Budget 3D Printer Build and Mods: Ender-3

Make sure you're using the latest version of Cura from the ultimaker site and not what was included with the machine.  Also look at the CHEP youtube channel/website and he has some cura profiles for the ender 3 that I started using as the basis of all my prints and they work really well. Next thing would be tuning all the parameters for accuracy.  CHEP has a video about calibrating esteps and teaching tech has videos covering machine tuning as well.  Looks like you have a decent bed level and yeah bowden printers need the retraction to be bumped up to prevent stringing.  Could also be a temperature thing.

I fixed it! Increasing retraction was the magic button. And yes, I made sure things were square and level during assembly and it seems to be paying off!

I'm using Fusion 360's slicer, as it's great doing everything in one program. 

Mine's been having issues recently with filament not feeding. 

I put a fresh extruder tip on, so I know it's not a clogged tip. It prints fine for like 1/8 of the first layer, then stops feeding. The gear of motor that actually pushes the filament in will kinda skip on the filament. I also tried pushing the filament myself to help it feed and it didn't really help. 

Skipping is typically a result of: temp too low, print speed too fast, initial print layer is too close to the bed (which leads to,) a clog in the tip, a clog in the bowden line, maybe as a kink somewhere or too tight of a bend, tension on the extruder not being tight enough, or finally not enough current to the extruder.

The last one is usually discountable unless you built your own.

Try tightening the tension.  Before you do that get the tip temp up to printing temp, squeeze the extruder tension release, then try to manually force it through.  When the gear skips it usually chews a divot in the filament and it is near impossible to get past that.  It looks something like this:

It's rather fortuitous that this thread should pop up to the top again. My girl got me this very printer for Christmas!

I'm excited to start playing around with it.

AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) said:

Mine's been having issues recently with filament not feeding. 

I put a fresh extruder tip on, so I know it's not a clogged tip. It prints fine for like 1/8 of the first layer, then stops feeding. The gear of motor that actually pushes the filament in will kinda skip on the filament. I also tried pushing the filament myself to help it feed and it didn't really help. 

Does it have the factory extruder?  Check for wear where the filament enters the extruder.  I started having similar issues and bought a chinesium dual gear aluminum extruder and have 0 issues now.

In reply to Tom Suddard :

That's actually pretty good, I'll have to look into using fusion.

I hadn't used my printer for a few months, but wanted to make something for my new year's game recipient. I checked the bed was level and let her rip, no issues at all. I love this machine!

This hobby seems to be escalating quickly.... Octoprint is now running on an old Raspberry Pi, and my enclosure just got here to try out ABS.

I've been getting more comfy with settings in Cura lately.  And last night experienced my first case of the filament tangling/snagging, about 1/2 way through a 2hr simple print it just stopped apparently.  The filament had wrapped itself over the line and got stuck.  Currently babysitting the simple print & will remove after to really fix it.

The pegboard accessories are super cool!

I've printing off a few existing designs from a site that my buddy introduced me to, and I'm already at a point where I'm deciding I need a second, larger printer to increase my throughput.

Haven't designed my own part yet, but I will probably come up with something this weekend.

On another note, I have some bits and pieces I'd like to make, but rather than CAD it up from the ground, I'd like to be able to 3D Scan. Has anyone gotten their hands on a 3D scanner yet? I've seen price ranges all over the place, and there's a bit of a sticker shock, but it'll make what I'm doing so much easier. Weighing the pros and cons of handhelds versus those platform scanners which are only really good for smaller objects.

I work with 3D scanners professionally. Higher end stuff, not hobby level but...

The platform stuff give you more options if youre dealing with smaller parts. The arms can probe which is nice when youre dealing with holes and fitting parts together. Our probe doesn't scan very well (its older) but the probe function is very helpful. The handheld scanner is used for everything but I would use the arm more if it worked better.

I have no idea how this would apply to hobby level stuff so ymmv.

edit: its worth mentioning that theres still a ton of CAD work to follow a scan. I almost exclusively use it for comparison work so I dont do much past the scan but I know that going from a scan to a CAD model is more than it seems. If you're good at CAD its not a problem, just more work than it seems like it would be.

I've just started playing with this, but I think I have it figured out. Details coming soon. 

That's a kinect?  Interesting.

In reply to spandak :

Yeah, that makes sense. I figured there's still plenty of work to be done even post scan. Having it for reference is more along the lines of what I was looking for; I can definitely work my way around CAD, so that isn't too much of an issue either, especially now that I've built a brand new PC after a decade.

That said, it is a pretty chunk of change just to get a digital scan to reference, and it may ultimately prove not to be worth the expense and time would be better spend just doing CAD from the ground up. I have a door latch trim piece that broke on my small Mercedes, and given that they're all probably brittle even at the yards, I want to just print a replacement. That will likely be the first thing I actually CAD to print.

The use of a Kinect seems promising (didn't that dude who's always trying to fight ghosts have someone on his team engineer a solution to track humanoid figures/movement beyond the "visible" spectrum?).

On a related note, I have several Lego train sets, and while my current office isn't large enough (nor do I have a separate room I could dedicate to all my Legos), I came across a wall mount brick to mount them to the wall for the time being. Really happy with the results so far. I've got about 6-8 more to print to accommodate everything else. I would have used black, but I don't have any black filament, plus the shelving brackets above are an "oil rubbed" bronze, so I I'll probably just hit them with some bronze hammered paint when done.

I just got a first generation Kinect the other day ,  has anyone got them to work correctly ?

if you want to play with it let me know !

Here's another teaser. 

Well, I don't have an Ender, I have a Bluemaker, which seeing these pictures of Enders leads me to believe it's almost a knock off ender. I'm still learning the ropes, so far, the most useful part I've made is a resistor holder, My MS3 pro requires a pull up resistor for the MAF, I didn't want the solder joints unsupported, so I drew up this in onshape:

Printed 2 of them

and then used a piece of heat shrink to hold them together

Today, I printed a prototype intake runner for a custom intake manifold.

There's some odd texture issues on the runner, little bubbles... the lower texture was from being WAY to hot. plan right now, is to prototype an intake using the printer, and then cast it in aluminum, although, some of the newer filaments may be able to print the finished product without issue.

In reply to ejs262 :

Looks like a little overextrusion where the layer starts/ends

In reply to bgkast (Forum Supporter) :

That's what I was thinking, I still have alot to learn about the process, so I'll be watching this thread and seeing what you guys can come up with!

If you're using Cura there is (or was, I haven't looked recently) a setting that would line up the start of each layer to make the row of zits line up and you could position them to be on the non-show face of the part.

In reply to minivan_racer :

There was a setting in the slicer that was supposed to change the outer contours and make them look nicer, I forgot that I tried it, and didn't turn it back off when I didnt' like the effect, and now I'm printing much nicer again.

I'm up to 8 of these, printing one every 1.5 hours. Four to go and I should have enough for the rest.