Cheap 3d printer kits – Experiences?

Failed to link to the pics.

My first print was a small “cali dog”, 2nd another dog, much bigger, the code came with the machine and is set at very fine detail, got 3.5hrs into a 5hr print, all looking good and then it decided to move. Not sure why? Very frustrating!

The little “cali dog” that printed OK.

Headless Dog Beast

What are you using for bed adhesion?

Does the Ender3 come with a rough build plate surface, or just plain glass?
What bed temp were you printing with?

The prints look ok to be honest, although the foot of the headless dog has some stray bits so it looks like maybe your first layer adhesion wasnt great.
The hardest thing i found to get started was the bed levelling and the gap between the nozzle and print bed at the zero position (at zero Z height). If your first layer is too high, it will not adhere well and as the print progresses, there is a risk it will detach.

What are you using for bed adhesion?

I din’t for the first 2.

However, I went and bought some hairspray which seems to of done the trick.

Printed the 1st part of a Sherman tank this morning, hull printing now, seems OK.

As above, something not right with that first layer on the failed print. In my limited experience, the first layer is key so watch it carefully & if it isn’t perfect, abort the print, recalibrate, then try again.

Also if there’s a limited contact area with the bed on the first layer, use your slicer to add a brim which effectively makes the first layer a lot bigger. This has helped me quite a bit with trickier prints.

Properly got the 3D printing bug now! Here are a couple of bigger projects I was killing time with over Xmas (not my designs).

I’ve also done quite a few of the community recommended hardware mods/add ons, the best of which was definitely adding a Raspberry Pi running Octoprint (awesomely useful program) as a print server/remote webcam thing. Initially didn’t want to become a “3d print guy” who spent loads of time printing stuff for the printer, but I’ve actually got really into it & since I’ve moved it to work I like to keep it busy the whole time so people can see it working when they come in, so at least it’s making useful stuff rather than random crap that’s just going to end up in landfill 😃

Been trying a few different filament types too, been most impressed by Ninjaflex so far, really cool. Got a sample of a copper one to try but apparently need a hardened nozzle for that so haven’t tried it out yet.

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Wow! How was the T-Rex to print? It’s on my to-do list, but looks like there are many potential areas for failure.

I haven’t really done any mods – the only one was a knob that attached to the z-axis lead screw so you can wind it up & down easily.
I have several in the pipeline, but no time to do them. I want to swap the cooling fan to a fang design, which apparently helps a lot with cooling on the CR10. I also want to modify the control box to add some large PC fans underneath & get rid of the noisy ones in the control box itself that run on bushes – one of mine is on the way out, so I should probably do that soon.

How many colours of filament have you got now?! I am slowly building up some stock – I have white, black, red, green, blue, silver (still unused) and translucent purple! All PLA.

I’ve not tried PETG or anything else yet. Have you?

The only ‘trinket’ print I have done so far was a sabre tooth tiger skull on Thingiverse that turned out really well. Someone has done a remix of it with column supports that worked perfectly.

IMG_20180729_214009 by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

I won’t lie, the T-Rex was trouble! It was the first tricky/big thing I tried to print & I had a lot of failures. I used the remix “T-Rex fixed & printable” (or something) rather than the original but it’s still probably a perfect example of what shapes you don’t really want to 3D print – loads of overhangs, tiny narrow bits etc. It was an excellent learning experience though, in bed adhesion for tricky prints, using brims/supports, etc.

Part cooling definitely has an impact on print quality so it’s worth looking at, although it’s mainly cosmetic I think. You can tell which way round certain things have been printed on mine, particularly if there are overhangs on the back!

Got quite a few different colours now, I’ve bought 6 or 7 spools in basic colours but I’ve got loads of 10m ish samples from 3dfilaprint in colours I wouldn’t (yet!) want a full spool of like luminous pink, sparkly blue, etc etc. Bought a full spool of Polyalchemy Elixir gold though which is expensive but REALLY nice. I’ve successfully printed in some basic PETG that I got with the machine, trying my first print literally right now in Spoolworks Edge which they say is a “PET/Copolyester blend” and apparently much stronger than regular PETG. It’s not cheap but I need to make some strong clips for a commercial job so hopefully it’ll be up to it!

