Budget 3D Printer Build and Mods: Ender-3

My 12-year old son and I recently bought a 3D printer to tinker with. This thread will document the build and inevitable modifications (who could resist self printed mods!) of our Ender 3

A few moths ago my son took an after-school class on 3D printing and became interested. I had always been interested in 3D printing but had never taken the time to dive in. This seemed like an ideal way to get him off of watching you-tube all day, and a good excuse to 3D print some car parts.  After looking at several options we selected a standard Ender 3, which we bought from the Creality website for $179. The box arrived earlier this week and we got to work putting it together following this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me8Qrwh907Q 

The machine came well packaged and seems to be of good quality, despite opening the box upside down.

We laid out the parts with little sister as a supervisor

Assembly was straight forward following the youtube guide, and everything fit together well. All the tools needed were included with the machine. The sides of frame were assembled and plumbed up, and the screen went on.

Then the power supply, extruder gantry and top of the frame.

After connecting up the wiring it was ready to fire up...Success ​​​​​​!!

The first mod was done immediately, an OEM glass bed off of amazon.  We installed the bed, adjusted the Z stop (the glass is thicker than the fiber mat that comes with the printer) and leveled the bed. Our first test prints that night didn't seem to be working, the machine seemed to be having trouble extruding. Today I found the issue: I accidently bought ABS filament, which needs a higher extruder temperature than PLA, which is what the printer was set up for. Tonight we will either find some PLA or turn up the heat and try ABS, which is supposed to be more finicky but have better durability.

More to come!

I've got one of those.

Make sure the eccentrics that the wheels are on are nice and tight.  A gluestick or hairspray helps on the first layer adhesion if you need it.

A benchy printed without support is a good way to figure out what you need to do for your tweaks

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Thanks for the tips! As we assembled it we adjusted each eccentric nut to make sure the rollers had no slop, but moved freely.

I got one for Christmas, I've been having lots of fun with it. I'm lucky to work for a CAD company (and have many years of CAD experience), so I can model up pretty much anything I need. This was one of my first projects:

They are speaker spacers for the 944. The big one goes under the speaker so that the magnet doesn't bottom out on the window rail, the smaller one goes on top so that the grill doesn't hit the tweeter.

You need to make some speaker covers with the Porsche logo , if you do let me know :)

Best 3d printer for the money!  Glass bed is all you need add to that printer to make good consistent parts.  I like to use glue stick to help bed adhesion for PLA and PETG. For ABS I print in an enclosure and use acetone ABS slurry to keep the prints from delaminating.  I have two completely stock Ender3s that print ABS 120 hours a week.

In reply to RacetruckRon :

Wow, you work them hard! How have they held up over time? Did you do any fan mods for ABS printing?

First print turned out pretty good. I changed the temperature to 240 for the hot end and 100 for the bed and gave the ABS a shot.  We made a knob for the extruder. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3366468

The letter "E" that was against the bed turned out a little squished and there was some minor stringing in the center, but all in all not bad!

In reply to bgkast :

The Ender3 is an absolute work horse. I tighten the belts every now and then and replace the nozzle when needed.I have my part cooling fan turned off for ABS, you want ABS to cool very slowly as it has a pretty high shrink rate.

Edit: That looks awesome for a first print!

I have zero experience with cad or 3D printing but am very interested in this....

is the ender3 a good unit that won't have me looking for something better within a year?

i see there is a pro series... is it worth the extra $50?

In reply to jfryjfry :

From my research the ender 3 seem to be the best bang for the buck initially, and since it's so popular there is a big Community supporting it for help and mods. I would say the only thing that would have you looking for something else in the future is a larger print area....but I've only had this one for a few days. Manual bed leveling is also a downside, but it's not too bad once you get the hang of it, and there are mods to make it automated if you want to.

The pro series comes with a magnetic print bed and a better power supply. The frame is also beefed up. People like the magnetic bed, but many still switch to glass, and I read the magnetic bed can loose its magnetism if heated up to ABS friendly bed temps.  There is also a mid level Ender 3D that comes stock with the glass bed, but ultimately I decided that the base version and a $20 glass bed was best for me and left me more money for filiment and mods.

I have a fan gaurd for the CPU printing now.

californiamilleghia said:

You need to make some speaker covers with the Porsche logo , if you do let me know :)

Oooohhhh. I like that idea!

In reply to Tom_Spangler :

if you really want to pimp it , do the logo in red ......

In reply to bgkast :

For ABS, an enclosure can help, potentially even a lightly heated enclosure.  As mentioned previously, they like to cool slowly.

I would definitely make sure the ABS is vented properly.  Its fallen out of favor with a lot of people because of the nasty things it offgases when it is printing.

jfryjfry said:

I have zero experience with cad or 3D printing but am very interested in this....

is the ender3 a good unit that won't have me looking for something better within a year?

i see there is a pro series... is it worth the extra $50?

 

The Pro has the bondtech extruder and a wider extrusion for the y carriage.  You can buy a knockoff of the extruder for 15 bucks on amazon, so no I wouldn't spend the extra on the pro.

I've added the dual gear extruder, capricorn tubing, and the creality glass bed to mine, as well as some printed upgrades.  I'm hoping as I get into flexibles that the extruder comes in handy.

In case anybody needs enabling, Creatility is having their spring sale and the Ender 3 is ~40% off.

Great father son tool/toy!

My son's Ender 3 is beside me in my office printing something out right now. I'm not sure what he's building but it's frequently running. It's been a pretty good machine. Now if I could just get him to stop stealing my filament. 

My printer is set up next to it. It's a Anycubic Predator. I have been extremely happy with it. It's a delta and I can sit and watch it for hours. The stepper whine is surprisingly soothing, it makes me want to take a nap. 

Here's a short video of it doing a level test. Delta Level Test.

How strong of a laser do you need to  burn a logo in leather ?

or go thru  the coating when you buy coated name tags 

Thanks

In reply to JohnInKansas :

I hate you and love you. I ordered it. 

In reply to californiamilleghia :

Not very strong, comparatively

This was a recent thread on it https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/help-me-choose-a-cheap-laser-engraver/163037/page1/ 

My fan shroud failed due to curling up from the bed due to excessive shrinkage from the cold. (Just ask George Costanza). I tried again printing on a raft, but the raft curled. I might rig up a quick enclosure with insulated foam since I can't find any PLA filament locally. 

Now making some clips for cable management. It seems to do OK with small and parts without the enclosure.

What is the easiest and quickest way to designing something to be printed?

Clips worked well, except for the tall one. The tab snapped off due to poor layer adhesion.

So tidy!

Here are the ones I used. They won't fit the pro model's frame.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2960375

In reply to jfryjfry :

The two I have seen used as I research are SketchUp or Fusion 360, both are free for non-business use. I've used SketchUp in the past, but am going to give fusion 360 a try for this printer as I have some AutoCAD experience.

jfryjfry said:

What is the easiest and quickest way to designing something to be printed?

Do you have experience in CAD or any sort of modeling software like Blender, or Solidworks?

That's how you start from scratch, but often you can find something in an online library that hosts .STL files.  Grabcad.com is a good one to look through, as is Thingiverse.

Or you ask someone with CAD experience to do it for you.

What's the project?