Ender 3 worklog

My worklog for the Ender Pro3.

Grabbed the printer from Ebay from Eastern States came in a week.
I was suprised to find the printer came with some upgraded components.
The heat sock was silicon instead of tape.
And I got 3 blue extrusion end spacer clips that people print out.



Assembly was easy following these two videos.
May need to tweak tensions etc to make it better so can use advice oN THAT.




My system out of the box is running 0.0.6 Marlin, May 30 2020.



Output of M115 command.



In order to test I am using the sample filament that came with it rather than opening up the Creality Ender brand PLA I bought.

To use the sample reel I am using a 5M LED spool holder that you get with cheap 5050 LED strips on ebay. which is working great for mini spools.
So if you are planning to get cheap LED strips keep the reels for your sample filaments.



Jerry rigged a holder for now.
Which I redid.



First print didn't go well the filament tube came out and wasn't printing right.



Second times a charm.
I knocked the printer a couple times holding the spool in my hand so that probably caused the weird stuff.



Printing the inbuilt Dog model to test and will post results.

The small Micro SDCard reader included seems broken and doesn't work for me but you can get similar Orico ones which I have which work fine.

How this printer will go with my other projects well you will just have to wait and see for when I update those threads.

I have all the needed accessories and upgrades coming as I purchased them before I got the printer and plan to make a lack enclosure for ABS prints as well as eventual temperature control etc.
As well I plan to upgrade the firmware and ieventually get a Pi system going for monitoring.

I'll show the other stuff I got with it in the next post later.

 

Information for the printer.

Link to my filament type spreadsheet (Publicly Editable)

Must have Printables:
Bed leveling - gcode to check the bed and a printable layout square array.
Benchy - Everyone needs to download the Benchy Boat as its great for testing.

Must have Upgrades Printables:
New Z axis bracket - Doesn't have a tag so you can get the print head lower which is useful to keep tensions on the bed springs.

Must have Upgrades Purchables:
Packing foam that came with the box - Put under the feet to quieten the printer.
Capricorn PTFE Bowden Tubing - Better tubing.
Z-Axis Leadscrew Top Mount - Mounts on the top of the z axis rod to help keep it in posistion from wobble etc.
Metal Extruder Kit 1.75mm - better wearing extruder intake.
Glass Plate - Giffrent bed useful for diffrent materials.
Better Control Board - SKR Mini 2.0 etc, for quieter printer and more control.
- Control Board UPS - Keeps the print data to resume when power back on.
- Control Board LCD - Better control and touch support for the control board. (Nice to have in addition to OctoPi)
- Control Board Filament Sensor - stops printing so you can change filament.
Leveling Offset Sensor - BLtouch / EZABL, needed to offset the minor by hand leveling diffrences.
Inline Cleaner filter - These are cheap if you print in areas with dust, no enclosure etc.
Pi3b+ and Camera - Essential for monitoring prints when not at home and controlling it from another room.

Nice Upgrades:
Laser Engraver - Lets you engrave stuff, good ones can cut wood etc.
Silicone Sock Replacement Set - extra heat socks.
Motor Dampener brackets - Reduces the horrible vibration noice (new printers the gears are pushed on) (if you have a replacement board these arn't needed)
3D Pen for using up your smaller left over filament bits.
Bed insulation - if your printing ABS and in a enclosure.


YouTubers:
Filament Friday's (Chep)
Makers Muse - Australian
Teaching Tech - Australian


If there's anything anyone wishes to see here upgrades links to models, videos, software etc let me know.

 

As well as getting the printer I got 2 packs of Creality Ender brand PLA and the glass bed.

The back of the packages has different material type specs.

I have been creating a spreadsheet for different material settings I'll link in the information post above soon.



I printed the dog file on the SD card tonight and this is how it turned out.



I don't know how this is for a first actual print but seems pretty good and I'm happy it completed and I didn't end up with a spaghetti monster
Will need to try the benchy and see how that goes.

Initially I thought I wouldn't print trinkets as I don't see the need, but now I actually have the printer I'm excited to see what's out there in models and print a few things.
Mby some anime figurines etc I can learn to polish and paint.

Thing can be noisy but I have a new controller coming as well I'll put spare EVA foam under the feet once I get the lack tables.
I'm debating about getting the dampeners as the gears are pushed on I would need a puller.

 

i ordered the ender 3 pro + glass bed + PLA from banggood 3 weeks back, cancelled my order just yesterday because I was frustrated everyone who ordered the same time as i did had their printers delivered to them from the AUS warehouse within the week but somehow i was left out in the cold.

i'll be ordering the ender 3xs pro and PLA from 3dfillies once I get my refund. Good to see that you managed a decent print without too much calibration at the start, i heard some nightmare stories of people who gave up at the start because they couldn't get the bed levelling right.

My first project would be to upgrade the printer using this guide:


A fellow aussie with some quality tutorials that i've been watching in the meantime:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TeachingTech/videos

I'm new to 3d printing myself, having to learn some CAD/3d modelling software to fully utilise a 3d printer does seem daunting, but seems like a lot of fun once you get it down.

 

avexdevil hope you get your printer soon, I'm usually not too worried about shipment time I'm usually in no rush to get things.

The Ender 3 V2 may be worth a look it's the newest model but you can only really get it from their official store on AliExpress etc currently.
If you are going to upgrade the main board and screen it's probably not worth the extra cost.

There's a couple useful channels Filament Fridays and another Aussie Makers Muse.

For info changing filament mid print.



I'll get and add links in the second part on things.
I'll watch that video and see what upgrades are great to add to mine.

I'll be doing upgrades in ABS black when it gets here at its stronger and more heat resistant useful for enclosure printing, was thinking a two tone look but all black is still good.

