What printers do you all use?

Hey nodle Tell me about the mini delta. Those look like a fun printer.
I picked it up here a couple of weeks ago. I watched a few YouTube videos on it and people were talking about the quality and speed on the device. I thought why not for the price. It has been a fun little printer for the price and it is so fun to print on. My Cr-10s I have to get everything ready on it. This thing I can have up and running in no time. I did purchase a borosilicate glass plate for it when works great. The print quality is outstanding once I use the S3D profile from https://mpminidelta.com/ . The speed is amazing as well. The downside is it is loud (not a problem since my printers are out in my garage) and that the build area is small (not a big deal to me since I have a CR-10s. Watch some YouTube videos on it if you are interested. Like I said for the price I am happy. It's fun to watch a Delta work as well. Hope that helps WheresWaldo .

 
I want a delta so bad...wife won't let me get a 3rd printer though. She's right, the cr10 is already in the garage
 
Just snagged a Monoprice MP10. Took it apart, put it back together. Replaced the extruder, about to put on a second Z axis and Z braces.
 
Deltesian reporting in!

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It's a totally custom setup, originally based on a Delta Kossel, with a custom version of Marlin to support the unique kinematics.

Upgraded with an official E3Dv6 gold edition hotend, Capricorn bowden tube, and TMC2130 stepper drivers (in SPI mode for full software control). Runs off an ATX power supply, and has a Raspberry Pi running OctoPrint attached underneath with an attached webcam for remote monitoring and time-lapses.
 
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I have a bank of these. Last year they were running nearly 24/7 to keep up with orders. Cash flow was terrific. Things are slower this year.
They are great, but like everything, they wear out.

I don't think most people realize that stepper motors get weak with time due to heat and definitely do need to be replaced.
The magnets are susceptible to heat induced demagnetization. So over time, the printer will get less and less accurate and more prone to mysterious print failures as the motors torque drops.
You can adjust the voltage to some degree to compensate temporarily, but that makes them run even hotter.
ALL my printers have coolers on the steppers and STILL they eventually fail. This is only a big deal in production environments.
For home hobby use they can least a LOT longer.

I keep CASES of stepper motors for them onhand :)

How many hours / meters of filament do you think you get out of them?

I'm at ~540 hours of motion.

I have a Rostock V3 that just broke 16k printing meters. It is original everything but the hot end. (Complete replacement of that at 12k m) I'm trying to talk myself into doing the 3.2 upgrade with new stepper motors and the 32bit Duet.
 

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I have a bank of these. Last year they were running nearly 24/7 to keep up with orders. Cash flow was terrific. Things are slower this year.
They are great, but like everything, they wear out.

I don't think most people realize that stepper motors get weak with time due to heat and definitely do need to be replaced.
The magnets are susceptible to heat induced demagnetization. So over time, the printer will get less and less accurate and more prone to mysterious print failures as the motors torque drops.
You can adjust the voltage to some degree to compensate temporarily, but that makes them run even hotter.
ALL my printers have coolers on the steppers and STILL they eventually fail. This is only a big deal in production environments.
For home hobby use they can least a LOT longer.

I keep CASES of stepper motors for them onhand :)
Do you own a small business and sell prints? Or do you do something like an Etsy shop and sell stuff online?
 
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Ender 3 Pro with some upgrades.

New bed springs.
BLTouch
SKR Mini E3 board
Octoprint running on a Raspberry Pi 3B+
Metal extruder
Glass bed with PEI surface, PLA pops right off
Printed accessories like a filament guide on ball bearing, storage drawers, 80mm PSU fan mount
Noctua 40mm 12v hot end fan and PSU 80mm 12v fan, the stock fans were insanely loud after I installed the 2209 motor drivers. The only thing left to silence is the motherboard case fan.

For the price, this thing is perfect. Once I finally got it tuned the way I want, its been cranking out parts non stop. Mostly office organization parts and telescope accessories.
 

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Ender 3 Pro with some upgrades.

New bed springs.
BLTouch
SKR Mini E3 board
Octoprint running on a Raspberry Pi 3B+
Metal extruder
Glass bed with PEI surface, PLA pops right off
Printed accessories like a filament guide on ball bearing, storage drawers, 80mm PSU fan mount

I just set up my first printer (Ender 3 Pro) with many of the same mods! How do you like the BL Touch setup? My bed has a low spot in the middle, so I'd like to get into mesh leveling of some sort. Still learning though.

