First printer – advice please

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Hi

I’ve been thinking about getting a 3D printer for quite a while now, but not taken the plunge. I’ve just spotted a Creality Ender 3 Pro for sale near me for £100 and would appreciate any advice from the more experienced members. If it doesn’t work out, I guess it’s not a huge amount of money, but again, if they are known to have issues, I’ll give it a miss. Seems to come with some extra bits – I don’t fully understand what they all are 🙂 The description omits the word Pro, but it’s in the advert title and a photo shows it on the display, so fairly confident it’s the Pro version.

Details from the advert:

Condition
Used – like new
Creality Ender 3 3D printer. Brand new PEI Build plate (never used). All metal hot end (less than 10 hours use). Fitted with ABL touch probe for auto bed levelling. Improved part cooling with custom printed, magnetically detachable cooling head. Silicon bed dampers for easier / more accurate tramming. All working as it should. Only selling due to upgrading to a Bambu Unit.

Worth a try?

Thanks, Rob

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

If it is working as stated then it doesn’t appear to be a bad price for the spec. Should you not get along with it then you should be able to sell on for not much of a loss. That the seller has ungraded to a Bambu Labs printer suggests they are keen – Bambu Labs seem to be leading the pack in the more expensive home printer field at the moment & even their entry level stuff is a big step up on an Ender 3.

Creality have a large user base, so there is a lot of information about on setting up, using & upgrading them. They appear capable when set up, but may well not be very “plug and play” compared to some (usually more expensive) brands. IIRC Silly Old Duffer on here has one – I chose to go Anycubic when I got my current (first) printer and 4 trouble free years on I have another Anycubic printer on the way..

What do you intend to do with it ? Doing much other than downloading and printing other people’s models from the likes of Printables or Thingiverse will require getting to grips with some form of 3D Cad, which is a steep learning curve where I am currently still very mcuh at the beginner stage (FreeCad) after quite a lot of frustration. It does seem to be getting a bit easier with practice & perseverance, though.

If you want to dip a toe in the water, it doens’t seem like a bad option & the seller may be able to advise on how best to run it. Be aware that 3D printing is (yet another) rabbit hole to go down !

Nigel B.

 

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Thanks Nigel, a lot of good info there. I’m probably going to be at the stage of printing other people’s designs for quite a while, so I think it’ll do for me.

Just messaged the seller, so I’ll see what happens.

Thanks again.

Rob

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

Sounds like the seller knows what he is doing. Auto Bed levelling on the Ender 3 Pro is useful. I had to upgrade my 3 year old 3 Pro to a 32bit mainboard to accommodate bed levelling, so that may have been done on the one you are buying. If so it makes for a nice machine.

[Gerard O’TooleParticipant @gerardotoole60348]

I have the basic Ender 3 for the past four years. It has worked well since. Any problems I have had were down to either operator error or aged filament(PLA). I have added an  all metal hot end but have no touch levelling.

The Ender 3 is a very common printer and parts are readily available from both Creality and third parties. Parts are also reasonably priced.

Can you ask to see it working? It should be a simple task to print a small part. Assuming all works then I would see it as a good buy.

I can’t say anything about the price. I paid about €220 new four years ago so £100 seems reasonable for the Pro model with those extras.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Thanks for the info, chaps. It’s on Facebook Marketplace with a video of it apparently working, and I’m just waiting for the seller to get back to me.

Now I’ll need to find somewhere to put it…

Rob

[HowiParticipant @howi]

good price for what you are getting, steep learning curve though no matter what you get.

Don’t get hung up with auto bed leveling, seems seller has fitted silicon springs (so have I).

once set correctly you should not need auto bed leveling, all the other fittins seem to be worthwhile upgrades so saves you some money.

you will need a slicer program, most use Cura which is very goodand improving all the time.

Whichever one you chose that in itself has a million and one options for yoiu to ponder over – did you know there is a ‘vase mode’ setting for instance, and what makes it different to normal mode?

All good fun though – bed leveling, first layer height,bed adhesion, bed temperature,extruder temperature, how you lay/orientate the STL file on the bed, etc etc.

Do let us know how you get on.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Lucky boy to get that with the upgrades cheap. I’d be tempted to get it as a second one if it were available on my doorstep. The Ender 3 is very capable and was even being used by people doing commercial work.

There are lots of Model Engineering related things on Thingiverse for starters – changewheels, division plates, dials, knobs, handles.
See the recent topics on here about FreeCAD and have a go at something simple like a washer or spacer. It will only take ten minutes to print and then you can modify it and build up your confidence in self design.
You mantra at this time of year needs to be ‘dry filament’.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Thanks for the encouragement. To update you all, I have just picked it up and it’s now completing a small print of a Eurofighter that the seller started off as a demo. It all seems to be working fine (at least to my untutored eye), and he gave me a few useful tips. He’d already tweaked it to the point where I could just plug and play.

So, now to search out some tutorials, get hold of a copy of Cura, etc.

