Yep, you'll never get it perfect, but a smaller layer height will make the steps less noticeable. Adaptive layer height in cura if you use that can help, but adds a mortal age to the length of the print.
Consider post processing steps if you really need smooth parts. Sandable fillers, special paints, epoxy coatings, or just a bunch of sanding. I've had good luck with XTC-3D. It's an epoxy you paint on that's specifically designed for smoothing prints.
You could also consider a resin printer if you need smooth. They are their own can of worms, but the resolution and smoothness is good.
Let the bed cool down all the way, ya little gremlin! If you absolutely can't wait, put the bed on a tile floor and your print should pop off on it's own pretty quick.
If it is a removable bed, pop that bad boy in the freezer for a bit and the print should pop off. If not then you may want to try some glue stick on the bed before a print which will help the print release since it'll pull off the glue.
This is a glass bed on an Ender that I am doing this on. I haven't had any issues with scratching the bed whatsoever. Mild steel is actually softer than glass so it might actually be harder to scratch than you might think. Your mileage may vary though.
They have like 236 ender 3's nowadays, ofcourse i'm not asking google as i'll end up on some website that's shilling for creality and completely ignores the other brands.
I usually just use it to find some sort of peer reviewed recommendations (ie YouTube reviews) - it's usually pretty easy to tell there who's being genuine
No and I hate it :( Even if there are a few legit review sites still around it's near impossible to find them among all the fake reviews being pushed by search engines
I want to hound people for getting a Bambu. Look at the bullshit we're dealing with on 2D printers because they aren't open source with standard parts.
While good printers, the amount of waste those Bambus produce just don't make them feasible in my eyes. If you use 4 colours, they waste about 44cm of filament while you haven't even started printing.
Pretty much all the reasons I can't stand most 3D Printing communities on the internet. Too much basic troubleshooting answered dozens of times already and not enough cool projects.
I bitched at someone on reddit about that once... Asked a similar common question and so I asked them if they even bothered LOOKING at the sub before they posted because that exact question had already been asked three times that day! There's being lazy, and then there's crap like this.
I want to get started 3d printing, partially because I bought a house and farm and need to replace some little bits and bobs that don't necessarily need to be super strong. It just seems a bit too much to try to figure out right now.
I went a little crazy on 3d printing during covid. I had a single printer prior but purchased two more. I haven't printed on ANY of them in like 2 years. I end up just printing stupid shit or because I go so long between printing wasting way too much time to get everything dialed back in. Now I don't even know what my slicing settings were and I would have to probably start from scratch. I should probably just sell my printers....
I printed a lot of custom stuff that I designed for specific uses in Fusion 360 when I got my computer, and for about two years afterwards. But I don't have any more custom stuff that needs to be printed, and I don't have a D&D group any more, so my printer has been sitting for about six months. I'd say it's a success though, since I made everything I need, and it'll still be there if I ever need anything else.
This was the second half of my problem honestly, I can't for the life of me figure out how to 3d model stuff. I've gone through tutorial after tutorial so clearly it's me.
I actually have stuff I'd like to print but I'm not competent enough to model it. I'm the n00b just printing stuff I can download from the internet. Or was I suppose....
There's a learning curve for sure. A lot of the tutorials on YouTube aren't very helpful. Some are downright awful. This guy's channel really helped it click for me. You can just start by following his lessons and at some point it'll click and then you can start designing really basic stuff like drawer organizers, which are essentially just cubes, and then work your way up from there. It does take time though.
Yeah I went through his channel too but something about it just doesn't seem compatible with my brain, lol. Like I said, I really should just sell my printers. They haven't been used in 2+ years and are just sitting here taking up space and collecting dust.
Yep, tried those too. I do appreciate the suggestion though, truly. It's just not something I'm cut out for it would seem. I really do need to look at selling my printers and getting out of the hobby. It was fun for a while, now it's just a chore. Which is probably why I haven't done it in 2+ years, lol.
Having a 3d printer is super convenient for any home or shop repairs I need to make. I have so many curtain spacers and custom hooks all over the place now. The key is to get some hours in Fusion or some other good CAD software so you can whip up custom parts in minutes. You may get it wrong the first few times, but a couple minutes of tweaks and then you have a new part printing while you go back to working on other stuff.
The Swedish Maker just put out a video about how transformative 3d printing has been for his workflow. https://youtu.be/p2bClWmKHRM
That's fair, there is a bit of information overload online when looking into it.
