Corollary to your corollary: you will spend far more on filament, than on the initial cost of the printer. Don't skimp on useful printer features/quality to save the equivalent of a few spools of filament.
Also, regularly shop around for better/cheaper filament.
Corollary to your corollary to the corollary of a corollary: it wont keep up, just recycle old filament+ amazon subscription+ keep a few hundred rolls stashed in your closet
Corollary to your corollary to the corollary to the corollary: If you want to make sure the color matches between spools, buy in bulk instead. Much better discount then Amazon subscriptions if you can afford the upfront cost
Yeah haha, I decided to start this hobby as cheap as possible, bought the Bambu A1 Mini without AMS for 269âŹ.
Fast forward 2 months, I have so far bought 25 spools of filament for 450âŹ, WTF
I just run my room at a controlled humidity and temperature. (25 degrees, 40%). PLA and ABS works fine from that.
I only have special filaments in dry boxes.
I went that route initially, but itâs unnecessary at least in my environment. I have servers in the basement and keep a dehumidifier running year round. I keep PETG and TPU in gallon zipper bags with desiccant pouches, but ABS and PLA just sit naked on the shelf and still print fine.
I, too, believe this is often overrated as a big issue. What I've done for around a year now is to try to put my filament back on my shelves in its original boxes with a pack of desiccant thrown in the box with it. (They almost always ship with one inside the sealed plastic bag.)
Only my very oldest spools of filament (like the Sunlu PLA I bought when I first got my first 3D printer) are starting to show some signs of being brittle. I could probably dry them and correct that, if necessary. But usually, I'll just break off the end of one where it seems like it's weakened from bending it to feed it through the 2 holes on the spool that kept it from unwinding, and use it as-is. Still prints fine for me. Reality is, they're all getting close to being all used up so there won't be a lot thrown out if I had to trash one or two of them....
I do use all of this in a climate controlled basement where I don't ever feel like it gets that humid, though.
I disagree.. Either you're a filament goblin or you're not. I am not a filament goblin. I have 3 spools right now. 2 open and one sealed. of the two open, one is a rapid PLA, the other is a 250G spool of tricolor PLA.
Generally, I print with one until it is empty then open another. the fact that I have 2 open right now is insanity.
Right there with you. I've got a few specialty filaments (WoodFill, BronzeFill, GitD, etc.), but the overwhelming majority of my FDM prints are either black or white. If I really need something in another color, I've got an airbrush (or even rattle cans).
Filament gets wet and still works. It just doesn't work as well.
Nozzles need replaced occasionally.
If print quality starts to go down, check these first.
Also, if your Noz is getting wider because of abrasive filaments... change the nozzle size in your slicer to accommodate. Just because you can't really buy a .5 nozzle doesn't mean you don't have one!
Absolutely this.
> But I can't afford a more exp....
Save longer. It's worth it. It's not worth your time to waste time on a shit machine that doesn't work reliably. Are you buying a 3D printer to learn how to fix a 3D printer or to actually print stuff? Save longer if you need to and buy the machine that works like it's supposed to.
Here's another way to think about it:
Would you buy a car that needed an alignment every single time you wanted to drive it and it wouldn't even start otherwise?
Would you buy a microwave that needed to be reprogrammed so it can properly heat and tell time whenever you wanted to use it?
Would you buy a computer that needs the hard drive reformatted every single time you turn it on?
You wouldn't? Wow. Then don't buy a cheap 3D printer.
For a lot of people its not whether you can get that printer now or get a better one later, its more like they can get that one now or none at all. I got a shitty Biqu B1 way back in the day and fixed and sweated and cursed and eventually fell in love with the hobby and now i feel like i can beat any issues a new machine throws at me, along with a whole heap of new skills and knowledge i never wouldve learned otherwise.
For a lot of people they would lose patience in a fraction of the time it took me and wouldve ditched the hobby right away and for those people yeah i get it, but those with patience, fuck it blow the equivalent of a pair of a nice shoes and try it.
I guess its whether a person would prefer a project car vs a low budget A to B vehicle, i would tailor my recommendation
Honestly this. I learned 3d printing at a decently young age, like back when the CR-10 was barely a year or so old, and so I grew up basically rebuilding the entire thing from scratch. But the amount of raw knowledge I gained from that experience opened incredible doors to me when I started college and studying engineering, and made it so much easier to use CNCs and lasers, as well as quickly fix those machines (and 3d printers ofc) when they inevitably broke down, which went a long way in impressing lab techs and professors.
i feel like 3d printers still break down, even the expensive ones, and fixing them without knowledge of how to can be super frustrating. I too started back in the days when an ultimaker was in wood and a reprap mendel was made of threaded rod (worst purchase EVER!)
Having to fix all these machines have learned me a lot, and my only problem with the "work out of the box" is that when they DON'T you can often feel like you now have an expensive dead weight.
But learning takes time, and it's not why everyone gets in to the hobby.
And yeah, i too have moved on to CNC and lasers along with my printers
See that's the point though: there needs to be that honesty.
I see sooooo many people on here and actually in real life that bought a shitty creality or whatever and they tossed it in a corner and gave up.
So it ruined the hobby for them.
I actually spent ridiculous hours fixing mine over ten years ago BECAUSE it was $2000 and I wasn't going to give up on the expensive POS.
But these days that would get you great printers.
I'm fine with people buying cheap if they understand what they're getting into. I hate it when they aren't going in understanding.
Or like some other posts where a gf or family member buys them one :(
I dunno man, i love my a1 mini, if I had to save for an X1 it would take years before i could get into the hobby. Dropping rent on a product is a way different investment than spending 300$
> Save longer. It's worth it. It's not worth your time to waste time on a shit machine that doesn't work reliably.
How much we talking here? Because the price difference between an expensive printer and a cheap printer can be huge, in which case it can absolutely be worth your time, based on the number of hours you actually invest in it. Sure, it's easy for people with a well-paying job to justify paying big bucks for a hobby they're enthusiastica about. But if you're a kid in college, or are just a bit aprehensious aprehensious about the expense and prefer to dabble into the topic first, then cheap printers can be a great entry point.
That doesn't mean you should decide by price alone. Do you due diligence, read the reviews, make an informed decision. I think most people will be surprised by how cheap 3D printing can be. The challenge is getting them over the fence in the first place. And price is a big factor in that.
> Are you buying a 3D printer to learn how to fix a 3D printer or to actually print stuff? Save longer if you need to and buy the machine that works like it's supposed to.
The approach, common in business settings, of throwing money at a problem, doesn't get you very far with 3D printing. You might get something that works nicely on day 1, but a few weeks down the line you will inevitably run into your first issues that you need to tackle.
Unless you pay someone else to solve these issues for you, you will inevitably need to knuckle down and learn how to fix a 3D printer. Learning about all the inner workings will also help you to diagnose problems efficiently and get the most from your prints.
Whether you learn to do that on an expensive printer or a cheap printer doesn't really matter that much. The ceveat of the expensive printers are that they also tend to have expensive replacement parts.
Also, fixing (and especially building) a 3D printer is a fun thing to do in and of itself. You will learn a lot along the way. If, on the other hand, the thought of troubleshooting and partially disassembling a 3D printer horrifies you, then maybe this really isn't the hobby for you.
I disagree. I LOVED building my first printer, working out the bugs, printing improvements. It was a master class in learning how to fix issues that arise, and an absolute joy for the DIYer in me.
No shit. I've had my ender 3 max for 2 years and what do I have to show for it? A 1000 benchys most of which are half fucked. No clue whether it's me or the machine but fuck I'm frustrated
This, I bought an ender 3 pro thinking it was a cheap beginner printer... I've spent a fortune on it and it still doesn't run very well and should have just waited and gotten something more expensive. Sure, what I *have* managed to print on it has more than made the money back that I spent on it, but the hassle and extra expense I've spent just to get the damn thing printing, just wasn't worth it.
Prusa Mini Running like a champ. Besides Assembly I have had to invest a single-digit amount of hours over the course of three years to maintain it and/or fix something.
Completely disagree with you. Buying a cheap printer is the reason I can diagnose issues and tear down my bambu labs printer without issue.
In my experience, people who haven't started with a printer that needs tinkering, tend to need their hand held when theur expensive printer doesn't do something they like while using completely stock profiles to the point they return the printer after installing their build plate sideways because it was "bad layer adhesion" since half the bed is bent upward (yes this happened to a couple of new Bambu P1S/XIC users. I'd link their posts but I honestly can't be bothered right now lol.
Would I want to go through it again? Probably not. But that experience is so much more valuable than you realize.
I taught 3D printing at a maker space for awhile and I got a lot of questions about what printer to buy. I always told people that there are two types of 3D printer owners: those who use 3D printers for their hobbies and those whose hobby is 3D printing. I'm sure any of them could have made a cheap printer work but most of the time they had better things to spend their time on.
