• 3D Printing Thread V2 - Making homemade spaghetti since 1981
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I saw a video talking about the connectors being what are effectively fakes so if it turns out the one I bought has said fakes I was planning on grabbing a real one to replace it. What else is an issue?
Some people just direct wire it instead, the XT60 connectors are for convenience. Otherwise, I'd heard something about the connections on the board being tinned and possibly causing another fire hazard. Hopefully the Reddit embed below is visible. My own Ender 3 has yet to catch fire, so I can't say how big a deal these are, but if you're in the internals at any point it's probably a good idea to check. https://www.reddit.com/r/ender3/comments/awo8ae/psa_check_the_screwed_in_connections_on_the/
IIRC that was the result of them trying to crimp the connectors rather than solder them. If the connectors are soldered on, you're golden.
The video I watched mentioned the fake connectors had a bad contact internally as well leading to all of the current going down a single connector rather than all 4 of them thus heating up a lot
Could have been a combination of both. Angus from Maker's Muse noticed the crimped-rather-than-soldered connectors on many of the photos where they had burned IIRC.
Just do be on the safe side im going to grab a small smoke detector and put it inside an Ikea Lack frame. Im not really planning to print while im out just incase but it doesn't hurt to be sure regardless.
If you're willing to put in the time, you can run power directly to the board and get rid of the XT60s entirely. Additionally the tinned wire issue is fixable and may not even be present on your machine, as Creality appears to make changes constantly. Bookmark that subreddit, as you'll often find a post with some interesting info or a solution to a problem you've encountered. Some additional bits of info specific to what you've ordered: The included length of test filament is supposedly too short to print the dog that comes with the machine. I wouldn't bother with it, just use whatever spool you may or may not have ordered. Your aluminum bed will probably not be flat. This is apparently the signature problem with this printer, and can lead to maddening print issues. The 2 common options are to buy a glass bed to go on top, or to use mesh leveling. The uncommon option is to get yourself some cast aluminum plate and cut it down to size, machine the carriage bolt holes, and replace it entirely. I'll let you know how that goes in a couple of weeks. There are a couple of compiled lists of things to buy, and print, to upgrade or otherwise fix common problems. I'll link the three I've bookmarked. This video helped me quite a bit after I had to tear my machine down because I rushed the build.
Good thing i've got the glass bed from my dead printer to use then, going to be keeping this thing as a parts donor rather than selling it as a "fully working 3d printer that just needs a new main board"
I expect you'll want to tweak your printer profile in your preferred slicer to account for the difference in build volume between the two. It looks like your i3 has a 200mm2 build volume, and the Ender 3 has 220mm2 available to print OOB, with a bed size of 235mm2. If you use Cura as your slicer for this printer, know that its inbuilt Ender 3 profile inserts some gcode at the start of every file that primes the head along the left side of the build plate, and with that glass bed affecting your Z origin, you would probably end up extruding a noodle. An easy fix would be to remove the start gcode and just add a skirt to every print.
Is there a comprehensive list? I got my E3 back in december but... haven't had the time to fully set it up - including replacing the cheap-ass power supply and building a safety enclosure for it.
Apart from the power and board connections, the only other one I'm aware of is that the Ender 3 has no thermal runaway protection, despite running the Marlin firmware stock. This means that if the therrmistor fails, the printer will keep sending power to the hotend forever, or until something gives. This is fixable like the other issues, although doing so with the stock board requires using an Arduino to flash a bootloader to it. It's all very dependent on luck; I personally have made no modifications to my power connectors, wires, or firmware, and my printer has not caught fire. Indeed, the XT60s on mine didn't even get warm after a ten hour print, although since XT60 connectors are overkill for the power draw of this printer, warm is just as much of a concern as melting. Replace the connectors (or wire the PSU directly to the board), check your connections on the board, and get a bootloader on and flash Marlin yourself (or use the TH3D unified firmware, which I believe enables thermal runaway protection by default) and you will have eliminated everything I'm aware of that poses a possible safety risk. Just bear in mind that if you do plan on replacing the firmware, the stock board is extremely limited in onboard storage, and flashing new firmware will most likely require trimming niceties in order to get it to fit.
Just got into the hobby. Got an old Da Vinci 1.0 AiO for free from a friend of mine. Already built the thing to re-flash the DRM chips so the printer isn't as annoying. What slicer software should I be looking at and what 3d modeling software? I've been playing around with tinkercad a bit and I've been using the default slicer (which is pretty limiting and often unclear).
Fusion 360 is free for personal use and small business, and is a brilliant software. I prefer Simplify3D for slicing - but it costs money.
Just got a new toy at work https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/109940/bd140b6b-f373-4ce1-afe1-28c27573f658/Print2.png https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/109940/8a2aa5ae-867a-411a-bf81-dfc0b8f3c855/Print3.png
is that straight from the printer or did you do some post smoothing on it? Looks incredible
Straight from the printer, basic 1.75mm PLA too
So I've recently taken to printing PLA on bare glass, and I'm loving it so far. PLA+, on the other hand, really likes to stick to it to the point that it takes some doing to get it off the glass.
Ender 3 arrived, had the thing assembled, leveled and some minor corrections done in only 2 hours or so, prints like an absolute dream compared to the old pile of junk
Plate get. Soonish I'll be getting the countersunk carriage bolt holes drilled in and the corners rounded off. They're thick lads, though - slightly more than twice as thick as the Ender 3's stock heated bed. I'm sure it'll affect print quality, I just don't know by how much. Time to start looking at new heaters. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/2091/1a3f4d71-1ef0-4990-b6ea-b82d0ac6ef27/IMG_20190602_142633.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/2091/d735ee79-3725-46bf-8d39-ffeb4035331c/IMG_20190602_142653.jpg
New glass bed for my ender 3 actually arrived today as well. Haven't checked the temps yet though. Also building an enclosure from some IKEA lacks with a fan to cycle air from my room into it then outside cos UFC's may or may not be scary shit but better safe than sorry.
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