If you want my two cents, find the cheapest print with auto bed levelling (mingda magicians are good and cheap) and just start playing around.You don't need to know much to start, and you learn what you need to as you encounter problems.
That's how I got into at least, and now been printing for like 5+ years.
People give the Ender 3 a bad rap all the time, but it's honestly a great little machine. I far prefer it to the $2500 printer we have at work that has "automatic everything" and can't easily be adjusted to manually correct its bad settings.
With that said, how far have you gotten with it? Do you have any software installed? Have you tried printing anything (and was it successful)? You didn't give much clue as to where you're stuck. Yes you need to take some time to learn how to fine-tune the settings, and yes it can be frustrating because there is SO MUCH to learn about 3D printing, but once you get over the hump you can start cranking out all kinds of fun things.
Not the person you responded to, but I had mine set up. I had the software installed, I (thought) I even had the bed leveled, but every print either failed to stick to the plate, or eventually stuck to the nozzle. I ended up with a lot of spaghetti. I got frustrated and decided to take a break. I'd come back to it fresh, and see what I could do.
Assuming proper level, mess with temp settings and maybe try a layer of glue stick glue. Helps big time with first layer adhesion but it gets messy if you don't clean it off. Though my bed is a mess and it still prints OK lol.
One thing I learned is that Creality's QC is absolute garbage. When I first got my printer I also picked up a glass plate. Everything stuck perfectly to it, hardly any fuss at all. After several years the coating wore out and I bought a new one. Total trash, nothing would stick without heavy usage of hair spray and I eventually gave up on it.
If you want to try again, look for PEI beds. If you have one with the magnetic base, there are several with the PEI already mounted on a spring-steel plate. PEI is one of the best surfaces you will ever find to print on, although I believe one type of filament (I think a variation of PLA?) sticks too well and can damage the PEI trying to take prints off... but I've used regular PLA, PLA+, and TPU with great success, and have heard that ABS also works well on it. Just keep it clean with 90% ISO and you'll eliminate at least one problem.
Of course there's also the whole thing with bed leveling. I run into a lot of people who think the paper method is the whole process for leveling, when really it's just to get your printer dialed in close enough that you don't ruin the bed when you actually begin to do the leveling. Getting the leveling wrong is by far the most common reason why prints don't stick well so do your best to nail that aspect. You want the nozzle gap about 3/4 of the nozzle size, so for a standard 0.20mm nozzle you would want a gap of about 0.15mm for your first layer (but still use 0.20 in the slicer) to get that proper smoosh. My leveling method involves using a 5-point bed-leveling test print, and you can judge the gap by eye from that. Takes quite a few iterations to get all the corners dialed in, but you shouldn't have to do it often.
Speaking of which... another common complaint is the loose bed springs. You want to Crank those puppies down almost completely closed, then adjust the Z switch to that new position before starting the leveling. Tight springs means you almost never have to readjust the leveling knobs. I check mine about once a year.
PEI is one of the best surfaces you will ever find to print on, although I believe one type of filament (I think a variation of PLA?) sticks too well and can damage the PEI trying to take prints off…
That's PETG. I avoid using smooth PEI plates like fire when PETG is loaded. Even after swapping the filament to PLA, little bits of residual PETG can still stick leaving a shadow on the plate. Textured PEI is mostly fine, but single layer stuff like brims are a pain to get off.
OK so you want to watch this video and learn how to manually do bed leveling. However if you really want to go over the whole machine (perhaps even tearing it down and rebuilding it so you know where everything is an can assure that it was assembled correctly) the you want to start with this video.
Once the machine is set up, it's time to install slicing software on your computer. Cura is a popular and free option, with support built in for the Ender 3 (you have to set up a new machine in the software and tell it what model you have). Following that, find something to print! There are many sites like thingiverse where you can download models from, but you want to start with something small to work out the bugs without wasting a lot of filament. Look for something like a calibration cube ("calicat" is my favorite) which will provide information on how well you have your machine set up.
Also to consider... if you live in a humid environment and you were given filament with the printer that is NOT in a sealed bag, you should be aware that filament absorbs moisture from the air and "wet" filament will print like hot garbage. Insanely cheap filament like the $12 stuff you find on Amazon can also cause problems, so stick with stuff more in the $20 range until you have some experience in working with your machine.
