Heated bed, but no auto-level. I can pick up an autoleveller for £12 on amazon (and I need to buy some filament anyway). Worth it?
Yeah - it takes a lot of hassle out of bed levelling. A word of warning - it will likely come with an acrylic plate to mount to the rear of the extruder bearing blocks - it is VERY easy to over-tighten and snap the plate - take a look on yeggi or thingiverse for replacement options to print for yourself; or just get a piece of thicker acrylic and use the original as a drill template.
Most of them quote a couple of weeks for delivery. You can probably get them in the UK, but you'll likely pay two or three times the going rate.
Just beware the firmware configuration. Your printer will likely be using the Marlin firmware and that needs to be configured to support the sensor. If the manufacturer doesn't give you the source code for the firmware on the board (like they're supposed to) then you'll have to configure/calibrate everything from scratch, even if all you want to do is enable the automatic bed levelling. Ideally they should give you a copy of the source code for the firmware that's on the board - that way you can use their settings/config and all you need to do is enable the automatic bed levelling - it's unlikely that they'll do this though, and to re-flash the firmware you're probably going to have to grab a fresh virgin copy of Marlin. There are many settings in Configuration.h...
So I tried printing out one of the gear sets, and it turned out okay apart from the base which was sort of melted together. Is this a common thing, and what's the way around this?
Pictures came out awful as they're so small, but basically top side of the gear is completely fine, but bottom side has welded together. Looks like it's only really the very inital layer because there's a lip around the bottom.
You're always going to get a bit of squishing in the first layer, but it does sound like there's an issue there. Several things to try: Try a slower print speed first; trying to print too fast can mask other problems. Do you have a cooling fan for prints? Your hotend will usually be cooled above the heatbrake, but if you're printing PLA you need a fan to cool down the printed object - make sure it's enabled if you have one, and if you don't then try pointing a (powered, obviously ) 120mm/140mm case fan at it. What temp and material are you printing? Do you have your heated bed enabled, if so what temp do you use it at? For PLA I use 60°C for the first layer then 50°C for all other layers. You could also try disabling it - if you line your print bed with something like masking tape you may not need it (unless you're printing ABS)
Well I ended up putting my build-tak on the plate and got some proper filament (will echo what was said before about removing filament quickly, had to pull my extruder apart). Had some real problem with re-levelling the bed. The good news is that the issue seems to be mitigate somewhat, although now I'm having problems with filament not laying down properly on the first layer so might need to rejig it. Did a test print of the gears again, but stopped halfway so I was able to pull the thing apart. Seems like they would work fine if not for that bottom layer. Since they're so small, even a few fractions of a mm can jam them. I think I'll just have to find some way of making a support for them or something. Edit: Printed a Y cable chain, but in the process worked one of the bed connections loose and literally burned the pins. Have now soldered the wires directly to the bed.
Thoughts on the Creality ender 3, or any reccomendations for something sub £200 just to have a play and learn with.
Go for it, purchase it from Amazon Prime (next day delivery) if you can, make sure your aluminium bed is flat else leave semi-bad feedback, and go to make a return to Amazon, when it lets you contact Creality, explain the issue which is soooo common and they’ll send you their ultra base version glass bed which generally cost £18 for free. In return they’ll ask you to update your feedback. I’ve had nothing but prompt responses from them and great customer service where other people have complained and moaned, and i guess this is down to me being able to return the printer to Amazon and getting a refund without Creality being able to defend themselves because the issue is so widespread and just not worth fighting for them, also they care about the feedback! Order a 1kg roll of 1.75mm filament when you order the printer because the supplied stuff wouldn’t last 2 minutes. You don’t need to spend £20-30 on filament some of the £10 stuff on ebay is actually good and being sold on Amazon on for £25 and it’s the same stuff lol Bed leveling is a complete pain in the back side, but becomes usual. Purchase some dampers and the noise reduction is brilliant. It goes from the neighbours being able to hear it, to you standing outside your room with the door shut and not being able to hear it. (I’ve not explored auto bed levelling yet like the BLTouch because it requires upgrading, messing with the firmware) which i ain’t quite ready for. Spares you should probably buy… Mk 4 nozzles, mk10 silicone socks, some 100k heat sensors, perhaps a bowden tube, (cost pennies really) Mods you should probably print… The sliding tray is brilliant Fan cover Screen Cover Filament bracket + filament guide Later purchases BLtouch -> auto-leveling Metal extruder ( the filament wears away at the original) Silent Fans -> After adding dampers they become the loudest part.
Any 3D printers that can do roughly the size of a side panel? @Maki role do you have anything that could do it?
45cm by 45cm. I'm trying to recreate a game map to put inside a case. I'm currently exploring what would be the best way to do this. I could probably get away with splitting it in 2 diagonally.
You probably won't find many home/enthusiast 3D printers with a build volume that large, on average it's usually around 20-30cm squared (not including the build height, the Z axis). If you simply must print it in one piece it's likely you'll have to go to something like shapeways or a similar service; given where you live/work, it's worth scouting out hackspaces and asking them if they can help. What sort of height are we talking about? A large and relatively flat print might also be tricky to print - keeping an even heating/cooling distribution over a 45x45cm part will be tricky. I had trouble on large flat builds even on smaller beds. You could split it into 4 panels and join them together and with a little work you can create a seamless join - whether you print in one piece or multiple sections, you'll likely have to hand-finish your printed part either way.
Essentially I'm trying to recreate this https://sketchfab.com/models/ac0a9c6676e34d1ebb184d8e93443c77. I'm not sure if 3D printing is the correct approach or not. Doing it in 4 sections could work if I could make it seamless. It may also help with painting thinking about it.
Could anyone scan and 3d print me a couple of paddles for an old gamecube wheel, we brought ours out of retirement only to have one of the paddles snap due to what I feel is degrading plastic.