That skull came out great, nice level of detail & only a minimal bit of banding on the fangs from what I can see. Some of my T-Rex bits are not that nice if you look closely! (That’s the advantage of a massive print though, people go “oooooh!” and don’t look to close lol)

That skull came out great, nice level of detail & only a minimal bit of banding on the fangs from what I can see.

Yeah, there is a bit of banding, but for some reason this really seems to be emphasised in pictures. It’s not really that noticeable in the flesh.
It’s definitely a print to try if you want something to impress people. The teeth print separately so need to be glued in, but fit well & have sensible sized sprues on the main skull.

I would probably print it larger than 100% to give it a bit more impact.

Regarding materials other than PLA – we have tried all sorts of things at work on our Ultimaker – the main protagonist for getting a work 3-D printer is trying to get it used for production parts, so it looking for ‘engineering plastics’.
Nylon prints well, but you need to keep it dry. We bought a Makerbot dry box which made a massive difference.
We’ve also had good success with PETG & polycarbonate, although polycarbonate was a bugger to get off the build plate & we had some warping problems.

Each material requires a whole new learning period for good results that I just don’t have the time (or inclination) to bother with at home. I’ll get round to trying PETG one day, perhaps!

Yeah the reason I’ve mainly stuck to PLA & PETG is they’re very easy to print. I have actually got a nylon sample to try but not gotten around to it yet. TPU is tricky but I wanted to try it because it’s unique. It’s virtually indestructible I think because of the give! I’ll get a spool of one of the harder/hybrid variants at some point which are supposed to be almost as easy as PLA to print although a lot less flexible than e.g. Ninjaflex.

Couldn’t find the Makerbot dry box when I googled – is that one that actively dries the filament? On the forums I’ve seen a lot of home-made versions using food dehydrators (which are a lot more popular/cheaper in the US). I bought a Polymaker Polybox which is basically something you could knock up yourself (I just wanted something I could start using quickly). It’s just a box with some bearings to hold the spools & some big packets of desiccant to keep it dry, with PTFE tube coming out. I printed a reverse-bowden (think that’s what it’s called!!) setup for my printer so the whole run from the Polybox to the extruder is in PTFE tube.

The best thing about the Prusa (I’m sure it’s the same for other popular hobby printers too) is there’s a massive community driving it forward, with a wealth of knowledge so I haven’t had to figure too much out myself via trial and error. Been spending way more time on the Prusa FB groups than here at the moment! For example, someone was able to come up with modified firmware a couple of weeks ago that upgraded the automatic bed-levelling algorithm from 3×3 points (good, but still requires manual bed levelling for most people to be able to use the full bed consistently) to 7×7 which has made a MASSIVE difference to the full bed print quality on mine without the need for any manual levelling. (So much so Prusa are integrating it into the next official firmware release!)

Couldn’t find the Makerbot dry box when I googled

HA HA. It’s a Polymaker Polybox….all these names sound alike after a while.
It’s a lot of money for a plastic box with some bearings in it, but I suppose it’s an all in one solution. It’s definitely improved the printability of PVA for support material.

That’s the exact one I bought! It looks smart & it works really well. Yeah you could build a cheaper one but I weighed up buying a decent box, bearings, rods, desiccant, PTFE tube, grommets, hygrometer, plus printing & assembly time then clicked a button and one turned up next day 😃

Pretty pleased with myself now! A couple of new bearings & a new blade which I modelled, printed in PETG & superglued on and I have saved myself the £150 a replacement fan unit would’ve cost!

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£150 for a fan!
Holy Shit! My printer only cost £225!

Good job though!

It’s not for a 3D printer, it’s for a 40W laser 😀

Stumpy, let us know how you get on with the control box fan replacements, i’m thinking of doing the same thing and it’s hard deciding which fan setup to go with. Also thinking about the stepper dampeners but don’t want to lose any detail/accuracy.

It’s hard choosing a fang too. The one i have uses the existing fans but i think maybe one with a 5015 blower for the part cooling and a 4020 heatbreak fan might be the way to go.. although I’m not sure on adding extra weight to the x carriage, surely it’s not good?

