Firearm 3D Printing General - Cody Wilson Did Absolutely Nothing Wrong

[Spaced Outside Cargo]

This thread is dead as hell, but I'll drop this here:

What recommendations do you all have for upgrading an Ender 3? I don't want to drop like $800+ dollars on something new if I can just upgrade what i have for $100-200 and significantly improve its baseline performance to at least compete with modern offerings.

1. Get a glass panel from home depot and sandwich it between the metal and plastic of the print bed.
2. PTFE bowden tube (required for hot prints so you dont gas yourself)
3. Replace the board with an SKR Mini V3.

The third one particularly fixes a lot of things wrong with the Ender 3. You could also get the 45 degree tilt modification for it so you have an infinite Y axis.
That being said, despite the Ender 3 being a fine starter printer, it will never compete with modern offerings and is better suited to filling niches like the tilt kit, a volcano nozzle, or the pellet printing kit.
There are plenty of great printers that arent Bambu. Personally I like the Sovol SV06 Plus. For $300 you can get that, an appropriately sized enclosure (Creality sells one on amazon), and an Ikea LACK table, which you only need the top part for. It has a large print volume, is sturdy, and has direct drive. You really dont need to modify it at all. I think the only thing I did to it was replace the power supply because the fan in the default one is always on and about as loud as a stock Ender 3.

Also just for convenience you can get a cheap Raspberry Pi and run Octoprint on it so you dont need to fuck with chinky microSD cards dying on you.

 

[Le b0wski]

This thread is dead as hell, but I'll drop this here:

What recommendations do you all have for upgrading an Ender 3? I don't want to drop like $800+ dollars on something new if I can just upgrade what i have for $100-200 and significantly improve its baseline performance to at least compete with modern offerings.

You can print most of the parts to upgrade it into a voron switchwire and it's a regular conversion/upgrade. But for the most part upgrading the toolhead, adding linear rails and moving the electronics external/lower enough you can shove a box/enclosure over it for better heat retention.

https://vorondesign.com/voron_switchwire

 

[Akran]

Maybe one of you guys can help me, I have been trying to dial in my support settings for no joke a month. Every setting I try it produces ugly scarring or artifacts. I do not want to use PETG for interfacing as contamination is a issue (especially for 2A prints) I am unsure if any of the other support interface material is worth it or does the same. Could one of you fine kiwisisters point me to a place that has actual info? I feel like I've tried every setting under the sun with no good results and ugly scarring triggers my autism. I switched to orca a few days ago but still the same issues.

 

[Le b0wski]

produces ugly scarring or artifacts

Is it like the nozzle is clogging or when you pull it away the bond between the support and the print is too much?

What are you using as your test print? Trying to fix errors on an actual print it's hard to tell if the issue is with the printer or the stl/model.

I've done all in one tests like this before and then find another test for a specific thing if it looks bad.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2656594

 

[Akran]

Is it like the nozzle is clogging or when you pull it away the bond between the support and the print is too much?

What are you using as your test print? Trying to fix errors on an actual print it's hard to tell if the issue is with the printer or the stl/model.

I've done all in one tests like this before and then find another test for a specific thing if it looks bad.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2656594

I spent the night doing orcas calibration tests and I'm fairly certain I have it calibrated. I think its more on the bond side of things, for the glock and czar print I used the standard .2 layer height profile for bambu with my flow ratio calibrated (with only infill and infill pattern changed)

Spoiler: bambu shit

Spoiler: orca shit

The print you see in the "Orca shit" was produced with those settings, the settings in orange are the ones I have been actively changing trying to get a good result. If I can get it to look like this I'd be so happy.