Finally got a 3d printer, a modified Ender 3

Tengis

Tengis

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jun 11, 2003
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Well this was the description when I bought it:
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Ive since basically taken the entire thing apart and put it back together straight/properly... the bed was crooked as hell and the guy was apparently printing a ton of stuff on it. It seems like it will be a good first printer. Ive already printed a handful of things as prototypes that I have designed for my business and will be designing/printing some jigs for my fiber laser as well. I paid about $320 for it... I probably couldve bought a better/similar printer brand new but it seemed like a good deal at the time with the Hemera direct drive 🤷‍♂️
 
Well, at least it was pimped out a bit for that price.

Don't know much about the hemera setup, I tend to gravitate towards BMG clones. But good luck nonetheless.
 
NightReaver said:
Well, at least it was pimped out a bit for that price.

Don't know much about the hemera setup, I tend to gravitate towards BMG clones. But good luck nonetheless.
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It seems to work pretty good but I dont have any basis for comparison really lol.
 
Ive been printing a lot of stuff with the 3D printer and its got me thinking about what a good next step would be as far as a printer that is better without breaking the bank. Primarily looking for something that is a bit faster with a bit better quality. I plan on 3D printing a few small parts that I will include with some stuff I sell for my business.

I havent tried to 3d print anything with a smaller layer thickness so that may actually work out well enough for me?
 
Tengis said:
Ive been printing a lot of stuff with the 3D printer and its got me thinking about what a good next step would be as far as a printer that is better without breaking the bank. Primarily looking for something that is a bit faster with a bit better quality. I plan on 3D printing a few small parts that I will include with some stuff I sell for my business.

I havent tried to 3d print anything with a smaller layer thickness so that may actually work out well enough for me?
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Eh, idk how much mid range there really is. The cheapest solution is to mod the ender 3 even more. Learn about something like klipper firmware. It has software solutions that will allow you to print faster and more accurately. My Aquila is zipping around at 100mm/sec @ 3k mm/sec acceleration, and that's on the slower side for Klipper setups. But it puts my friend's Ender 3 with stock firmware to shame.

Smaller layer thickness can increase quality, but it also increases time. A good question would be what are you unhappy about quality wise? Some things are hardware related, some are just limitations of the process. Example pics?
 
Agreed with NightReaver. My ender 3 is at 150mm/s with 1500accel and it competes with my voron for quality on ABS prints. I can start a print on my phone in bed and not check it until its done and not have any worries. As mentioned, a bit of modding and also running klipper, my latest 'flex' was able to print 55shoreA TPE, not the best quality but was able to do what our $6000 printer at work could not lol.

Creality now has (i think its called) the sonic pad which is a touch screen addon that can help you flash klipper and run that. If you arent comfortable with setting up a raspberri pi and doing it yourself, although it is not difficult and lots of great tutorials. i would consider that a really good bang for your buck change in your system.

Are you wanting a printer to be bigger or smaller or same? I have a voron v0.1 and it is small 120mm build area but it is fast and prints amazing ABS. This was a super fun project and cant wait to build a 2.4 version next!

The ender 3 can be an amazing machine, its biggest downfall is the differences from one to the next depending how it was put together both in the factory and at the house. Mine print like crap out of the box, sending me down the road of internet "go buy this!" posts just costing me tons of money and not fixing much. My father in law got one as well and his prints amazing and i think the only thing he changed was the print bed and extruder (since his wore out).
 
Yeah, you can really be dealt a bad hand depending on how your printer comes out of the box.

I pretty much had to rebuild my friends ender 3 v2. He was having issues, brought it to me. The whole X gantry was off level by like 1/4". Turns out one of the screws that holds the right gantry plate stripped the threads in the extrusion, so the whole plate was pivoting. Had to replace it with t nuts instead.
 
Nice setup.

Go out to your local Home Depot and purchase a concrete/stone patio tile for use as an isolation bed, those wire shelving units are flimsy. If you want high precision and accuracy the printer cannot vibrate or move.

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drutman said:
Nice setup.