Stumpy, let us know how you get on with the control box fan replacements

Will do, but don’t necessarily expect a quick turnaround! Have very little time to fiddle about with the printer, so have been putting up with a noisy fan for a while now…

It’s hard choosing a fang too. The one i have uses the existing fans but i think maybe one with a 5015 blower for the part cooling and a 4020 heatbreak fan might be the way to go.. although I’m not sure on adding extra weight to the x carriage, surely it’s not good?

My main issues are:
1) I really only print in PLA and am still unconvinced it’s a good idea right near the hot end of the printer.
2) many of the fangs seem to rely on screwing into the PLA and there are many tales of people’s fangs/hotends becoming loose after a while.

Again, it’s something I’d like to do, but really struggle with finding suitable time.
I’d probably swap to one of the 5015 blower fans, but you need to be careful which one you go for as some don’t seem to allow any speed control, so they are either on or off!

Automatic fan control is nicer but you can change the speed of pretty much any fan by sticking a cheap voltage stepdown in the circuit. TBH my cooling printer is pretty much always full speed or off anyway.

I printed my original one in PLA and it’s been fine but yep definite room for issues with crushing and loosening- on my ender the entire thing ends up held on with 2 M3 bolts which is a bit suboptimal especially with 2 fans on it. But it does work, if you do it right, and with my one you can get an allen key to the bolts without taking the fan off so tweaking was easy while it was bedding in.

Going to redo it all in petg anyway but I’ve been suprised by how well the pla one worked.

I’m thinking of moving my CR10 mini on. It’s not had much use and I’m not finding the time to model or use it.

If anyone is looking for a decent printer that won’t break the back in the Midlands areas then drop me a line

Not exactly a PSA, but, 3dlac spray + glass + heated bed = PLA happiness. Sticks perfect, then when the bed cools it just comes off. No need to respray, no effort, just proper simple results, lovely.

@slackman, I’d be tempted if I was closer, nice machine that!

Printed some parts for the ender in petg which didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, I think maybe I’m overextruding. I got functional parts but they’re not pretty. But had some stuff I wanted to do for wargames terrain for a mate so switched back to PLA for a bit and ended up speeding the print speed right up and doing my biggest print yet, dead pleased. It’s nothing to shout about really but 18 hours without a flutter. Just set off my first ever print over 24.

Hmmm. I’d also be tempted by the CR10-MINI if I had somewhere to put it! I’ll have a think!

Not exactly a PSA, but, 3dlac spray + glass + heated bed = PLA happiness. Sticks perfect, then when the bed cools it just comes off. No need to respray, no effort, just proper simple results, lovely.

We use 3dlac on the Ultimaker at work and it is very good stuff. I’m convinced it’s just repackaged hairspray though.

Slackman – sent you a DM re the cr10 mini

stumpy01

We use 3dlac on the Ultimaker at work and it is very good stuff. I’m convinced it’s just repackaged hairspray though.

It’s made by a hairspray manufacturer (their branding is on the tin) but I couldn’t find any of their products that’s the same, I suspect it might genuinely be super-hairspray designed for the job. Makes sense really.

This thing is proving genuinely useful! Some scrote nicked the fuel flap from one of our transits. Did consider trying to print a new one, but it’s bigger than my print area, and more complex that you might think at first glance. If it happened again I’d try though, as a new one from Ford was £48!! When I came to fit it I realised they’d snapped part of the hinge mechanism too. Good learning experience modelling that, feel quite confident with Fusion now. And it fitted first time!

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Got an Ender 3 for Xmas

finally got round to trying it out today

leveling wasnt too bad

did a an xyz cube, seemed pretty good

now browsing thingverse, hmmm

Cube looks good – the Ender3 seems like a solid machine, especially for the money!

Did you measure the x, y & Z dims? I think my first ones were coming out almost spot-on in X & Y, but Z was about 0.2 short.

I am not sure I like the sharp cubes for calibration purposes as you get an inevitable small bulge in the corners where the head changes direction, which can give you measurement error – IMO it would be better to have a small radius on the vertical corners & top face, with a chamfer on the bottom face.

now browsing thingverse, hmmm

Eeek! Lots to be distracted by! I’ve got several items ‘collected’ that I keep meaning to print – there’s a fantastic jet engine model & someone has recently put a working large clockwork mechanism that I think would be a great showpiece.

someone has recently put a working large clockwork mechanism that I think would be a great showpiece.

