• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Checking in with my Ender3 pro

modi123 said:
Yeah.. I underestimated how much of a PITA it was to try to sand the top/backtop of the head.. not super noticeable until up close but I think smaller layers would have helped. So it goes.
Click to expand...
Lol, yeah you're right about that. The painting goes a long ways, too.
 
modi123 said:
I am not sure where I would store 31 rolls of filament!
Click to expand...
28. Some companies like Jayo have switched to a lighter cardboard spool, but now they load 1.1kg of filament on them but charge the same as older 1kg plastic spools :) Still, my rack is already 3/4 full, but I just couldn't resist lol.
 
So I just threw on a new extruder, an orbiter v2.0:

20230406_174001.jpg

I was not expecting just how tiny this thing is. The BMG + thin motor came in at about 220g. This comes in at an amazing 140g. I really look forward to trying it out.

Yes, wires are a mess. I'm working on it lol.
 
So finally got around to doing some input shaping. Here's a good example of what shaving off 80g from the extruder can do. Left is with BMG, right is with Orbiter 2.0:
a.pngshaper_calibrate_x.png

So we can see from the recommended shaper settings that my max quality acceleration goes up from 2800mm/sec to 5600mm/sec, while cutting the smoothing factor nearly in half. Yes, it does have me gain a tad of vibrations, but even if I went with MZV, I'd still gain max quality acceleration and lower smoothing factor at the same time.

Just goes to show, lower that weight :D
 
Sometimes a project idea gets stuck in your brain and you have to see it through.

Weekend project - Giant's Toe from Skyrim.

PLA ~ 1h40min print time. Rest of the weekend off and on painting, weathering, and capping. There was a very much "draw the rest of the owl" part missing.

File: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4898443

20230806c.jpg
\


20230806b.jpg
 
Had a friend in need for a smiling flaming barrel companion to their dumpster fire from last year. A Sunday afternoon in Fusion360 and Blender and voila! A barrel fire that fits a flickering tea candle.

20230926.jpg


20230926_02.jpg
 
modi123 said:
Had a friend in need for a smiling flaming barrel companion to their dumpster fire from last year. A Sunday afternoon in Fusion360 and Blender and voila! A barrel fire that fits a flickering tea candle.

View attachment 601541

View attachment 601542
Click to expand...
Nice.

On another point I'm very interested in the new V3 SE and KE for a friend. The former looks extremely good for $200 or less and should be even the S1/pro. The KE with linear rails sounds awesome.

*Edit* Worth noting that microcenter has a $200 off coupon for the K1 dropping it to $380. Sounds like they've ironed the kinks out by now.
 
modi123 said:
The speed alone with the rails is super duper intriguing. Cutting down print times would be my only motivation for the extra cash. ha!
Click to expand...
Yeah I really want to try one out. I'll be a tad bit bummed if it blows out my modded Aquilla. Then again I've been very conservative with my speed. Maybe I'ts been capable of much more this whole time.

Currently waiting on a machined aluminum bed.
 
Some misc stuff I was making/printing recently..

Trying my hand at quick and dirty topo maps ripped from GoogleMaps. Not bad.

1699728070243.png


Reprint of Mixi for a niece who broke her other one.

1699728107759.png


Quick and dirty print of a scanned 2500-1000bc proto Choctaw arrowhead that I wanted to try out an 'obsidian' paint job.
Certainly could have dealt with a bit better sanding, but they did well enough for what I wanted to test out.
Black acrylic with some blue or red highlights. Flubbed on the white/tan to much on the back, but so it goes.
Acrylic satin clear coat over it all.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1664913

1699728143597.png
 
Some days you get a notion and have to follow it through. Who knows where thoughts come from?



1717974511277.png
 
I love printing for being able to load up yeggi or something and see if someone made a solution to a problem I'm having. Next up is a phone grip because my thumbs are sore from holding my phone sideways for a game during the past 2 weeks.
 
NmCRooK said:
I sold all my cards about 25 years ago for $40 and I had about 10 of those.
Click to expand...
I feel that in my soul. Pretty much why I'll keep my cards until I die - sheer laziness to look up old card values. ha!
 