My daughter has already requested a key-ring, but that might have to wait until I get more filament…

And my wife has already complained about the smell…

Rob

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

And my wife has already complained about the smell…

What filament are you using ? I have only printed PLA at the moment & there is no noticable smell with that. Mrs B has a very sensitive nose (at least where my indoor hobby activities are concerned ! ) and the only comments I get about the printer relate to the noise it makes when printing – no smell related comments at all.

I have used both Ebay & Amazon for filament. Can’t say I have noticed any difference in print quality between the Anycubic branded PLA supplied with my printer or any of the replacements. I have bought usually on the basis of price rather than a brand name & print out a test “temperture tower” when changing to a new roll to determine the optimum print temperature for the new filament – but this seems to only change around 5 degrees C or so from a nominal 200 C for PLA.

YouTube contributors worth looking up include Teaching Tech, Maker’s Muse, Tomas Sanladerer, CNC Kitchen & Filament Friday. You may have to go back quite a long way through the posted videos to get to older “Getting started” and Creality Ender specific content.

Nigel B.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Just be prepared to spend some time understanding how it works. Things that cause most problems are:

Not levelling build plate (even with auto levelling, set it level manually first for best results).

Draughts.

Damp filament.

Not taking the time to do some test pieces to fine-tune temperature, speeds, feed etc.

Not understanding how supports work.

Nozzle too close or too far from the bed for initial layer.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Nigel – it’s just some Ender branded PLA that came with it. To be honest, I can’t smell much, and I think her real objection is that I’ve currently got it on the floor in front of the TV :). Thanks for the YouTube suggestions, I’ll have a look at them.

Neil – Thanks, I can certainly see what you mean, particularly the nozzle height. From it working fine when demo’d, after a short trip in the car, I resumed the print. After ten minutes, it was apparent something had gone wrong. It’s taken me literally hours to get it back working like it was.

Scrapped the first print and tried again. There seemed to be no adhesion whatsoever. Scrapped many more attempts. Messed about with nozzle height offset from ABL probe, manually levelled the bed, flow rate, bed and nozzle temp (I think it is in a draught), fan speed, speed of printing. I think it’s OK now. Daren’t leave it and go to bed though.

But I think I’ve done the right thing in getting it. A bit more practice required and a lot of reading and watching tutorials.

Rob

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Bed adhesion is ‘thing’ with printers. A bit of ‘net searching will find endless problems and solutions. Once you have got it to stick you will find the next problem is it sticking too hard and danger of damage as you try to get it off.

Not going to add to the volumes of ‘solutions’ here as there are lots of variables wrt which bed type you are using etc.

Note that as you struggle to remove it you upset the bed levelling so unless you have one of the easy detach versions you will need to redo that every time.
Also on the floor, probably on carpet is not the best place for levelling. Find a bit of kitchen worktop that has been cut out to make the sink hole ie thick, put it on there on a table and don’t move it again.

[Grindstone Cowboy]

On Grindstone Cowboy Said:

Nigel – it’s just some Ender branded PLA that came with it. To be honest, I can’t smell much, and I think her real objection is that I’ve currently got it on the floor in front of the TV :). Thanks for the YouTube suggestions, I’ll have a look at them.

Neil – Thanks, I can certainly see what you mean, particularly the nozzle height. From it working fine when demo’d, after a short trip in the car, I resumed the print. After ten minutes, it was apparent something had gone wrong. It’s taken me literally hours to get it back working like it was.

Scrapped the first print and tried again. There seemed to be no adhesion whatsoever. Scrapped many more attempts. Messed about with nozzle height offset from ABL probe, manually levelled the bed, flow rate, bed and nozzle temp (I think it is in a draught), fan speed, speed of printing. I think it’s OK now. Daren’t leave it and go to bed though.

But I think I’ve done the right thing in getting it. A bit more practice required and a lot of reading and watching tutorials.

Rob

 

you are beginniong to learn there is much to know and fiddle with, my suggestion is to get Cura and the template for Ender 3, the settings within should be ok without any tweeking.

Bed adhesion – can be very frustrating, clenliness of the bed is very important.

there are borders that you can put round your print that will aid adhesion and if you are still having problems, try cheap versions of pritt stick, a very thin layer is all you need.

nozzle height is easily set by using a page of normal 80gm copy/printer paper, such that the grip on the paper by the nozzle can just be fealt. I would not worry too much about auto bed leveling at this stage.

Bed and nozzle temp for PLA is usually 60 and 200 and +- 5 deg.

draughts you should try and avoid as this can cause ‘elephants foot’ problems.

Once you get a reasonable print – DON’T change anything.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

I think I’ve got the adhesion issue sorted now (until next time!) and there wasn’t too much of a problem getting it free – there’s a removable magnetic plate and flexing that caused the print to gradually release itself. The chap I got it from advised IPA and/or soapy water to clean the plate and more or less begged me not to use Pritt or hairspray on it.

Yes, need to find a better place for it – it’s not as bad as it sounds, though,  as I have a piece of plate glass between printer and carpet to get a nice flat surface. It seemed a bit wobbly after transporting it so I loosened a few screws and got everything stable before re-tightening. Also checked that there’s no binding on any axis caused by my fiddling with it.

Now searching Thingiverse for little bits to print, but priority job is ordering more filament, it came with the remnant of a spool of white PLA – difficult to estimate how much more it will do, could be a lot or not. I guess that will come with experience.

