3D Printer

[Salacious B Crum]

So I finally pulled the trigger on a 3D printer, it's a Creality Ender 3 Pro so my question is I've watched 100's of video's from some of the more respected folks in the hobby and they show prints that to me look horrible yet they speak to how good they are the thing is my prints look 10 times better then the stuff they're showing, what am I missing I can't believe that I got a perfect machine but I don't have anywhere near their experience and I get great prints compared to what they show, any takers on what the deal is?

[BrinkGG]

18 minutes ago, mrbilky said:

So I finally pulled the trigger on a 3D printer, it's a Creality Ender 3 Pro so my question is I've watched 100's of video's from some of the more respected folks in the hobby and they show prints that to me look horrible yet they speak to how good they are the thing is my prints look 10 times better then the stuff they're showing, what am I missing I can't believe that I got a perfect machine but I don't have anywhere near their experience and I get great prints compared to what they show, any takers on what the deal is?

Honestly, give it time. My Ender 3 Pro has developed a random drift that looks similar to the first print shown in this video: 

3D printing is like the old Dot Matrix printers in the 80s and 90s. They're wildly inconsistent but a very cool technology and incredibly useful. They'll break or stop working as designed and you'll have to work on it to improve/repair it. It's not a smooth process. 

[manikyath]

3D printers require a lot of maintenance to keep running "perfect".

 

it also depends on layer height, my printer's default settings are 0.1mm layer height, but i'm impatient so i usually print at 0.2mm layer height.

the jump in layer height means you have much more notable horizontal lines on the vertical surfaces, and have much less fine angled surfaces.

 

EDIT: forgot to mention, print speed is a thing as well, faster = more ringing (wavy textures in vertical surfaces)

[Salacious B Crum]

11 hours ago, manikyath said:

it also depends on layer height, my printer's default settings are 0.1mm layer height, but i'm impatient so i usually print at 0.2mm layer height.

the jump in layer height means you have much more notable horizontal lines on the vertical surfaces, and have much less fine angled surfaces.

 

EDIT: forgot to mention, print speed is a thing as well, faster = more ringing (wavy textures in vertical surfaces)

Yeah got that but I used the stock profile from Cura so speed is 50mm and layer height 0.2 hot end at 200c and bed temp at 50c for PLA I did run a couple CHEP cubes for the 2 types of filament PLA and PETG and got basically the same results of being really good PETG is where I want to be but it can be a little stringy but I think a tweak or 2 to the settings will take care of that I do have 1 issue though the middle of my bed is a tad bit higher than the corners and when I run PETG it looks like I'm going to get a terrible or even failed print for the 1st 2-3 layers but it corrects itself and the part comes out very acceptable

11 hours ago, James Evens said:

Then show of your prints and say which filament it is.

Sure will when I get home from work would like to hear thoughts on it, as far as Filament I went with Hatchbox for PETG, PLA and ABS so from what I see Hatchbox is on the cheaper side of price compared to most out there and am very happy with it's performance and no I have not gotten a good print from ABS only tried once but no enclosure so it warped and de-laminated as expected

 

I do have many MOD's sitting here for it i.e. glass build plate hoping this will help with the high spot, metal extruder, new 32bit main board with TMC2209 stepper drivers, bed springs but my thinking right now is why change anything if its not broken I will probably install the board as it is plug and play so if something goes haywire I can easily revert back

[Scheer]

Whenever I take pictures of my prints it brings out flaws I don't notice in person, which is some of it. And the first 5 or so prints from my Ender 3 Pro were the best its ever printed, not that its terrible after a while, but the machine starts to wear in and you are always adjusting it a little here and there.

 

The people doing Youtube videos are also printing as much as they can in as little time as possible, so they are likely maxing the speed as far as it will go to still leave decent results. Prints don't look quite as good, but upping the speed to 80mm/s nearly halves the print times and is an acceptable trade off for me personally.

 

I did the same as you and purchased/printed a ton of upgrades right away. I installed several of them at once and ran into problems, so I recommend upgrading one thing every few days so you can narrow down issues rather than wondering which of the 10 things you installed might be causing it.

