/r/3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
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POV people asking what free printer from their boss they should choose
First post I thought about. lol.
Ended up debating with people the time-value of even scrapping the few good parts that might be left on that rig.
I immediately thought about that post too. With how quickly 3D printers have advanced over the past few years, it seems better to eliminate the headache and get a new one rather than struggling to resurrect some obsolete POS
I got my first printer for Christmas 2022. It was a Kobra Go thought my wife bought for $180. I had constant problems with it and probably spent more time tinkering than successfully printing. Then I bought a Kobra 2 about a month ago for the same price. Have been running it constantly since getting it and mostly with TPU. The only failed prints I have had were because I didn't clean the build plate or because I needed to dry the filament. Never adjusted the z offset, never tinkered, and I don't even know what the bed level is since I don't know how to see that without being rooted.
The Kobra 2 came out less than a year after the Kobra Go.
It amazes me how far they came in that time.
Same here, I started on a Dremel 3D45, it's in a way, Bambu Lab's great great grandfather in the respects it's a "Just buy it, plug it in, and send the gcode!" no-fuss no-calibration printer. You can literally print stuff pre-loaded into it in under 3 minutes of unboxing it.
Although you can still buy them today, they're horribly outdated now. The chamber sucks, the glass bed is very small, adhesion issues all over, it can barely print ABS.
I bought it in 2020 and gave it away to my Mom recently so she can get into printing. My Voron runs circles around it, an Ender 3 runs circles around it even. It's like comparing a Ford Model T to a Tesla Model S. They're both great cars for their time, but one is objectively better.
Hi! Owner of kobra 2 here. How do you print in tpu? Do you use an enclosure? Which one? Temps?
What do you print with tpu? I have a lot of tpu but don't know what to print with it xD
It comes down to this:
Do you want your hobby to be 3d printing or being a 3d printer mechanic?
Idk anyone who buys a table saw that they have tinker with all the time to get proper cuts.
A 3d printer is a tool or appliance and should be treated as such.
What post was that?
Comment deleted by user
yeah, that's not what was going on here.
Me too, but honestly I would have chosen a random one just for the power supply and for the steppers. I am a hobbyist and I hoard stuff :)))
lol I'm the same way honestly, I have a ton of extra steppers just chilling out.
I have one thats the Z drivescrew motor for a Voron 0.2, so it has a long threaded shaft welded on. I have a stupid idea to turn one into a filament respooler.
I get this reference
I kept expecting a usable 3d printer to show up as I clicked through the gallery, rather than just piles of parts.
"Do you want the reprap, or the makerbot?"
"I'll take the reprap"
Like This??
me looking at my anet a8 o.o
I love my a6, but it stopped reading memory cards recently and idk what to do.
I have A6 too and I had problems with SD cards as well, so I decided to solve it by connecting USB port to raspberry pi and printing via octoprint. Octoprint told me that my firmware is a fire hazard and I should upgrade it. I tried marlin but couldn't build it, so a friend recommended me to upgrade motherboard to a 32-bit BTT SKR Mini. So now I have A6 running klipper, printing remotely and working much quiter than original.
Do you have any links for the hardware you're running? How difficult was it to set up with the printer? I'd love to get it going again, and it sounds magical to be able to print remotely!
Sure. I bought this kit https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803348313945.html
But I don't recommend buying the display. It works initially but it is buggy with klipper. I am going to try to reflash it but with klipper I went on and added this display https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801298859707.html to my raspberry pi and I run KlipperScreen on it. Much better than clunky printer interface. You will also need any raspberry pi starting with model 3b to run klippy. I ordered model 5 and it runs klippy and all klipper interfaces (KlipperScreen and fluidd) effortlessly. So you can order just the board, e.g. here https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805856202739.html .
To install board on Anet you can use this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmXf1PuFBR0 . I had to swap connectors for X, Y, Z stops, fans and hotend termistor, but that is all of the hardware modifications (with klipper you can run stop-less but I didn't try it myself). I only had to design my own mount for the board to mount it on my A6 frame because I use separate mosfects https://www.printables.com/model/799507-anet-a6-mount-for-bigtreetech-skr-mini-e3-v3-board .
If you are interested I can publish my klipper config (the beauty of klipper is that you don't have to rebuild and reflash firmware every time you want to modify printer parameters like you have to do with marlin) for my A6.
Same. Only printer I have ever owned is a second hand A6. Still chugging along just fine.
If you found a printer on Facebook marketplace that means someone was fed up with its shit lol
Not really. I sold two perfectly fine, one-year old AnyCubics for a BambuLab. New owner has sent me pictures of his prints and he’s saying it’s giving him no trouble. Don’t scare my buyers away lol!
I got my Prusa Mini on FB Marketplace. They were only selling it because they got a Bambu Lab instead.
Everything, somewhere, someone is fed up with it. Be it 100$ printer, or half million. Someone is pissed off, and sometimes try to sell it just to get rid of it.