You never know. Old filament CAN be used, but it takes special care with the slicer settings and it helps a lot if you have a dehumidifier to dry it out. I live in a dry climate, and have filament at work which has been sitting on the shelf for about 7 years, but I can still get beautiful prints out of it. All of my filament at home is left in ziplock bags but it still gets brittle over time (if you can easily snap the filament, it probably has a lot of moisture in it).
Not op, I got a free Ender 3 from a frustrated co-worker, and am now the frustrated co-worker. I've tried getting a new glass print surface, tried using glue sticks, tried changing print temps and speeds, tried levelling and re-levelling and re-levelling the bed, but I just can't get the print to stick for love or money. It's now been re-homed to the garage, as a parking obstacle for my bicycle.
Honestly at that point I would tear down the whole thing and use this video as a guide for reassembly. The most important thing to do is to make sure the framework is all squared up, otherwise all prints will suffer.
As for bed leveling... A lot of people think the paper test is all you need, but really that only gets you close enough to start leveling the bed. First thing is to tighten all the springs to within 1 turn of being closed, then adjust the Z switch so that the head homes to roughly that same height. After that you use the paper method to get the bed roughly level, then move on to live testing with a 5-point bed-leveling test print to dial it in. Ideally you want the nozzle gap to be about 75% of the nozzle size, so for a 0.20mm tip you would want a 0.15mm gap to get your print to stick.
As I mentioned to someone else, Creality's QC is garbage. My first glass bed had better adhesion than PEI and worked beautifully for a few years until the coating wore out. My second glass bed was trash, I never could get anything to stick to it without using hairspray, and now it sits in its box. I have a PEI bed now, which seems to have solved the problem. If you decide to try using the printer again, don't forget to clean the glass with 90% ISO. Worst case try flipping the glass over to the smooth side, clean it with ISO, then use glue sticks on that surface (you won't get any adhesion on bare glass without the glue or hairspray).
Hey, thanks for the advice. If I have some free time and spare gumption, I'll definitely give it a go. If that happens, I'll let you know what comes of it.
No worries, glad to help. I don't print a lot with my machine any more, but things still come up (like I got a shop press a couple weeks ago and found a knob for the release valve so you don't need a special tool for it ... printed with no trouble and now the printer sits idle again).
Honestly when it works it works wonderfully. Most of my problems with my ender 3 come down to me being a dumbass and not taking care of it properly, and/or just the nozzles they ship with it being cheap as fuck and impossible to cold pull.
No joke my first ever successful cold pull was 2 days ago, because I had finally gotten a decent set of nozzles.
If you want to get really serious about printing there are better options out there, but for the cost they really are awesome beginner printers (to be fair I haven't kept up much with printers, so I don't know many other good cheap ones). I mostly only dabble with printing, but my ender 3 pro that I got like 3 years ago has served me very well.
You may be interested in these links, it can reduce or eliminate the problems which require cold pulls. Basically the issue is that the tubing moves up and down during printing and creates a slack space where the filament gets into a region of the nozzle it's not supposed to reach. This modification uses a short length of tubing inside the nozzle that is pushed down tight, then your regular tubing sits on top of that where the movement doesn't cause any problems. I've never had a single clogged nozzle or needed to do a cold pull in several years since making this change, so I highly recommend it.
Make sure the screws are snug and the beams don't move. Level the bed, Youtube how. Then get a micro SD card and a slicing program. Slice the model, save to card, insert in printer, hit print from file and select the file.
That's like 95% of it. The other 5 is endless struggles and troubleshooting, but you can worry about that when it comes to it lol. Oh also keep filament dry.
I found a printer in the trash that I grabbed, it had motors and frame but no PSU and mainboard. Five years later it is in worse shape than it was because I took the extruder off. I like to make progress on stuff by just increasing the scope so that it is overwhelming.
all very accurate but I want to add that eveb if you want to resin print in your bedroom you wont be able to. It's not only that it's toxic but the smell is so strong that, at least for me, it's impossible to be around it. My printer is outside in the garage and when it's printing you can still smell it inside the house.
I can feel my cells mutating in real time
The reason that in the middle is happening is that the temperature is wrong, judging by the inconsistent thickness of extruded material and lack of adhesion. If it's a high heat filament like PETG then the printer might be stopping and resetting because its got a heat sensor with a low upper limit.
Two printers were fighting for the same bed (one with black filament and one with white). Obviously the black printer won and finished the print perfectly.