I've been reading up on doing ABS before I build the enclosure and they day use a quiet corner with no breeze etc to place the printer which I have a few of.

I also have some ideas I'll show when I do get to that stage with a temp enclosure thingy.

The less strip spool worked great as a small filament holder in the end I had it rolling on a pen.

As for software I've been looking at Fusion 360 which is free I'll add it above the link, found it a bit daunting for a first use, but still is really great to use, so interested to know what you all use.
I'm also going to look at Tinkercad.

 

For those wondering I found the Micro SDCard Reader that comes with Ender 3 Printers.
A better micro reader are the Orico ones.

 

perhaps look at getting octoprint on a raspberry pi? probably the first software upgrade i'm looking at so i can print wirelessly and check for bed temperatures. microsd/sd card prints seem so dated haha.

 

This morning when waking up half asleep I decided to grab a 3b+ and camera, I'll get the longer camera ribbon cable when it gets here.

I'll add to second post I reconmend people print a new Z limit bracket as with the magnetic sheet the print gantry doesn't go down far enough to keep the springs tensioned mine are kinda pretty loose which I saw stright away but the bed is leveled.
If you use the glass sheet that adds thickness your fine and wouldn't need that modification.

Which leads me to what I am printing today the cat file using Pronterface and noticed lifting which is probably the tensions of the springs.



Added the essentials and will add more in most 2 as I go.

 

I tried making and printing a new usb housing for a wireless mouse.

Only one you can see at the bottom printed nicely.
The others didn't and not too sure the reason.
Reason I'm not using the good one is it wasn't fully complete needed to adjust sizing more plus make the top piece.

You can see the circuit board above I'm making the housing for.
No idea why one test print went well and is really clean yet the others all look the same.

It's just a test of modelling and printing as the mouse was only $5.

 

I may have figured out why that dongle test didn't come out to well that's due to it being printed as the initial layers.

I'll try again using Raft and see what happens.

Found this video very useful for getting started.



I also got my Pi 3B+ and V2 Camera today and set that up with OctoPrint and printed the calibration cat which is where I saw the initial layers were messy.

I'll post photos over the next few days or so.

 

So here is the calicat print any advice for improving the bottom layers?




And here is Octoprint I have it saved as a app window from chrome.
With my DNS Server I can go 'pi/' or 'pi.revnet/' to launch the page much nicer than a IP.
To do so go to the 3 dots top right of Chrome / More Tools / Create Shortcut / Click Open As Window.

 

Its not really needed. All I did was clip off the little tab that is on the end stop and that lets you move it lower.

I would class most of these as nice to haves.

The All Metal hot end is good for ABS ect but for some filaments its worse as you get more hot end clogs without an oiler (I swapped back to PTFE lined for PETG)
The stock sock lasts a very long time so spares would not be required for a fair amount of time.
The silence steppers negate the need for the dampers.
The stock board while not great does work fine as is if you don't plan to do too many upgrades.
The LCD is really not required at all if you get a PI / Octoprint as everything is done remotely.

These ones can be mostly printed. I'm currently designing a Combo Runout sensor, Cleaner and Oiler for my printer once i'm happy with it I'll see if I can link it.

Looks like a bad first layer to me, if the first layer goes down poorly it can cause so many different issues. The good one was most likely on part of the Build plate that was most level/ have the best about of squish.

The test print came out well as it was on a Raft (Rafts absorb a lot of the first layer issues) but they are a crutch, best to to use them unless you have to. Also that test print is most likely tuned to the max for a good result on that printer, easy out for Creality support.

 

Ahhh got you on everything, yea the bed first layers arn't that great.
Ill get you to help me properly refine sometime as mentioned and teach me a few things.

 

Will update the second post with your reconmendations Butcher9_9
One thing I think is a must is a nozzel kit both in brass and Sainless.
If you want to print abrasives and more detail / quicker prints they will be worth it as the stock are just two 0.4mm nozzels included.
With .2mm you can print more detail and 1.0 you can print quicker less detail and stronger for bigger prints that don't need any finer details.

These are 2 kits I bought tonight.
Was mainly looking at 0.2 but a kit like the images below are the same price roughly.
I'll get the other two stainless ones a little later.
Also you can get hardened steel nozels which are more durable from stainless.
And for those wiith money the best are tungsten nozzles but extremely expensive.

 

Leveled my bed a few times and printed a swatch which took a few goes to get right but its all learning settings for a decent out of the box experience.
I'll look deeper into settings and do multiple tests to properly learn everything at some stage.

Tried a temp tower test but seemed the printer cant adjust temps when printing may be the firmware.
This image makes the lines on the swatch look worse than they really are, as they are a small grid rather than lines.
Will sharpie the backs with the info of brand etc.

 

Adjusting the temperature of the hotend is a basic feature of the firmware so there should be no problem in doing it with a temp tower.
How are you creating the gcode to get the temperature changes?

 

Was using the gcode for the Ender 3 from thingiverse.

Posted this OctoPrint screenshot of what's going on in troubleshooting.

 

Great job on the thread... I just got my self a ender 3 pro and im a noob lol... Where do you get parts etc in oz? Just ebay? or anywhere else?

 

I'm a total noob to this stuff also so learning.
Usually eBay and AliExpress are the places I go to.
I find AliExpress has more range of things that I usually look and buy and cheaper then eBay.

Will be posting new info and cleanup to the second post soon with updated and clearer info etc.

 

Huge thanks to Butcher9_9 for helping to level the bed on Sunday.
Currently awaiting more stuff, so once some more of that gets here I will update this thread with goddies and the next parts of the build.
I put a smart switch TP-LINK HS100 on my kitchen ceiling exhaust which is working well and I am going to configure it to be compatible with Octoprint.
I will be making a enclosure and looking at various methods for that.
Still need to install the replacement mainboard I got a few days back.