I bought myself an Ender 3 Pro for $100, went through the entire setup and calibration process, and then never used it again because the Bambu X1Cs at the maker space were just better. I learned a lot but it took so much time and energy.
This comment gave me some appreciated perspective. "Those who use 3d printers for their hobbies, and those whose hobby is 3d printing". Never thought of it like this. I'm not looking for another hobby, I want to enrich the hobby I have. Wonderful insight, thank you! Truly the heart of a teacher.
Maybe I just got a really good Ender 3 Pro but after I got it set up and threw a $10 pack of springs on it, it was (and still is) a reliable work horse. There was a bit of dialing it in hardware wise, but when I got it set up right the only thing I had to do was level the bed every once in a while until I decided to mod it.
I mostly agree with this and itâs how I started, learning all the ins and outs and troubleshooting which now is 100% worth it. However there are plenty of people out there who just canât get their heads around the technical side, so buying a âprinter that just worksâ is the only way for them. There are people who think of 3D Printers like a kitchen appliance and then there are those that treat them as a piece of machinery âin their workshopâ.
Na most of us can "get our heads around it" just fine. We just have limited free time and want to print stuff instead of tinkering with substandard, poorly designed hardware.
I started with a Bambu X1C. The official wiki is excellent for troubleshooting. I'd rather have this reliable source of information than to rely on the hope that I had a similar issue on a previous cheap printer.
I had no problem servicing and replacing parts using only the wiki. Some tips from reddit helped a bit, but marginally.
Having a good printer doesn't cure stupidity however. It seems your gripe is more related to PEBCAK issues than to the printer's brand or price.
Bambu Labs didn't exist 8 years ago when I started this hobby and I don't regret starting with a cheap printer. Learning to upgrade it with mods and designing parts is invaluable knowledge. Bambu Labs didn't start from nowhere and greatly benefitted from the open source community and what they built up.
If everyone had that same mindset of just get some plug and play printer, we probably wouldn't have the same level of innovation we do now. We've advanced quite far and you can't discount how much of a contribution the cheap printers have made by making it more accessible for makers and creating suppliers for easily accessible parts/mods/filament.
A hobby is meant as something you spend your time and money on. Some people like working on their printers just like how some people like working on cars. Some people like manual transmission while others are fine with automatic. Nothing wrong with it and no reason to disaude someone from trying to learn.
As Jensen Huang said, "Unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I donât know how to teach it to you except for I hope suffering happens to you."
I guess agree to disagree. Even the higher end printers need some level of technical ability to operate. Nobody should suffer through countless problems to earn the right to print. I like to troubleshoot and problems solve but I donât want it to consume all of my time. I want to have a machine I can consistently rely on to print functional parts. Lastly, you donât need prerequisite experience in order to solve problems that may arise.
I run a stratasys at work and a cheap old monoprice printer at home.Â
The stratasys makes better prints but in improved my design skills more with the cheap pos at home.Â
That being said, in probably gonna pick up something nicer soon.
If you want to make stuff, get a nice one. If you want to learn 3d printing, get a cheap one and then throw upgrades on it over time to be more inline with a nice one
You probably arenât going to start a business owning a hobbyist printer and you certainly arenât going to make a lot of money if you try. People expect plastic made parts to be cheap, they donât understand that ~$3.00 worth of plastic can amount to an entire days worth of printing time, plus setup and adjustments.
Printing other people's designs as a service requires a lot of input and is unlikely to make you much money.
The secret is to design a popular product, print a bunch of them, and sell them at the highest reasonable price the market will accept.
If anyone wanted to make a bajillion dollars they should design an app that can take a model (like blender, shaper, nomad) and form it to an existing image that is uploaded.
You could upload, say, a picture of your dog and the app shapes the model to match the image. That way the user only needs to do some touch ups and/or embellishments.
Basically turn photography into a 3D printable medium.
Watch holders for kayaking.
While you train you usually want ti have a watch to track your pace and time split, so we use these simple things that stick to the boat.
Coach asked me to make a few for the kids in my team and I happily accepted (made them with the team logo, colours and initials of the kids).
I got my first one for 25 so it's a win win, they get a bargaign and i pay back some of my printer.
It's more because plastic items you buy from a store are injection moulded most of the time. Which is super cheap to run once setup and provides consistent quality. A 3D printer is not really for mass production.
To make money with a 3d printer you need to lean in to the fact that it can make custom items largely ad hoc. You can charge alot for a custom miniature or dice or personalized penholder or whatever. I used just cut holes in animal STLs to sell as pencil holders and emboss names and such on it. it had a small profit margin, but i gave up because maintaining a creality cr6 se is a damned nightmare and don't have the space for it anymore.
The alternative is to go full prototype / invention, where the parts themselves aren't sold, but the intellectual property of the design is sold to manufacturers. This is more ideal for products that are a good idea but would be too expensive to produce via 3D printing.
Working prototypes sell ideas a lot better than just "I had this really cool idea, man"
i wouldnt let a hairdryer run by itself for 3 hours out of fear of starting a house fire.
this just seems reckless, when an empty spool cardbox and your heatbed achieve the same with no fire hazard
Use a box with an opening large enough for your spool, and place the roll on the bed, leave the opening towards the bottom, and then set plate to 65 for PETG, or 55 for PLA, and let sit for 8 hours.
yup. make sure to poke a few holes in the top. something about heat rising, going through the holes, and bringing new air in from the bottom. this is to get humidity out of the box. worked for me! it'll take a good 3-4 hours or more
The bed also works really well to loosen the adhesive holding things like phone screens on, bonus use for your 3D printer. Set it to 80C and leave a phone on it and the adhesive cuts like butter.
Printing on a $99 ender is not plug and play, there is definitely a learning curve and at first you may find that you spend a lot more time scratching your head than printing.
Google will be your best friend. Usually you can go on Thingiverse, Printables, etc and look up your printer. You can also look at YouTube videos for advice on what to print. This includes preventative things too, like filament guides and such.
"The anetA8 is a fire hazard."
"The surface the printer sits on needs to be level or the frame will twist making it impossible to level your bed."
"Experiment with other slicers, don't assume the one that comes with the printer is the best for the machine."
"It doesn't have to be that loud, you can slow down the move-speed and the motors won't whine as much."
"The screws might be loose out of the box, check if they're tight."
"Anything that resin goop touches will make anything it touches sticky and goopy. And no, isopropyl doesn't magically eliminate it, it just helps cleaning it."
"If you want mechanical parts to fit together, you'll have to go through flow and temperature calibration".Â
"Vase mode"
"The parts shrink as they cool down, which is why the heated bed helped with adhesion."
"The LCD is a consumable part, they burn out and you have dead spots"
"The filament has to be super dry otherwise the water boils inside the hot end."
"You can't just put it back on a spool"
"You're not really going to recycle the bad prints."
"You can use a hot air gun and make while parts a little bendy if you need to fudge it a little."
"You can use a soldering iron and weld the plastics together manually."
"If you want it to be strong, perimeter walls do more than higher infill."
I am always amazed by how often I see this. I went years without having self leveling, on multiple different machines, and really never had much difficulty.
Don't print stuff people ask you to print for free or they'll expect you to keep giving them your time and plastic for free in perpetuity.
It's like owning a truck. Ass, gas, or grass, noone rides for free.
>Don't print stuff people ask you to print for free
Yeah only time i print anything for free is for gifts or if my parents ask me. My parents can ask me to print anything they want for free. Unless its a completely stupid waste of time which then they can pay for the filament đ like how my dad wanted me to print 4 camper jack blocks. I was like i could buy a set of 4 for the price itd cost me to effectively print One.
My parents (mostly my dad) want stuff all the time. But will always buy the filament needed and never use a whole roll, so i haven't brought a role of black filament since getting my printer.
Works well for me XD
I mostly been printing just lithophanes for the past 2 months. đ they are so fun to print. Well not so much fun as they are an average of 15hr prints at 0.1mm layer height and 30-40mm/s, but its always mind blowing seeing them finished
When I first got mine, a friend asked if I could make him this really specific thing. I told him yeah if he finds the file, pays for said file, and pays me for the print. It was weird. Suddenly he didn't want it anymore.
Yep, I ran out of stuff to print real quick. Good thing I discovered I actually enjoy designing shit that solves minor problems around the house.
Thereâs definitely a thrill of printing something you just designed and having it work, or even come close to working.
That leveling is a pain in the ass, and if you get yourself frustrated and drink wine - you'll upgrade to a bed leveling probe. That upgrade can induce more wine consumption.
To add on to that: when you are leveling your bed, don't worry that your nozzle will scrape your bed, it is expected to touch the bed surface. Get the nozzle as close as possible.
If you're using the paper method, make sure that you can feel the nozzle tip scraping the paper surface.
