Random 3D printing chatter

Dusted off the old Ender3 last week, I think I originally bought it in 2017 and it's been sat untouched 2 years. Quite surprised that a quick bed level and the first print reeled off with zero fuss.

In all of that I decided it was time to add a BLTouch, being an OG model it looked like the V4.2.7 motherboard was also the way to go, and then the though of "Oh TPU would be nice to be able to give a go too". And before I know it I've spent close to the cost of a Bambu A1 on upgrades :o
 
Hahaha yeah been there before, in the last 6 or so months of my Ender 3 journey I bought a Pi5, then read a bit more and bought a Pad7, then BLTouch, webcam, hotend, different bed and a few other various things, then bought an S1 Combo....
 
Frozennova said:
Dusted off the old Ender3 last week, I think I originally bought it in 2017 and it's been sat untouched 2 years. Quite surprised that a quick bed level and the first print reeled off with zero fuss.

In all of that I decided it was time to add a BLTouch, being an OG model it looked like the V4.2.7 motherboard was also the way to go, and then the though of "Oh TPU would be nice to be able to give a go too". And before I know it I've spent close to the cost of a Bambu A1 on upgrades :o
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If you scroll back a few posts you will see I’ve just done similar, although I’m not intending on spending as much on it and am instead going to try f/w updating my old 1.1.3 board with an Arduino and fitting the BLTouch (CR Touch) which I bought about 3-4 years ago!

Is yours otherwise stock? What filament are you using?
 
Tesla said:
If you scroll back a few posts you will see I’ve just done similar, although I’m not intending on spending as much on it and am instead going to try f/w updating my old 1.1.3 board with an Arduino and fitting the BLTouch (CR Touch) which I bought about 3-4 years ago!

Is yours otherwise stock? What filament are you using?
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Basically as it came, the only thing I did was replace the extrude with an all metal one and it's on the latest version of Marlin.

I'm using an old spool of Basicfil PLA at the moment, and have some unknown PETG sat in a drawer somewhere
 
Mine arrived today and is currently processing its first print. Not a Benchy cause I’ve never printed one and keep forgetting to do so!

Quite a straight forward process to set up and get started which was pleasing as I didn’t want to muck about and just wanted to print.
 
V4.2.7 motherboard, Sprite Pro extruder and CR Touch all installed on my Ender3.

Pretty quick and painless process. Im absolutely dumbfounded at how much quieter the steppers are with the new motherboard/drivers.

Only one quick calibration cube printed so far. Good first layer, but I’m having some issues with layers beyond that warping so I guess I’m going to spend a day playing with Cura to find out what it likes to solve that
 
As a noob, what benefit do you get upgrading the extruder?

My Arduino and dupont cables arrived today so going to flash my 1.1.3 board over the next few days. Sounds like a newer 32-bit board could be worth it though? Does it improve the printing at all since the noise isn't much of a concern for me as the printer is out of earshot.
 
Tesla said:
As a noob, what benefit do you get upgrading the extruder?

My Arduino and dupont cables arrived today so going to flash my 1.1.3 board over the next few days. Sounds like a newer 32-bit board could be worth it though? Does it improve the printing at all since the noise isn't much of a concern for me as the printer is out of earshot.
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Last post was poorly worded, it’s extruder + hotend. It’s mostly filament options as you aren’t limit to <260c as there’s no PTFE/Bowden tube to melt and being direct drive you can also print TPU.

The motherboard probably doesn’t really change much in print quality, but between the silent stepper drivers, dedicated CR Touch connector and having enough flash that you aren’t trying to trim down features in Marlin to make it build within the space constraints of the V1 board it feels worth the £41 I paid (Cheaper if you have enough patience to wait for one to arrive from China)
 
As far as I'm aware - and bear in mind that I haven't done the upgrade, only bought the parts - the 32-bit board is capable of sending more coordinates per second so you can get smoother curves (rather than a stepped approximation) at higher speeds.
 
That makes sense.

I'm seeing a small amount of Ghosting on a print with the stock Ender3 parts that I'm not getting with the new motherboard and hotend
 
I must admit the more I read about 3D printing, the more it interests me.

ZmM18M4.png

:D

Used to enjoy dabbling with 3D Studio Max and Maya when I was a student. Odd question and sorry if its been asked before.

What sort of smell do these things give off when working, and does the smell linger.
 
Ninco! said:
What sort of smell do these things give off when working, and does the smell linger.
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PLA and PETG don't smell too badly, it gives off a minor smell but shouldn't be too overpowering, especially in a room with some ventilation. ABS and ASA so smell a fair bit more and give off a lot more particles that aren't so good for you, ideally should be used with active ventilation or filtering.
 