 

PETG doesn't like to stick to the stock bed, and was even worse on glass. I bought one of these and absolutely love it for PEI and PLA: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XBM24HN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Salacious B Crum]

6 hours ago, Scheer said:

PETG doesn't like to stick to the stock bed, and was even worse on glass. I bought one of these and absolutely love it for PEI and PLA: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XBM24HN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Interesting as the stock bed is absolutely fantastic with prints sticking almost too good as sometimes its difficult to remove without damage. I agree with the idea of adding one thing at a time as that was my approach as well. On a side note I did finally install my new motherboard and man what a difference this this is super quiet if I had more experience this would have been the first upgrade as it was plug and play and now has thermal runaway protection and has plug and play capabilities for a BLTouch which is on order, how do you like yours?

[W-L]

On 3/10/2020 at 5:52 PM, mrbilky said:

So I finally pulled the trigger on a 3D printer, it's a Creality Ender 3 Pro so my question is I've watched 100's of video's from some of the more respected folks in the hobby and they show prints that to me look horrible yet they speak to how good they are the thing is my prints look 10 times better then the stuff they're showing, what am I missing I can't believe that I got a perfect machine but I don't have anywhere near their experience and I get great prints compared to what they show, any takers on what the deal is?

Personally I've not had many issues with my Ender 3 Pro that I got about a year ago, most things you will have issues with is probably a warped aluminum bed. That can be solved somewhat easily if you are comfortable straightening it out. 

 

7 hours ago, mrbilky said:

Interesting as the stock bed is absolutely fantastic with prints sticking almost too good as sometimes its difficult to remove without damage. I agree with the idea of adding one thing at a time as that was my approach as well. On a side note I did finally install my new motherboard and man what a difference this this is super quiet if I had more experience this would have been the first upgrade as it was plug and play and now has thermal runaway protection and has plug and play capabilities for a BLTouch which is on order, how do you like yours?

Would really suggest to change out all the fans to more silent versions if you've done the mainboard, I've got that lined up as my next update to do on my unit. 

[Salacious B Crum]

1 minute ago, W-L said:

Personally I've not had many issues with my Ender 3 Pro that I got about a year ago, most things you will have issues with is probably a warped aluminum bed. That can be solved somewhat easily if you are comfortable straightening it out. 

 

Would really suggest to change out all the fans to more silent versions if you've done the mainboard, I've got that lined up as my next update to do on my unit. 

Yep that's on the bucket list now that the board is in, that is my only complaint and seems to one of the top complaints for this machine my bed is high in the middle I have made due by placing paper shims under the magnetic build plate on the 4 edges to help with that and seems to get me by I should have my BLTouch by mid week is there a tute on trying to correct the bed?

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, W-L said:

Personally I've not had many issues with my Ender 3 Pro that I got about a year ago, most things you will have issues with is probably a warped aluminum bed. That can be solved somewhat easily if you are comfortable straightening it out. 

when i noticed the heated bed on my wanhao wasnt quite entirely flat (anymore.. presuming it ever was..) i just stuck a piece of regular interior glass on it, and it's been rock solid.

 

bed pre-heating needs 10-15 minutes extra to be sure, and leveling needs to be dead on, but it makes for some VERY good results. zero bed maintenance (aside from an occasional wipe) and very good adhesion with the materials i've tried.

[W-L]

11 minutes ago, mrbilky said:

Yep that's on the bucket list now that the board is in, that is my only complaint and seems to one of the top complaints for this machine my bed is high in the middle I have made due by placing paper shims under the magnetic build plate on the 4 edges to help with that and seems to get me by I should have my BLTouch by mid week is there a tute on trying to correct the bed?

Depends on your aftermarket mainboard you have but you can do mesh bed leveling manually, I personally don't see much point of a BL touch since I just level it manually and leave it. I have a SKR E3 board so it comes with the option to choose how many points you want and where around the build plate to measure at.

 

Also just remember you will need a buck converter if you are changing to 12V fans as the Ender Pro is a 24V system.

