in the new mainboard, though.
 
The mainboard was this one.
https://www.amazon.com/BIGTREETECH-Control-TMC2209-Printer-Creality/dp/B07XYW21J3

It took the mechanical whine right out and all I hear now are the fans running. Allegedly this has thermal runaway enabled, and integration for bltouches and other things. It looks to move much much smoother.

The swap over wasn't bad.. just tape and label your wire groups and it should be fine.
 
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The whole 'settings save between instances' is going to throw me off. While I should have used a raft, I had a 'brim' set on this guy when it printed. Been a bit of a pain in the ass to peel off the layers, but I'll be damned how nice in-place-chain-links sound right off the printer.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3495390
 
New game plan, find a cheap and not 4+ program pipeline to getting topo maps to STL files.
 
Not bad for a first pass at some topographical fun. The resolution is super huge so I may go about finding my own pipeline plus a little Blender. To quote Jill Sobule "I think I can do better".

MPKFHIs.jpg


link
 
i have been eye-balling the ender as well. came close to pulling the trigger a few times. i would mostly use it to print stuff for my mini-quads and rc planes/wings. probably other things as well

have you tried any printing with TPU yet?

no one around me has a printer, so it'll be a fun adventure i think.
 
Haven't had a need for tpu, but a cursory Google search seems it is doable with an enser3 after a few tweaks and slower speeds.
 
I should have went with the Ender.... my Monoprice Miniselect V2 worked great at first, but went in the crapper. Haven't had a good print over a year.. I changed hot ends etc. Plus the Ender has a larger heatbed.
 
I should have went with the Ender.... my Monoprice Miniselect V2 worked great at first, but went in the crapper. Haven't had a good print over a year.. I changed hot ends etc. Plus the Ender has a larger heatbed.
Indeed it does. If you want to spend a bit more for quality bits, that Sovol I mentioned above is pretty damn solid. The only thing missing would be a newer board and bltouch.
 
Ender 3 pro arrived and is printing within 30 minutes. My 6 year old printer despite all the work ive done to it already seems inferior to this cheap-ass chinese one. Kinda depressing...

Still have to install the skr mini with the 2209 drivers and bltouch.
 
No just the bltouch and skr 1.2 for now. Springs are next, and I've got my eye on either the hemera or trianglelabs direct drive extruder. Adding another z axis and linear guides is going to happen someday too :)
 
If anyone wants a fun print, these gyroscopic fidget key chain things are a hoot. About an hour and a half or so using 0 infill, 0.1 layer height, and 1.0 walls. First two rings are a little loose, but that seems to be the model. Tried 3% infill with same wall/layer to no change.. and then 1.1 wall and that got a little fused.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:644217


Trying my hand at some miniature profiles and prints. Two hours to wait.
 
Using the 'Fat Dragon Games' profile on a stock 4mm end.. and 2 hours.. pretty dope.

link

So2ITRE.png
 
modi123 have you updated the firmware to do mesh bed leveling? i took the touch probe off my mini-cnc and put it on my prusa and mesh leveled the bed and boy did it make a difference, i was kinda amazed.

the bltouch probes work pretty good too, just need to disassemble and tighten them up a bit imo
 
jstanthr - I am running Marlin what evers came on the SKR Mini 1.2.. which I believe is the most recent/stable version.. pretty sure it's in there.

I heard of 'bed mesh leveling' but never really looked into it. A little concerned about the ol Z axis burying itself in the top of my bed. Typically I've been using the four corners testing, then print the nine squares, and tweak from there.
 
jstanthr - I am running Marlin what evers came on the SKR Mini 1.2.. which I believe is the most recent/stable version.. pretty sure it's in there.

I heard of 'bed mesh leveling' but never really looked into it. A little concerned about the ol Z axis burying itself in the top of my bed. Typically I've been using the four corners testing, then print the nine squares, and tweak from there.
Yeah its in the firmware but commented out. You just need to set the x/y offset from the extruder and z offset from when it probes. mine is mounted but I havent finished wiring the skr mini 1.2 and flashing the firmware changes.

The skr 1.2 with the 2209 drivers also has the ability to do sensorless homing, which is pretty cool. And you can enable the full 512k memory if you need the space for all the features.
 
Fair enough. Yeah I haven't gotten too far into the firmware or "exotic" sensors like the mesh thing or bltouch.. Probably a later thing when I'll run into a problem and scream about it.
 
Fair enough. Yeah I haven't gotten too far into the firmware or "exotic" sensors like the mesh thing or bltouch.. Probably a later thing when I'll run into a problem and scream about it.
I added bed leveling to my old printer years ago but that was with a 90deg servo arm and micro switch. Not as fancy as the stuff today but it made a big difference. I'll put a pic up when its done on the ender.
 
Without finished wiring but its working great. Skr 1.2 mini makes it sooo quiet, just need to add the jumpers for sensorless homing still. If theres a good sale on these its going to be difficult not to add a couple more...
20200202_105759.jpg
 
have you tried any printing with TPU yet?

no one around me has a printer, so it'll be a fun adventure i think.

TPU is so fiddly that I have a 3D printer (Tevo Tarantula) JUST for printing with it. It has the consistency of day old soggy cooked spaghetti and loves to get stuck in the bowden tube. Over/under extrusion is a constant problem, which can really only be fixed by a direct drive extruder attached to the print head itself, but that poses a different set of challenges.

It also must be print SUPER slow or else you're going to end up with contraction issues and massive stringing problems. I can get a mostly usable print if all travel moves are set to 30mm/s, you really don't want the head flying around because it creates tension within the part that can lead to warping.

I stick to small TPU parts because the whole print has to be babied since there's almost always some issue that you have to work out during the print. Usually the spool will get stuck because the TPU filament has a habit of sticking to itself, which can lead to the printer snapping the filament or pulling it so tight that it under extrudes and the print fails.

My Creality Ender 3 is used for everything else - PLA, ABS and PETG. ABS is awful to print, I don't recommend it at all. PETG is more expensive but it prints as good as PLA with the right settings, is stronger than ABS, has better chemical resistance and most important of all, doesn't warp.
 
Ah.. the blue roll I have gave off a different shine than my flat white hatchbox pla.
 
Oh damn. I am humming along with my mag bed and my petg peeled off..though not using anything with that sort of footprint.
 
Well, it's been a month or so of use in an open air environment and the z shaft is looking a little dry and crusty. After a bit of research seems PTFE lube is the better option and picked up a small bottle from the ol' lowes.

Thinking it may help with some z line aberrations as well.. and better get things trimmed up ahead of my 17hour print.

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https://www.lowes.com/pd/3-IN-ONE-Multi-Purpose-4-oz-PTFE-Lubricant/50370410
 
Starting my first 7 hour print. Unicorn head base.

Feel this will be my printer tonight... and then again after the 15h45m head part Thursday.

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Should be a good stress test to see about printing the Ace of Spades or this Zelda pot!

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:772378
 
Niece was pretty darn happy with this first, for me, long running print.






Head - 15h 51m:
200%
Dropped the head down by -.2mm per recommendations of the remaker
Infill 25%
Cubic
No supports
No rafts
ERYONE Rainbow PLA Filament

Base - 7h 6m:
200%
Infill: 10%
Grid
HATCHBOX PLA White

Horn - 0h 25m
200%
Infill: 10%
Grid
HATCHBOX PLA White

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4023606
 
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