I sold my perfectly working MK3S+ for a Bambulab X1C. So not always the case.
ive found 2 used printers and they both were cheap and worked like a dream. maybe im just lucky
My $25 ender is doing me really well. Prints like a champ.
does it come with the barn to which its attached?
Shure hope so
I hang around r/mountainbiking and people actually ask that all the time
That bike is better than a brand new ender lmao
Hey I like my ender ha
I liked mine too, just took a lot of tuning.
I liked mine too, until I upgraded to an a1 mini lol
Lol... i used the past tense on purpose... I have an X1C :-D
Probably fewer missing parts.
Reminds me of my Tronxy X1. Kind of minimalist, but not exactly all there.
Bought a X5SA off FB market. It was functional but had issues. Fixed her up, gave her a hemera revo and a few other mods and now get beautiful prints at reasonable speeds
Sometimes recycling is the best option.
Hey, me and my 50€ printer from wallapop take offence from this! I know she might not be the best printer, but so far it hasn't given me an issue!
Remember the guy asking if he can print a handle for an actual axe? Yea I was there when it happened 3 years ago. I was there when it happened yesterday as well.
Should be good for at least one swing
I doubt it tbh... the metal piece looked heavy, and the slop pieces were small. I doubt even 100% infill can handle empty swings, let alone trying to chop wood.
Also the guy was thinking of using it for camping... ffs I couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes after reading that post and his comments.
I mean, pla would be awful but wooden handles are common so.
It's an axe tho... plus the blade will be quite heavy
I saw an old youtube the other day of Jazza and shadiversity (who turn out to be brothers!) "testing" 3d-printed swords and almost all of them disintegrated halfway through a swing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF9y43a31JU
5 years old, though. I think prints (not only printers) have advanced since then thanks to better understanding of tuning, tuning becoming easier, slicer profiles being way more optimized, all of that being propagated more widely, etc
Still not good enough for an axe handle though, I bet
I didn't see the post in question, but my comment was more along the lines of "everything is edible once" not so much that it would be successful once.
🤣
A WHAT
So it took 3 years to print? ;)
5 hours to print, but 3 years tinkering with the machine to get it to complete the print.
I did really good with my first two printers. $50 and $40 both needed firmware sorted and basic adjustments.
Me when I sold my neptune 2s in perfect working order for 35 usd and 2 rolls of elegoo pla SD CARD INCLUDED
From a certain perspective it is, you will definitely learn a lot if you are determined enough to make it work and are willing to do some research and trial and error.
I inherited a Felix 3.1 from a friend who was moving.
Man, it's been a process lol. But I'm slowly getting there, I learned a lot 😂
You can find decent deals on eBay. I got a open box kobra 2 neo for 40. It had never been taken out of the box. I got an ender 3 s1 for free because the bl touch broke during shipping. It's a little worn out but prints good.
If they want an easy experience I recommend Bambi Labs. It’s like the iPhone of 3d printing. If they want to learn any printer that gets mentioned daily here is probably good enough. If they want to spend money and wonder why it just doesn’t work yeah sure take that free printer.
I bet it was $70 new.
If you enjoy tinkering, this is the rig for you.
Better to get a new printer. I bought three discount large format printers, all of them needed a firmware reflash, and cooling fans, heater cores, thermistors. Saved a few hundred dollars but gained a ton of headaches and experience.
Took a week of solid calibration until everything started looking good.
Speaking of crap
Can someone explain the ender 3 hate. It takes a lot of tuning but it's highly moddable and anything that breaks ia easily and cheaply replaseble. I've only ever had my ender 3, had it since 2020 so I'm very much wondering wether getting a new printer would be such a huge upgrade?
[5 hours of tinkering later]
"I'm going to do a test print!"
<Success!>
"OMG I FIXED IT YAAAAY!"
[The next day]
<Bed adhesion problems>
<Nozzle temperature too low!>
And yes, a modern printer will be a massive upgrade over your ender 3. They can literally print 5-6x faster now and have automatic mesh bed levelling. - Even an Ender 3 KE is a good replacement
As far as print quality, no, it's not much of an upgrade. A print off of my new printer looks basically indistinguishable from one off of the printer I was using five years ago. But my new printer is much faster and more reliable, and just does everything better and easier.
I can change filaments in seconds. On my old printer I had to manually go into the settings to preheat the nozzle, wait, then pull the old filament, snip the tip to remove the blob, mount the new filament, and then push it through the extruder until the old filament was fully purged. On my new printer I often don't even have to do anything to change filaments - I have four of them on deck at all times - and when I do have to change filament, it's basically as simple as pulling off the old roll and putting on a new one. No heating the nozzle, no manually purging, nothing.