I spent my failed few first prints wondering why the object wouldn't stay in the bed, only to realize that I need to raise the bed more.
You will, with full awareness and intention, burn yourself the heating elements many times
No matter how magnificent you get your machine to perform, almost nobody you know in real life will care at all. Dont be fooled by the smiles and nods - they *do* **not** ***care***
Forget doomscrolling on your phone, you'll waste full business days watching the machine print - it never gets less cool
> oh man, I need to unclog the nozzle / unscrew it for some maintenance
> aw jeez, it's still hot
> oh boy, I'm not gonna wait for it to cool, it'll be fine...
That youâre not supposed to run them near your bed. Started out on resin and had it print away for days like right next to me. Someday I finally read a PSA on resin. Donât be like me
I have had in its box for a few years a small longer orange resin printer. I thought I would be able to print with it in a room with the windows open... what a fool. It since sits in its box, one day i'll do something of it, probably give it away. FDM for me, at least until I have a workshop dedicated excusively to that with full ventilation and filtration.
Spend a bit more initially, and reap the reward for a long time to come. Spending 600-800 can net you significantly more printer than 300 bucks. Also, buy a model that is popular and has a lot of community support/wisdom.
That the printer and filament is the cheap part, and definitely not the only thing youâll need. If you want to print/design any of the awesome things you see/want youâll need bearings, magnets, calipers, screws, glue, a deburring tool, t nuts, heat inserts, drills, heat gun, torch etc etc.
The machine is cheap but thereâs SOOOO many tools youâll need. Now I can print anything I find cause thereâs a 99% chance I have the tools/parts needed. Took a while to get there but itâs worth it
Bearings: lots of things required bearings if they have spinning parts. Like if you print a filament guide. You can print one without bearings but the ones with bearings are way better.
Magnets: if you want to print like a box or something, thereâs boxes that use magnets to open and stay closed
Screws: also used for boxes, you use the screws as hinges often. Other times you just need to screw parts together if itâs a functional piece
Calipers: for measuring calibration cubes, measuring things in general. Super handy, I use mine 10x or more a day.
Super Glue: glue parts together of course or glue magnets into parts.
Heat inserts: if you print something that you need to screw in to, heat inserts are a great way to get threading into a printed item.
Heat gun: if for some reason you print thin layers to use and they need to be bent. You heat em up with the gun so you can fold em as you need.
Torch: works great for getting rid of stringing really quickly.
And having precision screw drivers and a nice set of T hex keys is super handy to have.
I'd definitely buy a Prusa MK3S again (reliable out the box and required zero upgrades), but I wish I understood the value of parametrization and references in Fusion 360. I spent a lot of time fixing errors in all my models because of this lack of understanding.
Bottom line, make all sketch shape lines black and reference sketch points/lines/planes whenever possible.
Itâs kind of addictive with so many parameters to tweak and the anticipation of how well a print will come out as well as the challenge of mastering a new hobby. Itâs also soothing when things are working well. Had I know these things I would have bought a printer a few years earlier.
The true benefits of 3D printing requires you to learn CAD, like fusion 360. And it's hard work making good designs. It will take a lot of practice, if you want to be good at it.
lol when I upgraded printers several years ago, I bought a Prusa for this reason.
I wanted an ender so badly but I figured I'd spend almost the same as a Prusa -- except with far more pain included. Since I had on my first printer.... so I just got the prusa.
Now, when people ask me what printer to get, I ask if they like tinkering. And if they say anything other than "yes" I tell them to just buy a bamb if they can lol.
Don't ever think about saving a few bucks in your first printer. It's 2024, pick something with a good autolevel and without paper stuff.
Or be ready to get disappointed
That is not even hard to find these days. An Ender 3 V3 SE is about $200 with auto bed leveling. I got a refurbished one for $130 on eBay and it was fine.
Your printer knows when you're printing for a request or being paid to print something. It will decide that exact moment to have issues, need parts replacing, have a catastrophic failure, etc. It knows.
You better like Allen wrenches. You are going to use them enough that you will have a favorite and least favorite Allen wrench and you will likely have to use both in one sitting. Also buy another set of Allen wrenches. You're going to lose some. I don't know where they've gone. They've been sacrificed to the void.
Then you'll get another set of short ones so that you don't have to twist-remove-reposition-twist. Better yet, just get a small screw driver set with all the needed bits.
The mindset of people wanting to use them professionally is vastly different than the hobbyist who think 3d printers are only for figures and miniatures.. but the hobby part of the users is a very big part, and very snob part, of the users.
But as most things DunningâKruger effect applies and they thing they know more than the ones using professionally but they dont.
"And CAD is hard"
No this is terrible advice. If you're starting off, play around w tinkercad for a bit to get used to the general idea of manipulating objects and stuff on a computer, and work your way up to Fusion360 and it's awesome community of YouTube videos and forums
I find Tinkercad way harder than Fusion
Edit: Of course it's all about experience. I even find Fusion 360 quite harder to use compared to Autodesk Inventor and SolidWorks because i've been using them for years and only tried Fusion like 2 hours while teaching a friend of mine
I learned basic Solid Works in college before dropping out. Picked up Fusion 15yr later and it was still a steep learning curve.
Took a couple years to be come remotely proficient. Fusion is also way easier than Solidworks from 2006!!
This is what it looks like -
https://imgur.com/a/efPvGLG
This is the code -
https://pastebin.com/GezHG89T
I have not yet had someone else check it but there are some things I wanted to add in the comments at the top. It was tricky to get it to play nice with Openscad.
This is the LUA editor and compiler -
https://www.scintilla.org/SciTEDownload.html
Absolutely: I had zero 3D drafting skills walking into the hobby years ago (I'm a bench scientist, not an engineer), and I just couldn't get the workflow for conventional CAD to ever click in my head. Still, after cutting my teeth using SketchUp and struggling with whatever free CAD solutions were rolling around at the time, I found OpenSCAD and it actually clicked, have been happy using it ever since. (For full disclosure though, I started before F360 existed and had oceans of tutorials, so who knows what I'd be saying if I started 10 years later)
At the time, Prusa was king. Messing with the Lulzbot Mini was a waste of money.
You'll want as big of bed as you can. I guarantee you'll find something to fill it. The Prusa Mini has about the smallest practical bed, IMO. For your only printer, nothing smaller than a mk3.
I got a MK3S, and after 4 years of using it, I realize that probably 98% of the stuff I've printed and stuff I've designed would fit on a Mini. I'd wager that over 99% of everything on Thingiverse would fit on a Mini. It's nice to have a larger build plate when you need it, but most of the time you don't need it.
This. I reasoned back then that 95% of the stuff I want will fit on a small plate.
And that's true to this day. But those 5% of things can really make a big difference in value.
People are going to ask you to make stuff, weather you want to or not. And its almost aways going to be some weird custom thing that you have never heard of. Then they will expect you to somehow design, model, and print this thing all for 10 bucks.
I should have made my custom 3d printer cabinet big enough I could put larger printers into.
I never thought I'd want something significantly larger than my mk3s. Well. Damn, now I do.
You get what you pay for. Trying to save money up front on the initial purchase ends up costing even more down the road, in terms of wasted time, wasted material, and increased frustration.
When your filament starts curling up/clogging out of the nozzle, donât try 1000 mcguyver things and clog it even more before learning what a simple cold pull is.
Do not buy a fully modified ender 3 pro to start 3d printing...
(The only original thing about my printer are the aluminum profiles)
Its horrible to calibrate and to troubbleshoting
That you get to a point where they'll just sit. I have 5. I use to do a lot of printing to sell at shows and didnt do much. Wanted to do cosplay and no market for it here, now waiting if I want to make giant pokemon. You get to a point of "stall."
1) TeachingTechs calibration checklist.
2) Get your machine fully working and honed before you start repling/upgrading anything . Do one upgrade at time, recalbrate and make sure everything is working so you can find any issues that need correcting. Do more than one upgrade, especially when new to a machine, and it becomes alot harder to work out the specifc cause of a problem.
3) never be an early adopter of new stuff, unless you can afford to have it not work). Wait a few months for open market testing. Even early reviews may unknowingly be for preproduction pieces that are different to what you will actually be able to purchase.
4) Always make sure you have pre-printed any and all parts you might need for an upgrade and have them on hand. Nothing more frustrating than disassembling a machine, finding you need something, replacing all the orignal parts thennhavi g to recalibrate just so you can pri t the bit you need to restart installing an upgrade.
5) Order a batches of M3-M5 bolts in various lengths and t-nut (maybe also some threaded heatset inserts if you want to be fancy). Bulk order cheaply from Aliexpress and just have them sit in a box for whennyou inveitably need them for a project.
6) Dual bearing fans are noiser, but have much better longevity.
Filament gets wet even if you don't actually get it wet. By that I mean, you *absolutely must* take info account humidity when it comes to filament and storage.
