quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
Thanks, DoctorSolo. One of my friends has mentioned having a Prusa... I need to go over to his place and have a look.

Over the past week or so, I've done some staring at the Ender 3 Pro mentioned by mkeuffer, currently available for about $229. That, naturally, leads to a look at the Ender 5 for about a hundred more. Is the 5 worth the extra Benjamin? I do like that it's got a "full cube" frame around it. I would think that frame would make it a lot easier to attach panels to enclose it (for temperature stability and air draft prevention), and should be simply more stable to begin with.

It also appears that the Ender 5 can reach a higher temperature and will handle ABS.

Thoughts?

Creality just released a $69 enclosure for the Ender 3/5. Enclsure

Sorry, no first hand experience with the 5.

quote:

Originally posted by mkueffer:
Creality just released a $69 enclosure for the Ender 3/5. Enclsure

Sorry, no first hand experience with the 5.

Neat! That's all sorts of convenient.

Well, my invisible friends, there's an Ender 5 on my desk now. A friend offered to go in on the purchase, so it suddenly became a much easier purchase to make.

I'm an hour into a four-hour print, from one of my own designs. I could have been three hours into it by now, if not for my own impatience. Why? Because I didn't realize that the first layer printed was a support layer (honestly, I should have known that by now). Having had that brain cramp, I stopped the print, revisited my solid model, made new STL file, sliced it, copied it to the card and started again.

And it still didn't look right. So I went through that whole process twice more. It's of my own boneheadedness and impatience, I know.

Now I've got to prepare to order more PLA material for the short term (who's got good sources and recommendations?), and to learn more about the various materials for future use.

Thanks, all , for your help. I know I've got a lot more learning to do.

Welcome to the fun of 3D printing. Like others have said, it’s still DIY and will take some practice to make good prints.

I have some Atomic filament that has given me great prints.

I also ordered some https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K...bK1WGCY2]KabelDirekt from Amazon that has printed well for me.

Good luck with the prints.

Here is my bench, the CR-10v2 is running a 20+ hour print for a 200% octopus.

You're printing an octopus?! How cool! I tried printing a Lego figure a few minutes ago. That was a spectacular failure, haha.
Thank you for the filament recommendation, too. It's pretty clear I'm going to use a bunch while learning this.

My first print came out okay dimensionally, but it was pretty flimsy. I'll assume that's more because it was "hollow structure" (I don't know the right term) and not fully solid than because it was PLA. I could be wrong....


I'm glad I have tomorrow off; I'll tinker with it some more.

Here is the link to the Octopus on Thingiverse.com

Yes, infill is what you do to a model to fill the space between the walls. Your slicer will give you the option on how much infill you want. Default may be 20%. Then you can pick the type of infill pattern. If you need something really strong you can say 100% infill. Just uses more filament and no spaces. Tweaking the wall thickness will also fill in more filament too.

I've found hatchbox filament to be very dependable in performance on my 3D printers. They have a tight tolerance on the filament diameter, which is really important for proper function of 3D printers. I buy mine on amazon, about $30 per spool IIRC. (I buy 6 spools at a time for work so I haven't bought any in the last few months)

I use a Type A Machine 1.75mm printer and an Ultimaker 5S 3mm at work. Type A is now out of business, but luckily their machine is all off the shelf components, so a rebuild should be pretty easy when it's needed.

FYI - I have found that different colors can behave slightly different in a printer and tuning the printer settings (temp, speed, layer thickness, retract, etc) may be needed. It is best if you can come up with an object or two that you can do test prints with that don't take long but can test the quality for your print settings.

Ken S

So I got a Creality Ender 3 Pro for Xmas from my gf.

Are there any good websites to shop at for filament, parts, etc.?

quote:

Originally posted by kx90:
So I got a Creality Ender 3 Pro for Xmas from my gf.

Are there any good websites to shop at for filament, parts, etc.?

Amazon will be your friend for parts and upgrades.

I like the Atomic filament. https://atomicfilament.com/

Most people will have good success with the base setup. Get that dialed in so that your prints come out every time.

Thingiverse will just about everything you can think of fro your first few prints. https://www.thingiverse.com/


Enjoy the new hobby.