About to have a look at Cura.

Thanks again for all the hints and tips.

Rob

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Your slicer should tell you either weight or length of the print as well as time. Might not be immediately obvious. When you get the new spool weigh it to get the total so you can easily work out how much is left as you approach the end. Write the weight of full spool on it because you will lose that piece of paper……

[Grindstone Cowboy]

On Grindstone Cowboy Said:

Nigel – it’s just some Ender branded PLA that came with it. To be honest, I can’t smell much, and I think her real objection is that I’ve currently got it on the floor in front of the TV :). Thanks for the YouTube suggestions, I’ll have a look at them.

Neil – Thanks, I can certainly see what you mean, particularly the nozzle height. From it working fine when demo’d, after a short trip in the car, I resumed the print. After ten minutes, it was apparent something had gone wrong. It’s taken me literally hours to get it back working like it was.

Scrapped the first print and tried again. There seemed to be no adhesion whatsoever. Scrapped many more attempts. Messed about with nozzle height offset from ABL probe, manually levelled the bed, flow rate, bed and nozzle temp (I think it is in a draught), fan speed, speed of printing. I think it’s OK now. Daren’t leave it and go to bed though.

But I think I’ve done the right thing in getting it. A bit more practice required and a lot of reading and watching tutorials.

Rob

 

What type of bed do you have? (on the printer…)

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Rob,

Like you, my printer has a removable flexible build plate and Bambu Lab actually recommend the use of a glue stick to aid bed adhesion!  I’ve not had a problem with either bed adhesion or print release.  Having said that, I have only used PLA and TPU filament so far in my foray into 3D printing.  My printer in totally enclosed, so I’m not bothered by fumes – not that I’ve noticed any – and the machine resides in the garage, is connected to the household wifi network for downloading the print files and monitoring via the in-built camera.  Perhaps a home brew enclosure might be worth consideration?

OrcaSlicer is an alternative and very capable open source program, too, if you fancy a bit of parameter tweaking.

John

 

 

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Hi all

Just started another print of the Eurofighter that came on the card, using the settings I ended up with yesterday and it’s looking good from a standing start. I can only think something got knocked during transport, although I was careful. Main difference is the Z offset is now -1.4mm as opposed to the -1.0mm the seller was using.

Neil- it’s a PEI(?) bed, marked Creality – some sort of slightly rough coating on a flexible steel plate held on by a magnetic sheet. Below that I think is aluminium.

John – I think an enclosure would be a good idea, if only to stop it collecting dust. It may have to live out in the garage if I can clear a space. As per Bazyle’s tip, I do have a bit of worktop just about the right size, and could make the sides and top out of that plastic sheet, forget the name, Coroboard I think.

I’m going to keep tweaking the odd setting on the model I have as I can see bits I think need improving (surface a bit rough in areas, etc.), one at a time, repeating it until it gets as good as it can. Then I’ll try something a bit different off Thingiverse once my filament order arrives tomorrow, maybe something for the workshop.

Thanks,

Rob

[Pete RimmerParticipant @peterimmer30576]

I had my Ender 3 for a couple of years pretty much standard. This Christmas I bought a K1 and gave the Ender to my daughter’s school for their tech department. The Ender was a decent affordable machine but the K1 is definitely a level or three above.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Well, that didn’t last! On starting another print today, wisps of smoke appeared from the mainboard enclosure. Panic!

On inspection, the PSU connections to the board (via PCB-mounted screw terminal blocks) have overheated, melting the plastic around them. Probably been a bit loose for a while (some of the other screw terminals were not very tight either). New ones on order and a a bit of electronic jiggery-pokery and cable-routing SHOULD see me back in business late tomorrow. I’m fairly sure the seller wouldn’t have known about the issue as it was okay when I started.

So nothing to report on the printing front today, sorry. I did do a bit of delving into Cura and Thingiverse yesterday and I am reasonably confident I understand what’s going on there. I have sliced! Fine-tuning may take longer…

Rob

Edit – just occurred to me, the terminal blocks overheating could have been the cause of the smell. Doh!

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

How were the wires to the terminals terminated Rob ?

Wires to screw terminals should have “hardened” ends like boot lace ferrules or crimped forks / eyelets. Worst case for coming loose in service is tinning the wire ends – the solder flows away from the pressure of the screw clamps, so regardless of how hard they are initially tightened they will come loose over time.

Hopefully you will soon be back in action.

Nigel B.

 

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Thanks Nigel – they were tinned 🙁

I will crimp all the bare ended wires with bootlace ferrules when replacing so it hopefully won’t happen again – luckily I have the right kit for it.

Just hope the Amazon man arrives early.

Rob

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Pritt stick type (I’m using generic Tesco version) is best for those beds.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Thanks Neil – so far (fingers crossed) I’ve not had any issues with adhesion that haven’t been solved by lowering the speed and upping the bed temperature for the first layer or so.

Now printing bits for the printer – cable protectors and clips. Repaired the damage done by the overheated terminal blocks and all seems well.

Gradually understanding what changing various parameters actually equates to on the print.

Rob

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