Changing nozzles on my old printer was enough of a pain that it was a rare, special-occasion sort of thing. I certainly wouldn't have changed nozzles four times in the same day just because I prefer different nozzle sizes with particular models. But with my new printer, a nozzle swap takes no tools and is done in under ten seconds, so yeah I might well swap nozzles before literally every print.
With my old printer, a clog or jam would at best mean a failed print. With my new printer, it stops, both plays a sound and sends me an alert on my phone telling me what happened, and then after I fix the issue is able to seamlessly resume without any visible effect on the model.
And my new printer is just overall more reliable. With my old printer I avoided packing the build plate with parts - I'd rather just print them one at a time, so a failure on one couldn't ruin the entire batch. With my new printer I find myself happily cramming the entire plate full so I can finish in fewer prints, because I know it's going to get through them all just fine.
I of course don't know what sort of upgrades you're sporting, and how tuned and reliable your printer is. I'm sure a really well-tuned Ender 3 probably comes close to what you get with a new machine, and I imagine that most of the quality of life upgrades I mentioned are probably achievable in some form or fashion. But I know you didn't have it like that on day 1, and getting all of that out of the box with no tinkering or tuning is amazing. My new printer has spent probably 12 hours a day printing for a couple months now, and I have had literally zero issues that weren't entirely my fault. And I mean literally zero issues - no adhesion failures, not a single bad first layer, no failed prints of any kind (other than when I screwed something up).
Part of it is what you want. If you want a hobby of tinkering with a printer and trying to get a good benchy out of it, a $35 printer from FB is great. If you want the things a 3D printer can produce, a $35, or even $100, printer from FB is horrible.
You might need to replace the bum end, recalibrate the chain and level it with another wheel but after you study how to do that you will have wished you just bought a new bike.
It is very hard choosing a first printer. I was looking at the 150€ stuff that needs 17 hours of setup, the 430€ barebones Prusa Mini that has excellent print quality and then found the A1 mini for 288€ shipped. Bambu Lab was a clear winner with so many features for so little.
This happened to me saw on Facebook Market place. Snatched it up really reeaaaaallly happy. I lucked out and got a great beginner printer.
First printer for an engineer or technician is completely different than a printer for your average joe.
Unicycle!!!!!
Well funny thing is, I found an ender 3v2 with bl touch practically brand new in my goodwill.
It's always full of decent gems. Like, Couple weeks ago was a commercial size zojirushi mochi maker
Before that a zojirushi 6 cup rice maker
Brand new ninja smoker
Baratza forte
Fellow kettle
Goes on and on. I like this goodwill.
I tried to sell an old printer for $50 and don't get me wrong, it's a good printer, just old and used.
I delisted it because I got over so many people asking for videos of it printing and how well it would go for a printer farm to sell prints despite it saying in the description it was good for learning only.
I learned more about 3D printing on my cheap Creality CR8 than I did on my $4200 Raise3D Pro 2. I installed an Orbiter V2 DDE with Volcano hot end, BL Touch and took out the Chinese board and put in a Creality branded board. Changed the build plate to magnetic, too. I was having trouble with the Raise3D but the Creality taught me everything I needed about temps, filament, build plates, slicing and leveling. I also learned about repairing 3D models and optimizing them for printing. I was able to apply all of that knowledge to my R3D Pro 2 and now my prints are where I want. Right now I’m designing and printing a 3D animatronic head from the ground up and I wouldn’t be at this point without that cheap printer I got on BangGood.
Omg borrowing this.
It's about half way to a starter bike.
Yes. For the economy, you not having money is good for the economy
Sure bud... Just go for it.
Good starter? Only $3.68 just need to supply your own rails, nemas and controller board.
Idk I just picked up an Ender 3 Pro for $65 on marketplace with raspberry pi running klipper, SKR Mini, direct drive conversion, dual z axis kit, and spring steel textured pei bed. Brought it home, tightened up all the loose bolts in the frame (almost every single bolt), did the leveling and calibrations and it's been printing great.
I actually got an ender 3 for 35 bucks on offer up that had a bltouch too and I tightened the belts and put fresh firmware on it and it’s worked well above average for an ender 3
Although I get the joke, it is quite possible to do. I got 3 3d printers for 100$, although they needed a little bit of wiring work, they all worked except one needed a hotend and x axis belt.
If you live in bigger cities, they are pretty commonly found at 35$ for needs work and 60$ for working printers
Literally ender 3 buyers in 2024
As someone who's only had an ender 3 since 2020, how much better are printers now? That is how good are they in a reasonable price range. I don't got X1 carbon money
Mesh bed leveling, spring steel removable bed plate, quiet trinamic drivers, 32bit board, all metal hot end, were luxury items in 2020 and are now standard. Input shaping is starting to become standard
The Ender 3 KE, for reference is 240USD.
It prints up to 500mm/s, features auto bed mesh bed levelling, features a direct drive extruder, high temp hotend, "silent" printing, wifi connectivity, input shaping, dual part cooling fans and more