Bought some new PETG-CF recently as I'd ran out. Eryone branded stuff, which I've used before with no issues. But was having issues with poor prints, tried a couple of calibration prints to make sure my settings weren't causing issues, but that wasn't it. So, thought I'd try drying the filament, and the results speak for themselves! Never had filament that bad before, especially fresh out the sealed bag.

tQpWXhH.jpeg
 
What Andy said largely. PLA and PETG I doubt you'll detect any smell. ABS is a pain to print, really needs a enclosure (preferably heated) and wraps the moment you look away. Not honestly sure it offers a lot that can't be done easier with other materials. Correct me if I'm wrong but I suspect it's just that it used to be the pinnacle achievement of "If I could print ABS well, everything would be golden"...but now it's been made rather irrelevant by other materials.
ASA is supposed to be easier, better, less smelly ABS but it's still difficult and warpy.

@andy_mk3 I've used that stuff and got it done...but can't say I liked it. Dribbly no matter what I did. The Bambu Labs was a little better but I still needed to slow down the internal fill (first solid layer over the infill - forget the exact term) so it would stick. Brim to lose some of the initial dribble. Had much better results with the Tin Morry PETG-GF. (Glass fibre). Although I did find the outer layer was wet after I'd left it stored in an external box while my AMS was playing up. It's cheaper too.
 
Cenedd said:
@andy_mk3 I've used that stuff and got it done...but can't say I liked it. Dribbly no matter what I did. The Bambu Labs was a little better but I still needed to slow down the internal fill (first solid layer over the infill - forget the exact term) so it would stick. Brim to lose some of the initial dribble. Had much better results with the Tin Morry PETG-GF. (Glass fibre). Although I did find the outer layer was wet after I'd left it stored in an external box while my AMS was playing up. It's cheaper too.
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I've re-printed what I originally printed (fan duct for my Petsfang hotend), and it's come out much better. But still lots of flaws in places that I don't usually get. But happy enough with it that I can use it as the old one was falling apart and ready to drop off :D Will have a look into the Tin Morry stuff next time I need some filament.

Got my new fan duct on now plus a new Sunon blower fan to replace the cheap and nasty unit that was about knackered.

Can start printing bits to convert to dual-z now.
 
Update on my Bambu P1S purchase. I didn't get off to the best of starts as cutting a long story short, it turned out the factory fitted hot end was blocked. I was on the verge of returning the printer when I was reminded that it came with a spare hot end. I was pretty hacked off at having to muck about with a supposedly set up and go printer but I replaced the hot end and voila. I'm glad I did as I've been quite stunned at the quality of prints coming off the machine and has made me realise that I quite possibly hadn't set up my old Ender 5 correctly. I also got the AMS system and am glad I did as it makes changing the filament so much easier. I haven't tried a multi colour print yet but that will be happening soon.
 
@Bluecube I'll be honest, while I've done multicolour prints (inlays, labels for control panels etc) the majority of my stuff is single-colour....but not always the same colour, or even material. My printer sits in the next room, the other side of a stud wall for noise supression. The AMS means I can just hit print without having to wander over and hand-load a filament - there's four of them sitting there waiting to go. It's worth having an AMS for that alone!

Bambu will probably replace the blocked hotend - they're rather tricky to unblock - but hang on to the old one as you can canibalise it for parts. If you want to buy a hotend, they come as either hotend only or complete assembly. The latter is quite a bit more expensive. The hotend only requires you to transplant the heater element (white square) and the temperature sensor. I had problems on one with the temperature sensor being impossible to remove so I ordered...wait for it.....a three pack of heaters....obviously *facepalm* Not sure how I managed it but I ended up losing the cost of carriage twice to sort it out. Now have spares of both but worth hanging on to what you've got to make up new ones.
 
I went the opposite route, I bought a set of full hot end assemblies in each size.

Mainly because it turns swapping a hot end from a 20 min job to a 5 min job, particularly if you want to swap between 0.4 and 0.2 for different prints.

I then also have a full spare (hardened) 0.4 assembly ready to go for when the original needs replacing.
 
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miller745 said:
HMRC very kindly decided to give me tax refund, and this afternoon I successfully failed at talking myself out of buying a 3d printer. Going to pick up a Bambu P1S Combo tomorrow.
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Just ordered the same out of their store - they've got some nice discounts for their 3rd birthday atm

Now I have an Ender S1 Pro plus enclosure plus rpi/octoprint setup surplus to requirements ... At least the Bambu will take up a lot less space than the ender enclosure!
 
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