So far:
SKR E3 v1.2
Filament guide
Tool holder (will toss soon - can't leave the snipper on it)
Metal extruder (grey) & printed knob
Capricorn tube
Cable clips
Drawer

Planned:
LED light bar
Noctua 40x20 on the Fang fan shroud
Octopi &/or webcam with smart outlet for remote shutdown.
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Ahh, alien green, I see you're a man of refined taste as well.

BLTouch is slick. Was a bitch to set up with the Mini E3 (first time I used command line to control the Ender, after that you get used to it). Now its a blessing. I just pop old prints off, load a new one wirelessly from my desktop to the RPi, and print again. No fussing with anything. It performs like a premium piece of technology now.

I recommend a glass bed with PEI 235mm sheet on it as well. Perfectly flat and easy to get prints off.

Steps for a perfect first layer every time:
1) New springs
2) Glass bed
3) Tedious manual level
4) Perfect BLTouch calibration

After those steps, your first layers will be just as good as those Prusa guys.

Also, if you get an Octoprint, upload from your desktop to the SD card in the printer itself. Apparently the USB commands from Octo to the USB port on the printer aren't fast enough for the hot end movements and your print quality suffers. I was having this issue and did some research and discovered this. The I/O on the SD card to the processor is faster than that of the USB port, so it can keep up with the movements of the printer better .
 
Just finished a 4 fin alignment guide for Estes model rockets, came out smooth and perfect.

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This is the guide to use to calibrate the BLTouch, he walks you through the command line of the Ender 3 mainboard. I was stumped until I came across his video.
 
Hey nodle Tell me about the mini delta. Those look like a fun printer.
This printer has given me quite a bit of trouble. My main workhorse is the original cr-10 I had it for several years now and that thing does not quite on me, could it be better? Sure but for the price, I am quite happy with it.
 
Set up OctoPrint last night. Seems nice, but I have a few issues that might make me abort it:
1. Can only print if I upload to SD card, which takes FOREVER. ~1MB/minute. Printing a file already on the SD card does nothing. Loading file from the SD card looks like it will work, but when I then hit print, nothing happens. I have to load from my PC in order to print.
2. OctoPrint doesn't obey the bounds of the print surface set up in the machine profile - if it goes out of bounds (i.e. skirt at the edge), it'll ram whatever trolley into whatever it hits first and not stop until something fails.
3. Can't preheat bed/nozzle outside of printing sequence. Would be nice to get things warmed up and level while it's taking it's sweet ass time loading the gcode.

Also realizing my home location changed slightly with the SKR board upgrade. Now it sure right at the edge of the bed instead of off it ~10mm or so. The warm-up routing is leaving a booger on the edge of the mat and causing some stringing.
 
1. You don't have to only print from SD card, I just print parts with advanced, frequent movements from SD as the forums and Reddit threads indicate this is where you could run into issues. And I typically save it for longer prints. If a short print fails, who cares. If a 15 hour print fails 10 hours in, I'm going to be irritated.
But for short, basic stuff, just print wirelessly.
I haven't had but one or two failed prints from Octo, and they were prints that were long and had a lot of movement. So I save SD card printing for those. Because you're right, upload to SD card is glacially paced.

2. What firmware did you use with it? I originally had that issue with some firmware I used, fixed it by using the TeachingTech SKR mini firmware.

3. Preheat by typing in your desired temps and click the blue check mark.

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Thanks for the help! Much appreciated.

1. I can't seem to get it to print via streaming. It only prints if I upload to the SD. I'll try again this evening.

2. I didn't check... Not sure how to. I'm running whatever came on it with the Marlin Bugfix 2.0.x software.

3. I can manipulate temps, up until I start to load to SD, then it resets the setpoints to 0 while it loads, and cools in the meantime.
 
Thanks for the help! Much appreciated.

1. I can't seem to get it to print via streaming. It only prints if I upload to the SD. I'll try again this evening.

2. I didn't check... Not sure how to. I'm running whatever came on it with the Marlin Bugfix 2.0.x software.

3. I can manipulate temps, up until I start to load to SD, then it resets the setpoints to 0 while it loads, and cools in the meantime.

Well crap, I didn't realize Marlin 2.0 was the firmware... It's printing well with no issues, so I'm hesitant to update it... Also unclear on the process as the BTT & Marlin firmware instructions mention certain parameters "must" be changed... I'll keep researching.
 