Dual Z First Layer Slicing.jpg

Dual Z First Layer.jpg
1719267467282.png


The visible concentric bottom infill pattern was printed on a single driver "dual z" Ender 3 S1. My Ender 3 V2 has a Bigtreetech Manta E3 EZ board with five TMC2209 stepper motor drivers. I use Extruder #2 driver to run the second Z motor so I can have true independent dual z axis control.
Now I can run a Z Tilt Adjust and get my X Axis extremely parallel with the bed and actually start lifting textures off my PEI sheets. That scratch you see is where the nozzle starts. Maybe I should try switching to monotonic bottom infill to see if I can get rid of that mark. This is a Sprite ribbon cable guide found on Printables.com https://www.printables.com/model/310284-ender-3-s1-cable-chain/

There are no more gaps or cracks on the bottom surface of my prints. The z offset has to be set extremely low, no glue stick is allowed, and I have to print hot and slow (260C nozzle / 90C bed / 8mm/s first layer) with PETG black.
Dual Z requires each Z motor to run off its own driver. Most Dual Z is implemented with a single driver splitting its power output to two motors, but the motors cannot synchronize their heights. With a single Z driver, you cannot correct any slant that your X axis has against the Y axis.
 
The BTT SKR E3 Mini V3 should be able to use its second extruder driver to run the other z axis motor. This is definitely a high end feature, but you should utilize that second extruder stepper driver on BTT motherboards. It is a bit involved, I won't lie. You definitely won't have leveling problems afterwards though. I'm not sure if even Bamboo labs or Prusa's higher end printers have implemented Z Tilt adjust yet. You can print PETG hot for the first layer and then wind the temps down to 240C / 78C bed for the rest of the print.

You definitely need independent steppers for the Z motors with larger 300mm to 350mm sized beds, at that size any uneven heights in the z axis will start to cause leveling problems.
 
Last edited:
MooCow said:
The BTT SKR E3 Mini V3 should be able to use its second extruder driver to run the other z axis motor. This is definitely a high end feature, but you should utilize that second extruder stepper driver on BTT motherboards. It is a bit involved, I won't lie. You definitely won't have leveling problems afterwards though. I'm not sure if even Bamboo labs or Prusa's higher end printers have implemented Z Tilt adjust yet. You can print PETG hot for the first layer and then wind the temps down to 240C / 78C bed for the rest of the print.
Click to expand...
Mini V3 only has 1 extruder driver with 4 total.

Ran tilt on a modded Aquila. Honestly it's somewhat overrated.
 
No, it has five. Maybe you didn't know how to utilize Z Tilt Adjust?
 
Eh, bit of a janky mod vs just getting a board with 5 on board drivers.

Though could be fun to do.

As for z tilt, what do you mean utilize? It levels the gantry out. Just didn't seem to matter on a bedslinger once I made sure everything was leveled already.
 
A little under 15.5 hours of printing between all four pieces. I wasn't tracking the concept to design time.

Some lessons learned about trying to embed fonts in prints, but so it goes. I now have a proxy card to use in my deck!

20240704_black_lotus.jpg
 
Some days you just have a day to burn to brush up on 3d modeling skills. After Wootoberfest wound down I got the urge to make the monkey into a model to print, paint, and post.

Untitled.png

done.jpg
 
Helping a buddy out after getting out of a eight year relationship. Just a little jamaharon. Ha!

01.jpg


02.jpg


03.jpg
 
My friend got a Bambu X1 Carbon. I asked him to print a similar STL file for me. I print with PETG. I just wanted to compare how my Ender 3 V2 improved after some heavy mods.
This is not a direct 1:1 test with his vs mine, but I did start to move away from Prusa Slicer, and started using Orca Slicer. The Small Area Flow Compensation (Beta) feature works pretty well.
Anyway, it was a fun test, my Ender 3 V2 printer is obviously not better than a Bambu X1 Carbon, but I enjoy comparing the results of what my printer upgrades have done for print quality compared to the other high end brands and models out there since I started modifying my printer.

Bambu How I used to print.png
Bambu how I used to print2.png


Different slicer settings, I know, so it's not a real comparison, but take it for what it's worth.