The Swiss-watch with escapement mechanism thing that’s on the featured section? Looks great, definitely on my very long list! I’ve actually got a sample of PLA with copper in it, would look cool in that I think, need to get a hardened nozzle first before I can test it out though!

The Swiss-watch with escapement mechanism thing that’s on the featured section?

That’s the one!

Here’s a few things on my list to print:

Jet Engine
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1327093

Gyrotourbillon
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2820444

Dremel Table Saw
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2365532

Star Tracker for night photography
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:974906

This is my most successful (very boring) upload; a small test piece to trial support settings:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2823038

I’ve only uploaded 3 items so far & am reluctant to put loads of stuff on there after seeing how many people seem to just use it for downloading stuff to sell on Etsy or eBay.

Also, since uploading that test piece it’s been downloaded >2000 times, but only 2 people have bothered to post makes of it. I try to post makes of every part I download & subsequently make.
I’ve seen it appear on loads of ‘how to’ videos on Youtube.

Did you measure the x, y & Z dims? I think my first ones were coming out almost spot-on in X & Y, but Z was about 0.2 short.

I dont have any calipers, but it seemed very close on my rule

I bought slackman’s CR10 Mini off him at the weekend.

Tried some prints yesterday, and need some advice to work out what went wrong on the final one. First print I didn’t put any pritstick down so the print dislodged and sprayed PLA everywhere. Second print I managed to tangle the PLA filament into a knot so it ended up printing air. Third one worked, but I broke the head off the model when trying to pull it off the piece of glass, wasn’t being particularly aggressive with it either…. so i’m thinking the layer didn’t join properly – here are some pictures:

Kind of looks like the layers haven’t joined together properly – i just used the default for PLA setting. Not sure what the brand of filament is, as Slackman gave me it free. It’s black, and it’s PLA.

Any ideas?

Ewan Member

I bought slackman’s CR10 Mini off him at the weekend.

Tried some prints yesterday, and need some advice to work out what went wrong on the final one

Where did you get the model from? Was it on the included USB pen? If so, delete it & try something else.
That cat model isn’t called decapicat for nothing – seriously, google it.
Creality released corrupted/faulty gcode for that model & caused people no end of grief who spent ages trying to work out why the print kept failing. You’ve done well to get the head to print at all!

Try a Benchy & see how you get on.

Did you measure the x, y & Z dims? I think my first ones were coming out almost spot-on in X & Y, but Z was about 0.2 short.

That’s quite common and not necessarily a fault. It might simply be due to squashing the first layer onto the bed (which PLA likes).
You could test by printing something 40mm high and see if the disparity is still 0.2mm or scaled double. If doubled to 0.4mm, then it needs calibrating.

You can actually compensate for the squished first layer in some slicers, but I don’t tend to bother.

There is also a compensation setting for ‘elephant’s foot’ where it prints the first layer slightly smaller in the X and Y dimensions so that you don’t get that squished-out bottom.

That cat model isn’t called decapicat for nothing – seriously, google it.
Creality released corrupted/faulty gcode for that model & caused people no end of grief who spent ages trying to work out why the print kept failing. You’ve done well to get the head to print at all!

Yeah, i’d read about the headless cat thing, but i downloaded this from thingyverse and the comments were full of people saying that the cat had a head in this one.

That said, it is weird it seems to be a single poor layer, will try and print a benchy. Is there a ‘standard’ one I should download the gcode for?

You could test by printing something 40mm high and see if the disparity is still 0.2mm or scaled double. If doubled to 0.4mm, then it needs calibrating.

Funnily enough, I stuck this on Thingiverse for just that purpose, although annoyingly got my axes muddled up, so it needs re-orienting on the bed to print correctly

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2837841

That said, it is weird it seems to be a single poor layer, will try and print a benchy. Is there a ‘standard’ one I should download the gcode for?

There is really only one Benchy, although many people have created versions.

This should be it:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:763622

Generally you download the stl file & then create the gcode yourself using Cura, or some other slicer software.
I might have a sliced version I could e-mail you, as I also have a CR-10 Mini but it won’t be until this evening at the earliest.

