My 3D printing journey - now under new ownership!

[TB]

So at this point now that you've had it for a year, what is your opinion of the Ender3? Would you recommend it? Do you feel another printer in the $200 range might be better?

Difficult to answer that as ever since I bought it, I haven't looked at any others. I have a tendency to do that with anything I buy. I don't want to know if I missed a better or cheaper option somewhere.

That out of the way, for the price point, it's been a great printer. The learning curve is much steeper than I was expecting but as some of those things are settings that you make once, it's not such a big deal. The tweaks I've made in the last week of printing have made a massive difference in quality.

Before the tweaks on the left, after on the right:

If you end up getting one (you totally should! ), by all means shoot me/us questions if you have issues!

 

[eiriksmil]

Now I'll need to build an enclosure for the printer because ABS is more temperamental when it come to temperatures.

It's almost funny, open a window and your print warps. Enclosure is absolutely recommended, keep in mind styrene is no bueno so make sure you have proper ventilation. ABS juice will make the parts stick - sometimes too good.

So at this point now that you've had it for a year, what is your opinion of the Ender3? Would you recommend it? Do you feel another printer in the $200 range might be better?

I'll throw in my 2 cents if TB allows it, don't want to hijack the thread. We've been selling Creality for a couple of years now and we are absolutely blown away. We have everything from the $200 Ender to $10-15k solutions. The Ender works very well for what it is, huge aftermarket, a lot of people are running them now so that's a resource.

If $200-300 is your budget I'd not look at anything else, apart from a Prusa Mini.

 

[TB]

Trying my hand at a time lapse. Provided nothing goes wrong for the next 9 hours.



20% done:

 

[Jump_Ace]

Difficult to answer that as ever since I bought it, I haven't looked at any others. I have a tendency to do that with anything I buy. I don't want to know if I missed a better or cheaper option somewhere.

That out of the way, for the price point, it's been a great printer. The learning curve is much steeper than I was expecting but as some of those things are settings that you make once, it's not such a big deal. The tweaks I've made in the last week of printing have made a massive difference in quality.

Before the tweaks on the left, after on the right:

View attachment 904864

If you end up getting one (you totally should! ), by all means shoot me/us questions if you have issues!

That seriously look professional, good work man!


Jerome

 

[TB]

That seriously look professional, good work man!


Jerome

Thank you!

That said, I might have jumped the gun and done this print before the enclosure shows up and it lifted a while ago but seems to be holding on alright. Obviously I need to find a different solution besides painters tape!

About 2/3 done now:

 

[TB]

Done!



Ran into problems towards the end but it finished alright.

Supports removed:

A bit of red paint for the Lightsaber and some silver and red for the chest plate and we'll call this one done.

Then to figure out how to keep it on a dash without gluing it down.

 

[TB]

New print started. Trying it with no painter's tape this time. It's only a 10 and a half hour print. What could go wrong?

One hour:

2, got some previously unseen layers not supported:

3:

4, the bridging on layer 108 came out a lot better than I was expecting!

5, still doing alright:

7, missed the 6 'cause cooking:

8:

9(.25):

 

[TB]

Because of all the interest, let's continue! Fifteen hour print this time.

0:

1:

13.75:

 

[TB]

Print of the day, a whole 4 minute print:

 

[Joey D]

I'm trying to convince my wife to let me buy a 3D printer because...actually I don't know why, I just think they're cool. One thing she has a concern about though is the smell. Does it smell like burning/melting plastic or is it pretty minor? I don't have a basement or even a garage so I'd have to set it up in my kitchen/dining room area. Also, is it super loud? I can't imagine it really is but I can't get a good sense from YouTube videos.

 

[TB]

One thing she has a concern about though is the smell. Does it smell like burning/melting plastic or is it pretty minor?

The PLA I use really doesn't have much of a smell at all. An ever so faint sweet smell if anything. Definitely not burning plastic.

ABS, on the other hand, has an oily smell to it. I didn't really notice it until I left the room and came back in. For that reason, along with ABS being more finicky with temperature, I looked into an enclosure and came across using a photography lighting tent (I have mine but don't have it set up yet). It's supposed to keep heat in and drafts out and one review said that his wife didn't like the ABS smell and after he put it in the tent, she never notice it. I'm hoping that's accurate but for the $10 I paid (not sure how I stumbled across that deal, good timing, I guess!), I won't be too terribly upset if it doesn't work all that great.

Also, is it super loud? I can't imagine it really is but I can't get a good sense from YouTube videos.

Idling at 58dB:

Warming up the bed and extruder, still 58dB

While printing, 67dB:

Right up against the fan while printing, 72dB:

For reference, my wife is currently watching TV and from15 feet away it's at about 50dB. The printer isn't exactly quiet but it's not overly loud, either. You can easily have a conversation over it. Granted, I have it in my office so I can close the door, too.

Shot a quick video. Hope this works!