Edited March 15, 2020 by W-L

[Scheer]

10 hours ago, mrbilky said:

Interesting as the stock bed is absolutely fantastic with prints sticking almost too good as sometimes its difficult to remove without damage. I agree with the idea of adding one thing at a time as that was my approach as well. On a side note I did finally install my new motherboard and man what a difference this this is super quiet if I had more experience this would have been the first upgrade as it was plug and play and now has thermal runaway protection and has plug and play capabilities for a BLTouch which is on order, how do you like yours?

Stock bed was fine on larger parts, but tiny pieces like the bit closest to the camera with the stringing in my picture or the support bits for where hex nuts would go would occasionally come loose in the first few layers and ruin the print, have never had that happen yet with the PEI.

 

BL Touch was easily the best upgrade I've done, saves tons of time. I did have a weird issue with mine where it would sometimes not retract, and even not take a zero so the hot end crashed into the bed on me. Turns out it was the set screw on the top not being tightened far enough as it acts at the magnet's core to draw the probe up.

[Salacious B Crum]

2 hours ago, W-L said:

Depends on your aftermarket mainboard you have but you can do mesh bed leveling manually, I personally don't see much point of a BL touch since I just level it manually and leave it. I have a SKR E3 board so it comes with the option to choose how many points you want and where around the build plate to measure at.

 

Also just remember you will need a buck converter if you are changing to 12V fans as the Ender Pro is a 24V system.

This is the board I went with

 

( https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33042554065.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.26294c4doIsbQo )

 

it has native support for a BLTouch and touchscreen if I decide to go that route, I do allot of micro controller stuff so I have a buck converter in my stash. I have a glass bed but had some issues with setting it up I don't have the right size clips their either too small or too big need to get to a office supply joint and get the right ones but you can do mesh bed leveling manually I'll have to read up on this heard of it just haven't read much on it. I ran a calibration cube after the board upgrade and I'm still getting really good prints just piece of mind that it has thermal runaway protection as I have it remotely hooked through homeassistant and octoprint so I can run a print while I'm at work

 

[W-L]

14 minutes ago, mrbilky said:

This is the board I went with

 

( https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33042554065.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.26294c4doIsbQo )

 

it has native support for a BLTouch and touchscreen if I decide to go that route, I do allot of micro controller stuff so I have a buck converter in my stash. I have a glass bed but had some issues with setting it up I don't have the right size clips their either too small or too big need to get to a office supply joint and get the right ones but you can do mesh bed leveling manually I'll have to read up on this heard of it just haven't read much on it. I ran a calibration cube after the board upgrade and I'm still getting really good prints just piece of mind that it has thermal runaway protection as I have it remotely hooked through homeassistant and octoprint so I can run a print while I'm at work

Not sure about octoprint myself but if you have the SKR E3 it should have the newer version of Marlin already preloaded with the option to do mesh leveling manually under Motion>Bed Leveling>Level Bed. You can go into the Marlin software to enable if it's not done so and then reload it onto the board. 

[W-L]

Here this explains it well including the option to enable it if it's not already done so. 

 

[Salacious B Crum]

Just an update: So I installed a BL Touch and was basically plug and play works great. Prior to installing it I put on my glass bed to try out and must say although I like the stock build sheet as it held parts well I did have corners warp on some prints but with the glass bed and a glue stick and they have not budged now I need a better removal tool as the parts really stick good. Now to mod the fans, I'm looking at Noctua has anybody used a 3 wire fan on the SKR mini v1.2 and am I loosing anything by doing that like will they speed up and down or do I loose that part due to no PWM

[manikyath]

23 minutes ago, mrbilky said:

glass bed and a glue stick

i'd suggest just trying to tune your bed leveling better, if you get it (close to) dead on you wont need any glue, and the moment your prints cool down they do come loose somewhat easily.

 

also, a bed leveling sensor isnt magical, its still really important to make sure the bed is as level as possible, and depending on how the printer is designed, you may end up having to check gantry leveling every so often, my wanhao has a tendency to get a bit off level if i move it around too much.

 

as for modifying the fans.. here's my two cents: dont. its an endless money sink, and in the grand scheme of things it does nothing of value.

[Salacious B Crum]

40 minutes ago, manikyath said:

also, a bed leveling sensor isnt magical, its still really important to make sure the bed is as level as possible, and depending on how the printer is designed, you may end up having to check gantry leveling every so often, my wanhao has a tendency to get a bit off level if i move it around too much.