Bambu X1 Carbon VS Ender 3 V2 Modified 2.png

Bambu X1 Carbon VS Ender 3 V2 Modified 3.png

Bambu X1 Carbon VS Ender 3 V2 Modified.png


PETG Belted Z parts for S1 BETA bottom mount.jpg
1734639051385.png


1734639124092.png
1734640222860.png

I plan on adding the Dual Belted Z on my Ender 3 S1 and Ender 3 V3 SE eventually. From my personal experience, the dual independent Belted Z makes a big difference. I know people argue against it, but I feel its a very good upgrade.

I also made some custom tools to change out an engine starter (holds the bolt sideways without a magnet), and a non conductive battery terminal bolt wrench designed not to exceed the max torque by making the handle small.

1734638871248.png

1734639443893.png


An older print before upgrades, but dimensional accuracy around the nut was perfect.
1734641831448.png


First time printing PLA in a while... printed this on my Ender 3 V2 for my nephew after repairing and upgrading his Ender 3 S1 Pro to Klipper and adding the Triangle Labs CHCB-OT Heater block and 5150 part cooling to his Sprite. His printer needs a new belt and he keeps trying to print at 180mm/s, I keep telling him that's not possible! I told him 80mm/s, but 3000 acceleration, after we replace his Fraying Y Belt. So I lowered his acceleration down to 2500mm/s in printer.cfg.
1734640577579.png
1734640610331.png
1734640640986.png


Struck gold at Microcenter again! It was BRAND NEW!
1734639843474.png
1734640791801.png


The funny thing was, was that buying the extended warranty @ $25 would make me lose $2~ 🤣 BUT...the second time powering up the printer, the CR Touch had a red light of death. I called Creality Support and I had to spray rubbing alcohol on the CR Touch JST Connector, disconnect it, and reconnected it, and it seemed to have fixed the issue. I haven't used this printer yet, not until I get Klipper running on it.

My current Ender 3 V2 hotend (Went back to CR Touch). This thing weighs A LOT! Dual 5150 part cooling, CHCB-OT Heater Block, bridging and support interfaces break off easily though. I print PETG @ 80mm/s, 3000 acceleration, but slow it down to 30mm/s for top surface layers.

1734641478564.png
1734641506857.png


Printing a Pi 4b case with extra painted supports to reduce PETG warp (By adding more bottom surface adhesion)
1734645876330.png

Sorry for the massive picture and video dump. I am not a PLA "Warhammer" model printer and painter. I print tools and parts. I was shocked to pull this off this replica in 3 hours in Fusion 360.



Twin 5150 part cooling for support interface separation. I wasn't able to get it this smooth off a single 5150 blower. Black PETG.
 
Last edited:
Question, Do people add manual bed leveling knobs back on their Ender 3 V3 SE? I know there are some variations of Klipper for the V3 SE motherboard, but there's a ton of "V3 SE Klipper fork'ed projects" all over github. I think the auto bed leveling sucks on the V3 SE. I have a friend in Sweden who has the V3 SE printer and it prints god awful, even with "automatic bed leveling" on the updated Marlin Firmware from Creality. Just garbage results with torn walls on test prints that look like this:

1734645608548.png


I want to Klipperize my V3 SE, add bed leveling knobs, and does the Ender 3 V2 Carbon fiber Y carriage work on the V3 SE by any chance?
 
Last edited:
NightReaver said:
That pic is caused by bad bed leveling? Looks like bad extrusion/ PA
Click to expand...
Yup his V3 SE Was completely stock out of the box, updated the marlin firmware to try to address the issue, still printed like ass. Then the tiny ass hotend cooling fan bearing broke after a month so he had to start replacing fans within the first two months.
And Creality STILL uses this shitty single 4010 part cooling fan god damnit.
His V3 SE print defect occurs on the same spot of the bed.
I'd much rather install manual bed leveling knobs under the bed of my V3 SE (just look how horrible people's K1 beds looked like when Creality decided to remove bed leveling knobs for the K1 series).
 
Messing around making a topo map and filling in the lake with resin. It'll be a first to pour clear resin, and it came out pretty darn clear. Not bad.



20250512_01a.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top