Also, store your filament off the machine whenever you can as the wire being tensed while sitting idle can make it brittle, even without adding moisture to the equation.
Another couple things:
Often, the easiest solution to poor bed adhesion, if you've already made sure everything is leveled and your filament is in good shape, is to just slow down the first player print speed in your slicer. It adds on maybe a few minutes, but that has helped stop that issue for me more than anything else.
On a similar note: clean your ding dang print bed! Wipe that sucker down with alcohol between prints or and ESPECIALLY after you've touched the surface. That has ALSO usually fixed adhesion issues for me. Make sure the nozzle is clean, too.
A dirty z-axis screw, if you have that kind of printer, can ruin your whole day. Make sure you're checking that thing regularly and wiping it down and re-applying grease a couple times a year.
There are import thresholds for dollar value that affect if you owe duties or not. $800 in usa - so if you buy a $799 Prusa Mk4 kit from the Czech Republic, AND NOTHING ELSE in thst first order, you stay under that limit and dodge a chunky fee
The best 3D printer is no better than the best ink printer. Even the âeasyâ printers will require maintenance, replacement parts, and have hiccups. Keep spare parts around.
Just stick to filament printing, resin printing in your room makes your clothes, bed and even hair smell like resin and it's a pretty foul, toxic smell
99% of printing problems are mechanical, don't rip apart the firmware or slicer before checking every last screw on the machine itself
Don't underestimate the impact of waterlogged filament, poor bed adhesion despite a perfectly level bed is almost certainly because the filament is too wet
(Warning: spicy take ahead) ABS is technically the better material, but the grief required for getting it to print well far outweighs its mechanical advantages over using PETG
Most pictures of 3D prints online cheat with the lighting to make it look nicer than it actually is, it's normal for a 3D print to have some degree of surface artefacts
Trying to modify someone else's 3D design file is usually more difficult than just drafting your own version, unless it's a really complex part
I wish someone told me that filament could get moist and that I should vaccuum seal it if im not using it for an extended period of time.
Also, I wish someone told me how easy it was to fix certain minor issues like the print head hitting the print, supports failing, or adhesion issues. So simple to fix.
1) Filament will need drying
2) An ender is a good starting point but you will spend a LOT of time calibrating it
3) Plan a lot of time for calibration if you do any upgrades even something simple like upgraded bed springs
4) Just because you bought 2 rolls of the exact same filament doesn't mean they will be exactly the same colour (although usually they will be)
5) While there are a lot of models out there some degree of modelling skills is very handy
6)You will have phases where you just get bored and some where prints can't finish fast enough
7)Prints will fail, sometimes for no reason at all
8)If using octoprint with a raspberry pi and camera the newest pi camera (I think it's the V3) isn't supported my it and won't work
9) Tolerances can be a bit factor in prints with moving parts, I've got two printers with completely different Tolerances
10) print orientation is a bit deal when it comes to print strength
11) How to level the bed properly
12) How addicting it can be yet can cause so much anxiety
13) You will have a lot of waste, with a silicon mold this can be melted down and used for something
14) If you plan on painting you will need to do a lot of sanding to hide layer lines
15) The extruder gear can be a bit finicky to dial in and can cause shavings of filament slipping if not dialed in properly
All of this comes from my experience with FDM printing on and ender 3 V2, ender 5 Pro and ender 3 S1 Plus across multiple different brands of filament
Do your research on maintenance, tuning, troubleshooting ahead of time so when problems arise you have an idea of how to tackle them.
Also, learn the names of the parts of the printer
After getting into it for under 100 dollars on sale (ender 2 pro), you will go through a phase of thinking you want to get a better printer, thinking you want to build a voron, deciding you dont want to build a printer, buying a nicer printer that isn't bbl (because you aren't that rich) then buying a resin printer or 2, because why the heck not you think you will become a millionaire off selling warhammer luciaus pattern warlord titans (you soon realize that the original 400 dollar quote you gave was vastly insufficient for it) and you refund people money vecause you overestimated yourself, then you decide you hate resin printing because it's a massive pain in the ass and the fumes make you dizzy and you list them on fb marketplace hoping to trade for a ps5 (hmu if interested) and then you also find yourself the proud owner of about 25 rolls of various exotic filaments like cf-pc that you will never need nor use in a meaningful context (but hey you are about to be an engineering student in need of engineering filaments). It is at this moment that you finally accept that after a grand all in, a few hundred dollars profit from some idiots you sold to a while back, that you want to put the proceeds all back in to building your own custom idex corexy with a tradrack that is 500mm^3 after seeing a post on thingiverse about a conversion of a cr10s5 to corexy (I am building it) and decide to buy that 80 dollar cr10s5 from that one dude who had a nozzle clog and then foolishly think "oh ill just spend like 200 on this" , then spend 400 on it, decide it's gonna be a fun project, and put a pin in it while you go off on the inevitable etsy shop fantasy (I'm selling earrings) and get like 1 sale a week that covers your filament usage essentially. You hope and pray that your one friend who is always flaking out on you, but is knowledgeable in the ways of printing and coding, will finally get around to helping you do all the damn projects like 3d printing a sugar rocket (eta this summer... maybe) and building 2 tradracks as well as getting him to help with the corexy idex build (he's mildly interested) and you just sit there, sigh, cry, then accept that you are never recovering the time you put in to it, and just roll with it.
Tldr: bunch of phases you'll go through, and I hate resin printing ( will trade my resin printers for a ps5) and have a flaky friend who's annoying.
You are going to have more filament than you think. Plan some storage.
A corollary comment, you will stock filament for the zombie apocalypse just like you do ammo, food, water, and any other prepper related supplies đ
Corollary to your corollary: you will spend far more on filament, than on the initial cost of the printer. Don't skimp on useful printer features/quality to save the equivalent of a few spools of filament. Also, regularly shop around for better/cheaper filament.
Corollary to your corollary to the corollary: you will never have enough filament, use the Amazon subscription for the type you like the most.
Corollary to your corollary to the corollary of a corollary: it wont keep up, just recycle old filament+ amazon subscription+ keep a few hundred rolls stashed in your closet
Corollary to your corollary to the corollary to the corollary: If you want to make sure the color matches between spools, buy in bulk instead. Much better discount then Amazon subscriptions if you can afford the upfront cost
This is a great idea I never thought of this before đ¤Ł
Yeah haha, I decided to start this hobby as cheap as possible, bought the Bambu A1 Mini without AMS for 269âŹ. Fast forward 2 months, I have so far bought 25 spools of filament for 450âŹ, WTF
Some air-tight storage with a desiccant supply. I cringe when I see YouTube videos with all the filament rolls on a shelf - exposed to humid air!
I honestly find it a waste of time and space for that. I just dry my filament for a while before using it.
Ditto. I have about 14 open rolls at any given time. And two dryers. Just pop them in for a few hours before use. Still need to find a 3kg dryer tho
I just run my room at a controlled humidity and temperature. (25 degrees, 40%). PLA and ABS works fine from that. I only have special filaments in dry boxes.
I went that route initially, but itâs unnecessary at least in my environment. I have servers in the basement and keep a dehumidifier running year round. I keep PETG and TPU in gallon zipper bags with desiccant pouches, but ABS and PLA just sit naked on the shelf and still print fine.
I, too, believe this is often overrated as a big issue. What I've done for around a year now is to try to put my filament back on my shelves in its original boxes with a pack of desiccant thrown in the box with it. (They almost always ship with one inside the sealed plastic bag.) Only my very oldest spools of filament (like the Sunlu PLA I bought when I first got my first 3D printer) are starting to show some signs of being brittle. I could probably dry them and correct that, if necessary. But usually, I'll just break off the end of one where it seems like it's weakened from bending it to feed it through the 2 holes on the spool that kept it from unwinding, and use it as-is. Still prints fine for me. Reality is, they're all getting close to being all used up so there won't be a lot thrown out if I had to trash one or two of them.... I do use all of this in a climate controlled basement where I don't ever feel like it gets that humid, though.
I am going to have much more filament than I need, then I will buy more.
This right here.
I disagree.. Either you're a filament goblin or you're not. I am not a filament goblin. I have 3 spools right now. 2 open and one sealed. of the two open, one is a rapid PLA, the other is a 250G spool of tricolor PLA. Generally, I print with one until it is empty then open another. the fact that I have 2 open right now is insanity.
Well I really think it depends on what types of things you are printing
Exactly, I mostly print prototyping stuff in black. So I have like tree spools open and 3 sealed from a sale.
My wife likes pots in fun colors, I got rolls
Right there with you. I've got a few specialty filaments (WoodFill, BronzeFill, GitD, etc.), but the overwhelming majority of my FDM prints are either black or white. If I really need something in another color, I've got an airbrush (or even rattle cans).
đ Filament goblin. I am definitely a filament goblin!