 

[Joey D]

@TB thanks! That video is exactly what I was looking for and thank you for the info. I talked to my wife over dinner tonight about getting one and I think I might have her convinced, although she wants me to get one that's enclosed since she's worried the little dude will get curious. I can't say I disagree with her there. I'm going to start looking into them more and hopefully I can get one before too long. I even showed her this thread to show all the neat stuff you can make with them and while she clearly thought I was a dork for being into it, she did admit that there were some cool things.

 

[TB]

That video is exactly what I was looking for and thank you for the info.

Happy to help.

she wants me to get one that's enclosed since she's worried the little dude will get curious.

For his safety, smell containment and sound deadening, an enclosure sounds like a great idea.

I'm going to start looking into them more and hopefully I can get one before too long.

Creality is coming out with an updated Ender 3. With the success I've had with my 3, it would be a front runner for me unless I needed a larger build area.

I even showed her this thread to show all the neat stuff you can make with them and while she clearly thought I was a dork for being into it, she did admit that there were some cool things.

I bought it for the sole purpose of being a nerd (movie props!) and have done a couple of non-prop things here and there so I'm not a complete dork!

Look through Thingiverse and myminifactory for things to print and start dabbling with Tinkercad for designing your own stuff.

 

[TexRex]

Yikes! Whose penis is that?!

 

[TB]

Yikes! Whose penis is that?!

Buddha Vader's is still better than Superman's!

 

[TexRex]

Buddha Vader's is still better than Superman's!

"Why does it have pincers?!?!?!"

That's hilarious.

 

[TB]

Print of the day!

My son needed a ruler and we couldn't find ours. Normally there would just be a Walmart run, but times ain't normal.

 

[TB]

New print of the... days.

Going to have to set the tent up before I start that one to give it as good a chance as I can to not fail.

 

[TB]

After some... new filament mishaps*, I am now up and running on this behemoth of a print.

Comedic setup in the theater room, but it's working:

Partial first layer:

Hopefully twoish day timelapse in twoish days, pending anything going awry.

*its a filament brand I've used but a different color and apparently a different chemical makeup as it's going down almost rubbery. Took some temperature and speed adjustments to get the first layer down

Edit: An hour 50 into the print and a part just popped off the bed. I'm just glad I was in the theater and heard it instead of it happening later while I was asleep! On hold until tomorrow morning.

 

[XJ40]

New print of the... days.

View attachment 911677

Going to have to set the tent up before I start that one to give it as good a chance as I can to not fail.

Possible silly question: is it possible to run out of printing material when doing a multiple day print? And if you have to change it can you do it without it being noticeable?

 

[TB]

Possible silly question: is it possible to run out of printing material when doing a multiple day print? And if you have to change it can you do it without it being noticeable?

If you aren't watching it, you absolutely can run out of filament. So far, I've only done that once when I got distracted and forgot about it. Thankfully it was only 30 minutes into an hour and a half print so not a big deal.

As for how noticable, you can pause the print whenever you want/need to so if you do it while it's printing the infill, that diminishes the chances of seeing where the change out happened.

Conversely, sometimes you WANT the filament change to be noticeable, like I did when I changed out the silver for orange for the ruler.

In the case of this print (when I finally get it going well!), I have a full 1000 gram roll and it "only" need about 1/4 of it so it'll be fine. Hopefully.

Guess I better go start it up again...

 

[TB]

Edit: An hour 50 into the print and a part just popped off the bed. I'm just glad I was in the theater and heard it instead of it happening later while I was asleep! On hold until tomorrow morning.

A little more than "tomorrow morning" but I just started it again. Kicked the speed down so it will now take 2 days, 11 hours. Knock on wood it's at an hour 15 and doing alright.

Edit: Right on cue, part popped off.

I also finally took the time to set up Octoprint on my Pi so I can print over the network instead of having to bring the Micro SD card back and forth.

Still having problems figuring out the timelapse part of it, though.

 

[TB]

It looks like it's going better with a raft but I don't want to jinx it so I won't say that it's going better with a raft.



Well, ****.

Trying again in the morning.

 

[TB]

Not how I wanted to print it but at least it's actually working.

 

[TB]

Le sigh.



Apparently you have to click it for the clip to play.

 

[TB]

A LOT of collateral damage from some supports failing halfway into a 30 something hour print but it ended up finishing alright!

Now hopefully the two halves fit together better than the fertility idol.

 

[TexRex]

Now hopefully the two halves fit together better than the fertility idol.

*rimshot*

 

[TB]

*rimshot*

If you shoot for the rim, you're fertilitying wrong.

 

[TexRex]

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

@TB , what material would you recommend for a fairly simple bracket that will be subject to ~20lb loads? I was thinking Nylon would probably be sufficient. This is the piece I've designed, for reference.

(dimensions in mm, thinnest wall at the gusset plates is 1mm)