Drop me a message with your e-mail details if you want me to have a look and see what gcode i have ready sliced.

Re: Decapicat (yours doesn’t look like the traditional shifted layer one).
If it was just one poor layer, then look at your z leadscrew for any debris – same with the wheels that slide up the verticals.
Also check where the gantry goes up the vertical supports and check that screws aren’t fouling anything. One of the plastic coloured inserts on mine was rubbing against a screw, so I shaved it down a bit.
Same for the wires and bowden tube – make sure it couldn’t have snagged on anything while Z was travelling up.

Other things that can trigger it: Sudden change in ambient temp. Sudden change in nozzle temp – some people complain that the CR-10 (don’t know about the mini) can’t hold temps stead).

If you do print something else, check at the same z-height for any weirdness.

Ok good tips thanks!

Just to follow on from Alex’s post…

One of the plastic coloured inserts on mine was rubbing against a screw, so I shaved it down a bit.

I don’t think that the Mini shipped with the plastic go-faster stripes as standard, if that’s what you mean. I could be wrong, but have never seen one (and I watched plenty of youtube reviews before buying) and my one came without.

some people complain that the CR-10 (don’t know about the mini) can’t hold temps stead).

Could be an issue; but I’d be surprised at PLA temps, based on how my Mini performs.
Mine won’t hold temp when you get up to PETG + higher temps. It hunts around like mad. Needs that capacitor re-work on the main motherboard. Gearbest sent me a replacement board, but it’s the same. I keep intending to mod one, try it out & if it works mod the second one.

My longest print so far was 27hrs & that had no obvious issues relating to temp fluctuations.

Ewan – did you scroll through the layers for that part in Cura? You can often see areas where prints might go squiffy based on hoe the layer view looks. It should be easy enough to look at the layers around where the failure occurred & see if the gcode does something a bit weird.

Regarding Alex’s comments about checking the Z-screw – I don’t generally agree with making tons of mods to a machine until you know how it performs as stock, so you understand what affects any changes will have……but having said that, there is a z-screw mod that allows you to wind the z-screw quickly and it’s definitely worth doing.
Here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2534990

That Jet Engine looks really good!

… Didn’t realise it was going to be so big.. Mine shows about 60 hours to print, if I had a build plate big enough to print all of them at once! 😮 I won’t be printing it. 🙁

I didn’t look through cura – i litterally downloaded some gcode and hit go 🙂

I’ll take a look tonight. Is the issue with the print head common to the CR-10 or a quality control issue? I was hoping to upgrade the head and print in ABS and Nylon eventually. Figured i’d work out whats what with PLA first tho.

I’ll take a look tonight. Is the issue with the print head common to the CR-10 or a quality control issue? I was hoping to upgrade the head and print in ABS and Nylon eventually. Figured i’d work out whats what with PLA first tho.

It’s related to voltage regulation on the motherboard – but that’s about as far as I can tell you – electronics is far from my strong point.
The fix is to get some suitable capacitors soldered onto the motherboard. TH3D offer a repair service, but only in the US.

See this link here:

https://github.com/printsmith/Melzi-1.1.2-2.0-Temperature-Fluctuation-Fix/blob/master/V1.1.2%20Fix/V1.1.2%20Fix%20Tutorial.md

My board looks like the one in the second pic down – the one with the white plug in the centre which is outlined in red. Supposedly swapping that plug out for a suitable capacitor fixes it.
I wasn’t going to do it until had a back-up, so I managed to get a replacement board from Gearbest, so if I make the mod & it buggers something up i have a back-up.
My issue is, I am only printing in PLA so there’s no real incentive at the moment. And to remove the board will mean labelling it all up & taking my time over it, which I just don’t have.

We print in nylon at work, which isn’t too bad to use apart from you really need a dry box to keep it in while printing. It absorbs moisture readily & you will get really bad results with wet filament.
Not tried ABS, but most people online who use ABS generally build an enclosure around the printer to keep the temps up to stop it warping.

You might need an all metal hotend when printing the higher temp filaments as the PTFE tube in the CR10 hot-end is only good up to around 245 deg. C. Above that it degrades & will give you issues.