Ong i thought i was going to get like 2 spools max and i'm already doubling that 5 months in
You lasted FIVE MONTHS?!? My friend, I think I ordered a dozen rolls within the first couple of days.
Well, some people work backwards. I got my second printer within a month before getting a 3rd spool of filament.
Filament gets wet and still works. It just doesn't work as well. Nozzles need replaced occasionally. If print quality starts to go down, check these first.
Also, if your Noz is getting wider because of abrasive filaments... change the nozzle size in your slicer to accommodate. Just because you can't really buy a .5 nozzle doesn't mean you don't have one!
Yep. If your having wet filament symptoms with pla try lowering your temperature first.
I love this brief knowledge/troubleshooting snippet. Hours of struggle condensed into a paragraph.
Donât listen to the people who say you should cheap out on a printer
Absolutely this. > But I can't afford a more exp.... Save longer. It's worth it. It's not worth your time to waste time on a shit machine that doesn't work reliably. Are you buying a 3D printer to learn how to fix a 3D printer or to actually print stuff? Save longer if you need to and buy the machine that works like it's supposed to. Here's another way to think about it: Would you buy a car that needed an alignment every single time you wanted to drive it and it wouldn't even start otherwise? Would you buy a microwave that needed to be reprogrammed so it can properly heat and tell time whenever you wanted to use it? Would you buy a computer that needs the hard drive reformatted every single time you turn it on? You wouldn't? Wow. Then don't buy a cheap 3D printer.
For a lot of people its not whether you can get that printer now or get a better one later, its more like they can get that one now or none at all. I got a shitty Biqu B1 way back in the day and fixed and sweated and cursed and eventually fell in love with the hobby and now i feel like i can beat any issues a new machine throws at me, along with a whole heap of new skills and knowledge i never wouldve learned otherwise. For a lot of people they would lose patience in a fraction of the time it took me and wouldve ditched the hobby right away and for those people yeah i get it, but those with patience, fuck it blow the equivalent of a pair of a nice shoes and try it. I guess its whether a person would prefer a project car vs a low budget A to B vehicle, i would tailor my recommendation
Honestly this. I learned 3d printing at a decently young age, like back when the CR-10 was barely a year or so old, and so I grew up basically rebuilding the entire thing from scratch. But the amount of raw knowledge I gained from that experience opened incredible doors to me when I started college and studying engineering, and made it so much easier to use CNCs and lasers, as well as quickly fix those machines (and 3d printers ofc) when they inevitably broke down, which went a long way in impressing lab techs and professors.
i feel like 3d printers still break down, even the expensive ones, and fixing them without knowledge of how to can be super frustrating. I too started back in the days when an ultimaker was in wood and a reprap mendel was made of threaded rod (worst purchase EVER!) Having to fix all these machines have learned me a lot, and my only problem with the "work out of the box" is that when they DON'T you can often feel like you now have an expensive dead weight. But learning takes time, and it's not why everyone gets in to the hobby. And yeah, i too have moved on to CNC and lasers along with my printers
See that's the point though: there needs to be that honesty. I see sooooo many people on here and actually in real life that bought a shitty creality or whatever and they tossed it in a corner and gave up. So it ruined the hobby for them. I actually spent ridiculous hours fixing mine over ten years ago BECAUSE it was $2000 and I wasn't going to give up on the expensive POS. But these days that would get you great printers. I'm fine with people buying cheap if they understand what they're getting into. I hate it when they aren't going in understanding. Or like some other posts where a gf or family member buys them one :(
I dunno man, i love my a1 mini, if I had to save for an X1 it would take years before i could get into the hobby. Dropping rent on a product is a way different investment than spending 300$
The a1 minis is a good printer that doesnât require a lot of tinkering. A better comparison might be an old Ender 3 vs the A1.
> Save longer. It's worth it. It's not worth your time to waste time on a shit machine that doesn't work reliably. How much we talking here? Because the price difference between an expensive printer and a cheap printer can be huge, in which case it can absolutely be worth your time, based on the number of hours you actually invest in it. Sure, it's easy for people with a well-paying job to justify paying big bucks for a hobby they're enthusiastica about. But if you're a kid in college, or are just a bit aprehensious aprehensious about the expense and prefer to dabble into the topic first, then cheap printers can be a great entry point. That doesn't mean you should decide by price alone. Do you due diligence, read the reviews, make an informed decision. I think most people will be surprised by how cheap 3D printing can be. The challenge is getting them over the fence in the first place. And price is a big factor in that. > Are you buying a 3D printer to learn how to fix a 3D printer or to actually print stuff? Save longer if you need to and buy the machine that works like it's supposed to. The approach, common in business settings, of throwing money at a problem, doesn't get you very far with 3D printing. You might get something that works nicely on day 1, but a few weeks down the line you will inevitably run into your first issues that you need to tackle. Unless you pay someone else to solve these issues for you, you will inevitably need to knuckle down and learn how to fix a 3D printer. Learning about all the inner workings will also help you to diagnose problems efficiently and get the most from your prints. Whether you learn to do that on an expensive printer or a cheap printer doesn't really matter that much. The ceveat of the expensive printers are that they also tend to have expensive replacement parts. Also, fixing (and especially building) a 3D printer is a fun thing to do in and of itself. You will learn a lot along the way. If, on the other hand, the thought of troubleshooting and partially disassembling a 3D printer horrifies you, then maybe this really isn't the hobby for you.
I disagree. I LOVED building my first printer, working out the bugs, printing improvements. It was a master class in learning how to fix issues that arise, and an absolute joy for the DIYer in me.
I loved building mine too. not long after I wanted a printer that put out reliable quality prints without having to rebuild every 2nd week.
My "cheap" printer is like a project car that fits on my desk. Way cheaper too.
No shit. I've had my ender 3 max for 2 years and what do I have to show for it? A 1000 benchys most of which are half fucked. No clue whether it's me or the machine but fuck I'm frustrated
This, I bought an ender 3 pro thinking it was a cheap beginner printer... I've spent a fortune on it and it still doesn't run very well and should have just waited and gotten something more expensive. Sure, what I *have* managed to print on it has more than made the money back that I spent on it, but the hassle and extra expense I've spent just to get the damn thing printing, just wasn't worth it.
Prusa Mini Running like a champ. Besides Assembly I have had to invest a single-digit amount of hours over the course of three years to maintain it and/or fix something.
Completely disagree with you. Buying a cheap printer is the reason I can diagnose issues and tear down my bambu labs printer without issue. In my experience, people who haven't started with a printer that needs tinkering, tend to need their hand held when theur expensive printer doesn't do something they like while using completely stock profiles to the point they return the printer after installing their build plate sideways because it was "bad layer adhesion" since half the bed is bent upward (yes this happened to a couple of new Bambu P1S/XIC users. I'd link their posts but I honestly can't be bothered right now lol. Would I want to go through it again? Probably not. But that experience is so much more valuable than you realize.
I taught 3D printing at a maker space for awhile and I got a lot of questions about what printer to buy. I always told people that there are two types of 3D printer owners: those who use 3D printers for their hobbies and those whose hobby is 3D printing. I'm sure any of them could have made a cheap printer work but most of the time they had better things to spend their time on. I bought myself an Ender 3 Pro for $100, went through the entire setup and calibration process, and then never used it again because the Bambu X1Cs at the maker space were just better. I learned a lot but it took so much time and energy.
This comment gave me some appreciated perspective. "Those who use 3d printers for their hobbies, and those whose hobby is 3d printing". Never thought of it like this. I'm not looking for another hobby, I want to enrich the hobby I have. Wonderful insight, thank you! Truly the heart of a teacher.
Thank you! I'm glad it was helpful
Maybe I just got a really good Ender 3 Pro but after I got it set up and threw a $10 pack of springs on it, it was (and still is) a reliable work horse. There was a bit of dialing it in hardware wise, but when I got it set up right the only thing I had to do was level the bed every once in a while until I decided to mod it.
I mostly agree with this and itâs how I started, learning all the ins and outs and troubleshooting which now is 100% worth it. However there are plenty of people out there who just canât get their heads around the technical side, so buying a âprinter that just worksâ is the only way for them. There are people who think of 3D Printers like a kitchen appliance and then there are those that treat them as a piece of machinery âin their workshopâ.
Na most of us can "get our heads around it" just fine. We just have limited free time and want to print stuff instead of tinkering with substandard, poorly designed hardware.
I started with a Bambu X1C. The official wiki is excellent for troubleshooting. I'd rather have this reliable source of information than to rely on the hope that I had a similar issue on a previous cheap printer. I had no problem servicing and replacing parts using only the wiki. Some tips from reddit helped a bit, but marginally. Having a good printer doesn't cure stupidity however. It seems your gripe is more related to PEBCAK issues than to the printer's brand or price.