 

as for modifying the fans.. here's my two cents: dont. its an endless money sink, and in the grand scheme of things it does nothing of value.

My bed is high in the middle so it makes it difficult to level no matter what procedure I used I hadn't used the glass bed before I ordered the sensor I didn't know that was the solution but know biggie the sensor works to my needs just fine, It's funny as I never heard the fans until I put the new board in and now that the steppers are silent the fans are now sounding louder than hell go figure I did see a couple videos and they basically came to the conclusion its not a big issue as I'm not in the same room accept when I'm working on my pc but I wear headphones most of the time

[W-L]

4 minutes ago, mrbilky said:

My bed is high in the middle so it makes it difficult to level no matter what procedure I used I hadn't used the glass bed before I ordered the sensor I didn't know that was the solution but know biggie the sensor works to my needs just fine, It's funny as I never heard the fans until I put the new board in and now that the steppers are silent the fans are now sounding louder than hell go figure I did see a couple videos and they basically came to the conclusion its not a big issue as I'm not in the same room accept when I'm working on my pc but I wear headphones most of the time

Personally I would straighten the aluminum bed so it's flat to begin with, what I normally do is to support the ends and apply a reasonable force to bend it and check as I go using a straight edge. As for fans if you want to get good quality fans that are relatively silent but not really expensive Sunon is a good option. We see those used a lot in industrial applications. 

 

Just know that if you change the fans you will need to essentially change all of them to match if you want to achieve a completely silent machine. 

[Salacious B Crum]

Have lots of time to work with the printer, question do you guys turn off the heated bed on large prints after say several layers I have corners pulling up very little but still there I'm wondering after many layers that the bed heating may be the cause this is with PLA running the bed at 50c thinking maybe knocking it back some or off completely will help just don't want to experiment with a 10+ hour print and find out that I screwed up and the print breaks away from the bed, thoughts?

 

Now favorite bed adhesion method is blue painters tape have had great success with this on a glass bed, glue stick worked well but clean up and subsequent prints was spotty am able to use same application of tape for many prints before it gets damaged from prying things off

[Salacious B Crum]

3 minutes ago, James Evens said:

Keep it on.

Any suggestion as to temps, set it to one and leave it or have it change after multiple layers have completed

[manikyath]

22 minutes ago, mrbilky said:

question do you guys turn off the heated bed on large prints after say several layers I have corners pulling up very little

havent had this happen since i went glass on my heated bed. the print peeling up is a result of bed adhesion not able to hold up against parts warping.

 

also, on the topic of the heated bed... keep it steaming. when you're printing plastic that's known to warp, a higher ambient temperature helps there as well. i tend to print ABS with ambient around 30-35°c. (any hotter and my hotend packs up because the cooling cant hold up)

 

for PLA i dont ever print before my heated bed is above 50°c (takes ages to get glass to temperature)

for ABS i go 70°c, this is very close to burning hot..

for colorfabb's NGEN_FLEX i go 80°c, BE CAREFUL, YOU WILL BURN YOURSELF.

 

 

[Salacious B Crum]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

(takes ages to get glass to temperature)

Hum I'll get a infrared temp unit I wonder if this playing a part in this

 

10 minutes ago, James Evens said:

turn the fan off for the first few layers.

yep thats where its set to I don't think this is a adhesion issue as much as a warping issue I mean I think the pressure from warping is just too great, I know I can reduce the chance by using a brim but would like to understand the mechanics around the issue and try to mitigate it without adding print time

[manikyath]

10 minutes ago, James Evens said:

normally ABS is printed without a part cooling fan to reduce warping. 

 

meant the cooling fan for the cold side of the hotend.

[Kilrah]

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

(takes ages to get glass to temperature)

Really love the mains powered heated bed on my printer, heats up the 30x30cm glass bed to 100°C in less than 5 minutes

[Salacious B Crum]

32 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Really love the mains powered heated bed on my printer, heats up the 30x30cm glass bed to 100°C in less than 5 minutes

What machine are you using Home-built? 100c you like ABS I have an ender3 and i'm not thrilled about an enclosure as it will heat the main-board and power supply with heavy mods