Keep researching, you'll get the printer to where you want it. It took me almost a month of messing with it almost daily after the kids went to bed to finally get it performing at the level I wanted it at.
Thats the difference between a Prusa and an Ender, Prusa is ready to go out of the box with premium features. Ender requires add on parts and a lot of learning/tinkering to get it to the level of a Prusa. Once you get it there, you have a pretty good understanding of how these things work, and when you get an error in a print, why it happened and what steps are required to fix it. Its frustrating, but worth it.
 
Ender 3 pro with too many upgrades ( Th3d EZABL Pro bed leaving sensor, th3d ezmat with glass surface, Th3d filament sensor, Th3d tuff extruder, th3d custom firmware, to name a few ) and just received the SKR E3 mini motherboard upgrade and th3d TH3D EZBoard Lite V1.2 motherboard upgrade. But haven't decided which to use also finish pre-ordering a Prusa mini ( with the coronavirus going wild. The current estimate delivery date is never 😭).
 
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Cr-10 original, I've had it for pretty much as long as the model has been out. I've made quite a few upgrades to it since, EZABL Sensor, Filament sensor, Mirror bed, Keenovo heater, Dual Z axis Lead screw upgrade, stepper dampers, th3d fan pack, octopi. I have the e3d hemera and duet 3 board that I have not had the time to install.

It's funny because I bought the Cr-10 because it was relatively cheap and had a larger build volume. Then I subsequently spent more than twice the price of the printer in upgrades. I should have just bought a prusa i3. Whats bad is that since I can't go into the office anymore for the next few weeks I have been catching up on 3d printer news and I now want the E3D toolchanger and motion system.
 
2 CR-10s 1 CR-10S5 All stock execpt the filament real mount on top of printer. Even stock glass.

R2-D2 completely printed​
BB-8 outer panels and head - was a working unit until I pulled the servos and electronics for another project ( Eds drive and carries frame)​
Pit Droid​
DO​
K2 He's over 6ft tall without the stand​
Mouse droid inner frame and greeblies only He's a working unit as well. I have not cannibalized him for his drive system yet.​

Darth Vader for scale.

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I joined the party with an ender 3 pro + cr10 s5.

Cr10 s5 just had the bed temp control die in the middle of a 19 hour print... 1 week after getting it.
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I'd like to know what some of you guys think of the F;asForge 3D printers. In particular, the FlashForge Creator 3 . Pls consider it would be used by a rookie - me.
 
I joined the party with an ender 3 pro + cr10 s5.

Cr10 s5 just had the bed temp control die in the middle of a 19 hour print... 1 week after getting it.View attachment 262007View attachment 262008

So, the thermal runaway was actually a not keeping temp (temp too low) alarm.

Also... they used a 1-3 amp plug for the 17amp in reality heat bed. It melted the solder. Chinese engineering and production living up to the sterotypes!
 
2 CR-10s 1 CR-10S5 All stock except the filament mount, I moved to the top of printer. Even stock glass.

Ahh, I have a wierd constraint with the printer. I play around with DealDash. Penny auction site. I'm saving about 8,000 bids to use on a printer. Except DD seems to only offer FlashForge models. The 'Creator 3' is the next up. So, I have a pretty good chance to get that for, maybe, 2-3 hundred bucks net. Otherwise, I'd need to say at, maybe 800 bucks or so.

What's my best choice?
 
Ahh, I have a wierd constraint with the printer. I play around with DealDash. Penny auction site. I'm saving about 8,000 bids to use on a printer. Except DD seems to only offer FlashForge models. The 'Creator 3' is the next up. So, I have a pretty good chance to get that for, maybe, 2-3 hundred bucks net. Otherwise, I'd need to say at, maybe 800 bucks or so.

What's my best choice?

Well, at the 800 bucks range, my money would go towards a Prusa MK3S kit for $749.

While it is very easy to pick up a Chinese printer for less, in the long run, you'll most likely end up spending just as much and a lot more time/hassle getting dialed in and keeping it there.
 
I would aim for a Delta or CoreXY machine as I think moving beds are fundamentaly flawed for any taller prints you might ever want to do.

If you only ever see your self printing a few cm or couple inches of the bed (which if you have a built plate that is tall enough you can lay a lot of stuff down) or are willing to print very slow in PLA (many more advanced filaments have a speed at which the nozzle is to long over any given spot and causes problems at low speeds) then the Prusa mk3s kit is what you want.
 
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