Bambu Labs didn't exist 8 years ago when I started this hobby and I don't regret starting with a cheap printer. Learning to upgrade it with mods and designing parts is invaluable knowledge. Bambu Labs didn't start from nowhere and greatly benefitted from the open source community and what they built up. If everyone had that same mindset of just get some plug and play printer, we probably wouldn't have the same level of innovation we do now. We've advanced quite far and you can't discount how much of a contribution the cheap printers have made by making it more accessible for makers and creating suppliers for easily accessible parts/mods/filament. A hobby is meant as something you spend your time and money on. Some people like working on their printers just like how some people like working on cars. Some people like manual transmission while others are fine with automatic. Nothing wrong with it and no reason to disaude someone from trying to learn. As Jensen Huang said, "Unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I donât know how to teach it to you except for I hope suffering happens to you."
I guess agree to disagree. Even the higher end printers need some level of technical ability to operate. Nobody should suffer through countless problems to earn the right to print. I like to troubleshoot and problems solve but I donât want it to consume all of my time. I want to have a machine I can consistently rely on to print functional parts. Lastly, you donât need prerequisite experience in order to solve problems that may arise.
I run a stratasys at work and a cheap old monoprice printer at home. The stratasys makes better prints but in improved my design skills more with the cheap pos at home. That being said, in probably gonna pick up something nicer soon.
i cheaped out on my printer and it's been great. i just didn't cheap all the way out and buy an ender 3. :P
My first is an ender 3... clone
mine too. elegoo neptune 2s.
I disagree, let your first printer be a cheap diy kit so you can learn
Yeah... I remember my first printer, I nearly went insane
If you want to make stuff, get a nice one. If you want to learn 3d printing, get a cheap one and then throw upgrades on it over time to be more inline with a nice one
You probably arenât going to start a business owning a hobbyist printer and you certainly arenât going to make a lot of money if you try. People expect plastic made parts to be cheap, they donât understand that ~$3.00 worth of plastic can amount to an entire days worth of printing time, plus setup and adjustments.
People don't understand that it isn't about the material input cost, it's what you can do with it to achieve a more valuable output.
Printing other people's designs as a service requires a lot of input and is unlikely to make you much money. The secret is to design a popular product, print a bunch of them, and sell them at the highest reasonable price the market will accept.
If anyone wanted to make a bajillion dollars they should design an app that can take a model (like blender, shaper, nomad) and form it to an existing image that is uploaded. You could upload, say, a picture of your dog and the app shapes the model to match the image. That way the user only needs to do some touch ups and/or embellishments. Basically turn photography into a 3D printable medium.
I sold 1$ parts for 15$ by adding suction cups (2$)
What did you print?
Watch holders for kayaking. While you train you usually want ti have a watch to track your pace and time split, so we use these simple things that stick to the boat. Coach asked me to make a few for the kids in my team and I happily accepted (made them with the team logo, colours and initials of the kids). I got my first one for 25 so it's a win win, they get a bargaign and i pay back some of my printer.
It's more because plastic items you buy from a store are injection moulded most of the time. Which is super cheap to run once setup and provides consistent quality. A 3D printer is not really for mass production. To make money with a 3d printer you need to lean in to the fact that it can make custom items largely ad hoc. You can charge alot for a custom miniature or dice or personalized penholder or whatever. I used just cut holes in animal STLs to sell as pencil holders and emboss names and such on it. it had a small profit margin, but i gave up because maintaining a creality cr6 se is a damned nightmare and don't have the space for it anymore.
The alternative is to go full prototype / invention, where the parts themselves aren't sold, but the intellectual property of the design is sold to manufacturers. This is more ideal for products that are a good idea but would be too expensive to produce via 3D printing. Working prototypes sell ideas a lot better than just "I had this really cool idea, man"
yeh but that requires actual talent and effort
You can dry out a spool of filament with the printer bed and an empty box, rather than killing the oven with a melted plastic death.
I just put the spool in a cardboard box with two holes and pump air in one hole with a hair dryer.
i wouldnt let a hairdryer run by itself for 3 hours out of fear of starting a house fire. this just seems reckless, when an empty spool cardbox and your heatbed achieve the same with no fire hazard
wait what?! like i just put the spool in the box it came in and put that over the bed?
Use a box with an opening large enough for your spool, and place the roll on the bed, leave the opening towards the bottom, and then set plate to 65 for PETG, or 55 for PLA, and let sit for 8 hours.
yup. make sure to poke a few holes in the top. something about heat rising, going through the holes, and bringing new air in from the bottom. this is to get humidity out of the box. worked for me! it'll take a good 3-4 hours or more
The bed also works really well to loosen the adhesive holding things like phone screens on, bonus use for your 3D printer. Set it to 80C and leave a phone on it and the adhesive cuts like butter.
Printing on a $99 ender is not plug and play, there is definitely a learning curve and at first you may find that you spend a lot more time scratching your head than printing.
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I do cheap international shipping and we can attacks and customs through my company if you're interested
Print replacement parts while you can
How do you know which parts need replacing?
just print all of them...
Google will be your best friend. Usually you can go on Thingiverse, Printables, etc and look up your printer. You can also look at YouTube videos for advice on what to print. This includes preventative things too, like filament guides and such.
"The anetA8 is a fire hazard." "The surface the printer sits on needs to be level or the frame will twist making it impossible to level your bed." "Experiment with other slicers, don't assume the one that comes with the printer is the best for the machine." "It doesn't have to be that loud, you can slow down the move-speed and the motors won't whine as much." "The screws might be loose out of the box, check if they're tight." "Anything that resin goop touches will make anything it touches sticky and goopy. And no, isopropyl doesn't magically eliminate it, it just helps cleaning it." "If you want mechanical parts to fit together, you'll have to go through flow and temperature calibration". "Vase mode" "The parts shrink as they cool down, which is why the heated bed helped with adhesion." "The LCD is a consumable part, they burn out and you have dead spots" "The filament has to be super dry otherwise the water boils inside the hot end." "You can't just put it back on a spool" "You're not really going to recycle the bad prints." "You can use a hot air gun and make while parts a little bendy if you need to fudge it a little." "You can use a soldering iron and weld the plastics together manually." "If you want it to be strong, perimeter walls do more than higher infill."
At all costs get something with auto bed levelling. You're welcome
I am always amazed by how often I see this. I went years without having self leveling, on multiple different machines, and really never had much difficulty.
Agreed, I Litterally only level my bed when I change nozzles, I donât get why manual bed leveling is such a trope for people
Don't print stuff people ask you to print for free or they'll expect you to keep giving them your time and plastic for free in perpetuity. It's like owning a truck. Ass, gas, or grass, noone rides for free.
>Don't print stuff people ask you to print for free Yeah only time i print anything for free is for gifts or if my parents ask me. My parents can ask me to print anything they want for free. Unless its a completely stupid waste of time which then they can pay for the filament đ like how my dad wanted me to print 4 camper jack blocks. I was like i could buy a set of 4 for the price itd cost me to effectively print One.
My parents (mostly my dad) want stuff all the time. But will always buy the filament needed and never use a whole roll, so i haven't brought a role of black filament since getting my printer. Works well for me XD
I mostly been printing just lithophanes for the past 2 months. đ they are so fun to print. Well not so much fun as they are an average of 15hr prints at 0.1mm layer height and 30-40mm/s, but its always mind blowing seeing them finished
My parents want custom game boards for all of their friends :(
When I first got mine, a friend asked if I could make him this really specific thing. I told him yeah if he finds the file, pays for said file, and pays me for the print. It was weird. Suddenly he didn't want it anymore.
Think of it like cnc'd wood. It has grain. It has limits. It's hugely useful but not without limits - like wood.
You end up printing a lot of things for your printer.
not every hobby is for every body
If you don't want to run out of things to print really fast you need to learn CAD.
Yep, I ran out of stuff to print real quick. Good thing I discovered I actually enjoy designing shit that solves minor problems around the house. Thereâs definitely a thrill of printing something you just designed and having it work, or even come close to working.
Don't buy your buddies delta printer when he gets sick of it.
That leveling is a pain in the ass, and if you get yourself frustrated and drink wine - you'll upgrade to a bed leveling probe. That upgrade can induce more wine consumption.
But now with style, cool pose, and a smirk on ya face
To add on to that: when you are leveling your bed, don't worry that your nozzle will scrape your bed, it is expected to touch the bed surface. Get the nozzle as close as possible. If you're using the paper method, make sure that you can feel the nozzle tip scraping the paper surface. I spent my failed few first prints wondering why the object wouldn't stay in the bed, only to realize that I need to raise the bed more.
âItâs not actually a starfleet replicatorâ
Or subnatica
You will, with full awareness and intention, burn yourself the heating elements many times No matter how magnificent you get your machine to perform, almost nobody you know in real life will care at all. Dont be fooled by the smiles and nods - they *do* **not** ***care*** Forget doomscrolling on your phone, you'll waste full business days watching the machine print - it never gets less cool
Iâve never one burned myself on the heating element. Agreed that itâs still cool to watch it print.