Go out to your local Home Depot and purchase a concrete/stone patio tile for use as an isolation bed, those wire shelving units are flimsy. If you want high precision and accuracy the printer cannot vibrate or move.

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That's a pretty good idea 🤔

I tried to print something last night with .2mm line width... Came out super nice but the top layer was rougher then expected and my corners still curled up after it cooled off.

My print was probably .1-.2mm smaller then expected. I was printing a jig to use with my laser etcher so I had taken exact measurements. Is there a way to fix that calibration easily?
 
Tengis said:
My print was probably .1-.2mm smaller then expected. I was printing a jig to use with my laser etcher so I had taken exact measurements. Is there a way to fix that calibration easily?
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You'll want to calibrate e steps and flow rate. Plenty of online resources on how to do that. Note that it depends on how big of an object you're printing. Even on the ever popular 20mm calibration cubes, being off .01mm or so is usually always going to happen. It's best to worry about it in percentages. A good test is to print something a different size and see if the difference scales with it.
 
if printing in ABS there is shrinkage you have to account for roughly 0.8% depending on brand and their mixture.

for top layer you can extrude a bit less. also look into ironing, it can help the smoothness of the top.

FDM printing is trial and error too. might have to resize your model specifically for that print just to get it right. Use it as a tool to do a job, it is a much easier goal to chase than perfection as an overall. IMO
 
Tengis said:
That's a pretty good idea 🤔

I tried to print something last night with .2mm line width... Came out super nice but the top layer was rougher then expected and my corners still curled up after it cooled off.

My print was probably .1-.2mm smaller then expected. I was printing a jig to use with my laser etcher so I had taken exact measurements. Is there a way to fix that calibration easily?
Click to expand...

You can get better bed adhesion with a brim, and if you're printing with ABS I would recommend putting some sort of container around the printer to keep the heat in. In my printing experience I've found that abs likes to curl if the ambient temperature is under 35C, but I used a glass bed not a PEI sheet so YMMV.

In your slicer you should be able to enable ironing which will make your top layer look nicer. Just don't enable it for every layer unless you want your print to take a week ;)

As said above calibrate esteps and flow rate. Its pretty typical to need to dial in flow rate for every brand and type of filament you run. I'd also look at either an air tight plastic tub with silica packets or one of those filament dryers if you are printing with plastics that absorb moisture like ABS/PETG/Nylon.

I'd highly recommend klipper, it will help with speed and quality. Just remember it isn't magic so any physical limitations of your machine will still be present. For example if you only have 1 lead screw you may find it sags a bit on the other side, which might not affect printing much at slower speeds but at higher speeds rigidity and accuracy matter more. You may also start to run up against the maximum flow rate of your hotend and/or the limitations of your part cooling.

If you're looking for a better mid range printer that is reasonably priced you'd be hard pressed to find one off the shelf imo. I personally would recommend the bambu p1p if your budget can handle it and you don't want to tinker/modify. Otherwise I would recommend trying to find a corexy printer for relatively cheap or finding one that can be relatively easily modified to be corexy. If your prints aren't too big in the x and y dimensions a delta style 3d printer can be an easy way to get faster printing also, though watch out for the plethora of cheap crap ones.
 
Been printing with some Amazon ASA: https://a.co/d/7aOLQVL

Prints beautifully after I figured out good settings - 260 nozzle for the first layer, 255 nozzle after, 103 bed temp for the first layer, 99 bed temp after, fan speed 8% at layer 6 and ramps up to 10%. My only problem is that the layer adhesion doesnt seem to be super great. The pieces that flex (in the picture) snap off without a whole lot of force. They are 3.5mm thick or so. I just modified the model to make them 5mm thick.

Printing these little cigarette lighter blanks for these titanium kill switch lighter handles I make.

3d-Printed-Lighter-Blank.jpg 3d-Printed-Lighter-Blank-2.jpg
 
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Thinking about grabbing a P1S and trying to get a few coins for my Ender3 on FB Marketplace. I couldve already bought the P1S if I had gotten a part time job for all the time I have into screwing with my Ender3 trying to get prints perfect. Been trying to eliminate the small stringing and other misc issues...
 
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