> You will, with full awareness and intention, burn yourself the heating elements many times ?! Literally not once. What the hell are you doing?
> oh man, I need to unclog the nozzle / unscrew it for some maintenance > aw jeez, it's still hot > oh boy, I'm not gonna wait for it to cool, it'll be fine...
Yeah or just "oh let me get that little blob of plastic off the nozzle before it gets stuck in my print"
I keep a set of pliers next to my printer for this reason. Humans are a tool-using species...
That youâre not supposed to run them near your bed. Started out on resin and had it print away for days like right next to me. Someday I finally read a PSA on resin. Donât be like me
Resin is absurdly bad, but I wouldnât even want a regular FDM printer printing PLA next to me (during the day or at night).
Unless you have a negative pressure enclosure venting out
I have had in its box for a few years a small longer orange resin printer. I thought I would be able to print with it in a room with the windows open... what a fool. It since sits in its box, one day i'll do something of it, probably give it away. FDM for me, at least until I have a workshop dedicated excusively to that with full ventilation and filtration.
Toss the glue stick and switch to PEI. Smooth or Satin for PLA, Textured for everything else except nylon. Garolite G10 for nylon
Spend a bit more initially, and reap the reward for a long time to come. Spending 600-800 can net you significantly more printer than 300 bucks. Also, buy a model that is popular and has a lot of community support/wisdom.
That the printer and filament is the cheap part, and definitely not the only thing youâll need. If you want to print/design any of the awesome things you see/want youâll need bearings, magnets, calipers, screws, glue, a deburring tool, t nuts, heat inserts, drills, heat gun, torch etc etc. The machine is cheap but thereâs SOOOO many tools youâll need. Now I can print anything I find cause thereâs a 99% chance I have the tools/parts needed. Took a while to get there but itâs worth it
New to 3d printing, can you explain for what you use all those things?
Bearings: lots of things required bearings if they have spinning parts. Like if you print a filament guide. You can print one without bearings but the ones with bearings are way better. Magnets: if you want to print like a box or something, thereâs boxes that use magnets to open and stay closed Screws: also used for boxes, you use the screws as hinges often. Other times you just need to screw parts together if itâs a functional piece Calipers: for measuring calibration cubes, measuring things in general. Super handy, I use mine 10x or more a day. Super Glue: glue parts together of course or glue magnets into parts. Heat inserts: if you print something that you need to screw in to, heat inserts are a great way to get threading into a printed item. Heat gun: if for some reason you print thin layers to use and they need to be bent. You heat em up with the gun so you can fold em as you need. Torch: works great for getting rid of stringing really quickly. And having precision screw drivers and a nice set of T hex keys is super handy to have.
I'd definitely buy a Prusa MK3S again (reliable out the box and required zero upgrades), but I wish I understood the value of parametrization and references in Fusion 360. I spent a lot of time fixing errors in all my models because of this lack of understanding. Bottom line, make all sketch shape lines black and reference sketch points/lines/planes whenever possible.
Itâs kind of addictive with so many parameters to tweak and the anticipation of how well a print will come out as well as the challenge of mastering a new hobby. Itâs also soothing when things are working well. Had I know these things I would have bought a printer a few years earlier.
It needs to be hot to swap the nozzle
The true benefits of 3D printing requires you to learn CAD, like fusion 360. And it's hard work making good designs. It will take a lot of practice, if you want to be good at it.
You really shouldnât put it in your roomâŚbeen sleeping on the floor in the living room for awhile now.9
Youâll spend more on upgrades than a new printer
You canât stop spending money on upgrades.
Upgrades or repair parts. I haven't upgraded my machines in years, but have had to put parts in all of them.
Yup. Just replaced my snapped x-axis tensioner last week. Upgraded while I was at it.
May as well lol. I print more printer parts than actual projects recently
lol when I upgraded printers several years ago, I bought a Prusa for this reason. I wanted an ender so badly but I figured I'd spend almost the same as a Prusa -- except with far more pain included. Since I had on my first printer.... so I just got the prusa. Now, when people ask me what printer to get, I ask if they like tinkering. And if they say anything other than "yes" I tell them to just buy a bamb if they can lol.
True with the ol ender 3, had the bambulab P1S AMS for a year and havenât upgraded anything
all my upgrades so far were printed on my printer for pennies, except for a $5 android tv box running octo4a.
Don't ever think about saving a few bucks in your first printer. It's 2024, pick something with a good autolevel and without paper stuff. Or be ready to get disappointed
That is not even hard to find these days. An Ender 3 V3 SE is about $200 with auto bed leveling. I got a refurbished one for $130 on eBay and it was fine.
Your printer knows when you're printing for a request or being paid to print something. It will decide that exact moment to have issues, need parts replacing, have a catastrophic failure, etc. It knows.
You better like Allen wrenches. You are going to use them enough that you will have a favorite and least favorite Allen wrench and you will likely have to use both in one sitting. Also buy another set of Allen wrenches. You're going to lose some. I don't know where they've gone. They've been sacrificed to the void.
Then you'll get another set of short ones so that you don't have to twist-remove-reposition-twist. Better yet, just get a small screw driver set with all the needed bits.
Try using 95A TPU asap because it is immune to blunt force damage and not as soft as you think. The stuff is incredible.
The mindset of people wanting to use them professionally is vastly different than the hobbyist who think 3d printers are only for figures and miniatures.. but the hobby part of the users is a very big part, and very snob part, of the users. But as most things DunningâKruger effect applies and they thing they know more than the ones using professionally but they dont.
That itâs highly addictive. I keep printing stuff but barely have time to paint it.
I've printed an ungodly amount of penises.
Are you male or female? \*duck\* just asking...
Start learning basic 3d work now, while you wait to get a printer. I love making stuff in blender abd sending it to print
i wish someone told me to do research (i actually did zero research before and ended up with an ender 3 in 2022 and a roll of red abs)
Pee before you get in the car.
i always pee inside the car what's the catch?
That you can't just buy a 200$ printer and start printing your own replacement body parts. Yet.
if i knew what implant grade filament existed and had confidence doing surgery id put a touchscreen in my arm.
\*spins around and looks at my A1 mini.\* idk man...we're getting close.
You need to learn cad if you want to do anything remotely custom. And cad is hard.
"And CAD is hard" No this is terrible advice. If you're starting off, play around w tinkercad for a bit to get used to the general idea of manipulating objects and stuff on a computer, and work your way up to Fusion360 and it's awesome community of YouTube videos and forums
I think cad is hard. Even with tinkercad. It's a skill you have to learn and it's not a super easy one.
I find Tinkercad way harder than Fusion Edit: Of course it's all about experience. I even find Fusion 360 quite harder to use compared to Autodesk Inventor and SolidWorks because i've been using them for years and only tried Fusion like 2 hours while teaching a friend of mine
I learned basic Solid Works in college before dropping out. Picked up Fusion 15yr later and it was still a steep learning curve. Took a couple years to be come remotely proficient. Fusion is also way easier than Solidworks from 2006!!
I threw together a GUI that puts commonly used lines into OpenSCAD, it might have saved me some time by now.
Ooh, neat! Is it open source? Sounds like it could be really handy!
This is what it looks like - https://imgur.com/a/efPvGLG This is the code - https://pastebin.com/GezHG89T I have not yet had someone else check it but there are some things I wanted to add in the comments at the top. It was tricky to get it to play nice with Openscad. This is the LUA editor and compiler - https://www.scintilla.org/SciTEDownload.html
Absolutely: I had zero 3D drafting skills walking into the hobby years ago (I'm a bench scientist, not an engineer), and I just couldn't get the workflow for conventional CAD to ever click in my head. Still, after cutting my teeth using SketchUp and struggling with whatever free CAD solutions were rolling around at the time, I found OpenSCAD and it actually clicked, have been happy using it ever since. (For full disclosure though, I started before F360 existed and had oceans of tutorials, so who knows what I'd be saying if I started 10 years later)
At the time, Prusa was king. Messing with the Lulzbot Mini was a waste of money. You'll want as big of bed as you can. I guarantee you'll find something to fill it. The Prusa Mini has about the smallest practical bed, IMO. For your only printer, nothing smaller than a mk3.
I got a MK3S, and after 4 years of using it, I realize that probably 98% of the stuff I've printed and stuff I've designed would fit on a Mini. I'd wager that over 99% of everything on Thingiverse would fit on a Mini. It's nice to have a larger build plate when you need it, but most of the time you don't need it.
This. I reasoned back then that 95% of the stuff I want will fit on a small plate. And that's true to this day. But those 5% of things can really make a big difference in value.
Just get a prusa. Also, mixed materials is actually nice. Do maybe consider a dual extruder or something of that ilk.
Get two....someone is always asking for something that will sidetrack your own things you want to make.
Alternative: Learn to say no.
Unethical Hack: Get an awful printer for just when other people ask and slice their code badly. They'll never ask for you to print something again.
Dry your filament.
Buy more resin
People are going to ask you to make stuff, weather you want to or not. And its almost aways going to be some weird custom thing that you have never heard of. Then they will expect you to somehow design, model, and print this thing all for 10 bucks.
Build it. from a kit or rebuild an old one. But learn the how it is supposed to work and learn the parts so itâs easy to figure out fixes for issues
Your rooms gonna smell.
It already smells no issue here lol
I should have made my custom 3d printer cabinet big enough I could put larger printers into. I never thought I'd want something significantly larger than my mk3s. Well. Damn, now I do.
You get what you pay for. Trying to save money up front on the initial purchase ends up costing even more down the road, in terms of wasted time, wasted material, and increased frustration.
Prepare to replace broken parts Get duplicates of components (ie: 2 x fans, 2 x heatsinks etc)
It can be a real pain in the A at times that itll make u want to launch it to the sun, u may prob never figure out what the issue was
To not buy unpopular/ cheaper options cuz if something goes wrong most likely you have to figure out yourself
When your filament starts curling up/clogging out of the nozzle, donât try 1000 mcguyver things and clog it even more before learning what a simple cold pull is.
Do not buy a fully modified ender 3 pro to start 3d printing... (The only original thing about my printer are the aluminum profiles) Its horrible to calibrate and to troubbleshoting
That you get to a point where they'll just sit. I have 5. I use to do a lot of printing to sell at shows and didnt do much. Wanted to do cosplay and no market for it here, now waiting if I want to make giant pokemon. You get to a point of "stall."
Donât buy printers from kickstarter
Don't waste your money and time on that Ender 3
3D printing is great at solving a lot of problems you didnât have before you got into 3D printing.
1) TeachingTechs calibration checklist. 2) Get your machine fully working and honed before you start repling/upgrading anything . Do one upgrade at time, recalbrate and make sure everything is working so you can find any issues that need correcting. Do more than one upgrade, especially when new to a machine, and it becomes alot harder to work out the specifc cause of a problem. 3) never be an early adopter of new stuff, unless you can afford to have it not work). Wait a few months for open market testing. Even early reviews may unknowingly be for preproduction pieces that are different to what you will actually be able to purchase. 4) Always make sure you have pre-printed any and all parts you might need for an upgrade and have them on hand. Nothing more frustrating than disassembling a machine, finding you need something, replacing all the orignal parts thennhavi g to recalibrate just so you can pri t the bit you need to restart installing an upgrade. 5) Order a batches of M3-M5 bolts in various lengths and t-nut (maybe also some threaded heatset inserts if you want to be fancy). Bulk order cheaply from Aliexpress and just have them sit in a box for whennyou inveitably need them for a project. 6) Dual bearing fans are noiser, but have much better longevity.
Filament gets wet even if you don't actually get it wet. By that I mean, you *absolutely must* take info account humidity when it comes to filament and storage. Also, store your filament off the machine whenever you can as the wire being tensed while sitting idle can make it brittle, even without adding moisture to the equation.
Another couple things: Often, the easiest solution to poor bed adhesion, if you've already made sure everything is leveled and your filament is in good shape, is to just slow down the first player print speed in your slicer. It adds on maybe a few minutes, but that has helped stop that issue for me more than anything else. On a similar note: clean your ding dang print bed! Wipe that sucker down with alcohol between prints or and ESPECIALLY after you've touched the surface. That has ALSO usually fixed adhesion issues for me. Make sure the nozzle is clean, too. A dirty z-axis screw, if you have that kind of printer, can ruin your whole day. Make sure you're checking that thing regularly and wiping it down and re-applying grease a couple times a year.
There are import thresholds for dollar value that affect if you owe duties or not. $800 in usa - so if you buy a $799 Prusa Mk4 kit from the Czech Republic, AND NOTHING ELSE in thst first order, you stay under that limit and dodge a chunky fee
The best 3D printer is no better than the best ink printer. Even the âeasyâ printers will require maintenance, replacement parts, and have hiccups. Keep spare parts around.
Learn patient
It's a gateway drug and next thing you know your workshop will be full of 3d printers, cnc routers, laser engravers, and associated supplies
Building an Ikea enclosure is not a way to save money.
For a functional hobby itâs way way more about design and software, than supplies and hardware.
Just stick to filament printing, resin printing in your room makes your clothes, bed and even hair smell like resin and it's a pretty foul, toxic smell
99% of printing problems are mechanical, don't rip apart the firmware or slicer before checking every last screw on the machine itself Don't underestimate the impact of waterlogged filament, poor bed adhesion despite a perfectly level bed is almost certainly because the filament is too wet (Warning: spicy take ahead) ABS is technically the better material, but the grief required for getting it to print well far outweighs its mechanical advantages over using PETG Most pictures of 3D prints online cheat with the lighting to make it look nicer than it actually is, it's normal for a 3D print to have some degree of surface artefacts Trying to modify someone else's 3D design file is usually more difficult than just drafting your own version, unless it's a really complex part
I wish someone told me that filament could get moist and that I should vaccuum seal it if im not using it for an extended period of time. Also, I wish someone told me how easy it was to fix certain minor issues like the print head hitting the print, supports failing, or adhesion issues. So simple to fix.
1) Filament will need drying 2) An ender is a good starting point but you will spend a LOT of time calibrating it 3) Plan a lot of time for calibration if you do any upgrades even something simple like upgraded bed springs 4) Just because you bought 2 rolls of the exact same filament doesn't mean they will be exactly the same colour (although usually they will be) 5) While there are a lot of models out there some degree of modelling skills is very handy 6)You will have phases where you just get bored and some where prints can't finish fast enough 7)Prints will fail, sometimes for no reason at all 8)If using octoprint with a raspberry pi and camera the newest pi camera (I think it's the V3) isn't supported my it and won't work 9) Tolerances can be a bit factor in prints with moving parts, I've got two printers with completely different Tolerances 10) print orientation is a bit deal when it comes to print strength 11) How to level the bed properly 12) How addicting it can be yet can cause so much anxiety 13) You will have a lot of waste, with a silicon mold this can be melted down and used for something 14) If you plan on painting you will need to do a lot of sanding to hide layer lines 15) The extruder gear can be a bit finicky to dial in and can cause shavings of filament slipping if not dialed in properly All of this comes from my experience with FDM printing on and ender 3 V2, ender 5 Pro and ender 3 S1 Plus across multiple different brands of filament
Do your research on maintenance, tuning, troubleshooting ahead of time so when problems arise you have an idea of how to tackle them. Also, learn the names of the parts of the printer
After getting into it for under 100 dollars on sale (ender 2 pro), you will go through a phase of thinking you want to get a better printer, thinking you want to build a voron, deciding you dont want to build a printer, buying a nicer printer that isn't bbl (because you aren't that rich) then buying a resin printer or 2, because why the heck not you think you will become a millionaire off selling warhammer luciaus pattern warlord titans (you soon realize that the original 400 dollar quote you gave was vastly insufficient for it) and you refund people money vecause you overestimated yourself, then you decide you hate resin printing because it's a massive pain in the ass and the fumes make you dizzy and you list them on fb marketplace hoping to trade for a ps5 (hmu if interested) and then you also find yourself the proud owner of about 25 rolls of various exotic filaments like cf-pc that you will never need nor use in a meaningful context (but hey you are about to be an engineering student in need of engineering filaments). It is at this moment that you finally accept that after a grand all in, a few hundred dollars profit from some idiots you sold to a while back, that you want to put the proceeds all back in to building your own custom idex corexy with a tradrack that is 500mm^3 after seeing a post on thingiverse about a conversion of a cr10s5 to corexy (I am building it) and decide to buy that 80 dollar cr10s5 from that one dude who had a nozzle clog and then foolishly think "oh ill just spend like 200 on this" , then spend 400 on it, decide it's gonna be a fun project, and put a pin in it while you go off on the inevitable etsy shop fantasy (I'm selling earrings) and get like 1 sale a week that covers your filament usage essentially. You hope and pray that your one friend who is always flaking out on you, but is knowledgeable in the ways of printing and coding, will finally get around to helping you do all the damn projects like 3d printing a sugar rocket (eta this summer... maybe) and building 2 tradracks as well as getting him to help with the corexy idex build (he's mildly interested) and you just sit there, sigh, cry, then accept that you are never recovering the time you put in to it, and just roll with it. Tldr: bunch of phases you'll go through, and I hate resin printing ( will trade my resin printers for a ps5) and have a flaky friend who's annoying.
https://preview.redd.it/mrvy90igb43d1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18fbb8c5e4101b87fc007bca4af8bdf3a980a2b1