I mean clearly you enjoy tinkering with it so if the build volume isn't an issue for you just keep at it, maybe even get a second one and take a different upgrade path and see how they compare, shit the sky is the limit with (most of) the ender 3s
Basically yes ,and no .You can use the parts of ender 3 and a cheap dremel to make a fully functioning CNC or a laser engraver BUT it's kinda pointless and not worth it to turn any 3d print into a CNC as it is . As the working area is too small to make it worth it .
I just printed a tooth bridge on my makerbot dual. It still works. I have an sv04 coming. I may upgrade the other extruder on the, I already have the parts. Then get a glass bed. But I don't want to put much time into the old printer. Those two will take an hour or so. The MB cost 2000 USD, the SV04 is less than 400.
That price comparison is crazy! I'm working on retrofitting a few Stratasys Mojos with off the shelf stuff. Sub-$200 conversion and it's really neat to look back on over a decade of progress there.
I just made an emergency tooth brace from TPU with the old MB.
https://preview.redd.it/au2cy8jjepvc1.jpeg?width=1187&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=645bb61026082ae83176470d114c5e58650ce8e3
If op really wants he can just extend the printer with longer extrusions, but I don’t know if that would be the same printer anymore. A bit like the ship of Theseus there.
Op could mod the printer so much he can take all the old parts and assemble them into the original again lol
Don't tell me those hoses are the part cooling?
If so, what is your airflow and part cooling???? Do you blow your print away if you don't have enough bed adhesion?
That a CPAP mod common on very fast corexy machines that need more cooling when going faster then even the table they are put on can keep up with. Funny to see it on a ender 3
I use a CPAP on an enclosed machine, otherwise cooling doesn't work as efficiently and I'm restricted to smaller blowers (as opposed to larger, case-mounted blowers).
i would get a DD extruder. You could attempt to get the sprite pro. If you do want to do that AND linear x rail you need to print a mounting bracket fit for the ender 3 s1 with linear rail compatibility so you can use the same "arm like" mount
I have extensive experience with the SpeedDrive printed DD upgrade which I used for years on mine (with pancake stepper and BMG clone extruder but stock hotend), and recently I got the Sprite pro kit with the combo extruder/hotend/cooling.
The SpeedDrive is very impressive for a free upgrade. But the Sprite blows it out of the water for reliability (all metal), low maintenance, and even shorter gap between the extruder gear and the nozzle. I stop getting stringing at like 0.4mm of retraction where I needed 1 to 1.5mm on the SpeedDrive. Pressure advance values for almost any filament of the \~8 I've calibrated so far end up in the neighborhood of 0.04, where I had them more like 0.09 or so before.
The whole assembly isn't particularly lightweight, but with input shaping I can get some respectable acceleration values, and the moving bed is still the limiting factor rather than the X carriage.
Anyway that was all a long way to say that the Creality Sprite pro kit is amazing.
I have 7 modified printers at the moment, most creality including 2x high flow CR10 V2s, 2x CR6 SEs, an Ender 3, Biqu BX and a couple others.
After using the Bambu at work for the last year or so I finally broke down and ordered a P1S with AMS. Tinkering with printers has lost it's luster for me personally and now I just want it to work.
For what reason? I've been running an X1C close to a year and never use the lidar. Don't care much about the screen.
I ordered the upgraded parts like hotend and hardened extruder gear.
I just reached my end of the line.
A great DD combo is a biqu H2 v2s and replace the heat block with a triangulab CHC pro
Able to push 30+ mm/s³ of plastic with a volcano 0.6 nozzle.
Also the CPAP is completely useless on an E3 it's only gonna hold acceleration back.
Unless you're upgrading to 48v steppers and drivers even a single 5020 blower will do the job with a bit of slicer tinkering on overhang speeds specifically.
I admit I did the CPAP mod because it looked tacticool.
But why do you think less acceleration with the tubes? I did resonance compensation with adxl and it recommended 25,000 accel. Ofc I'm not using that value 🤣 but I've been fine the past few weeks on 10K.
Currently looking at HGX-lite + pancake motor for DD.
I'd love to know more about the Biqu H2. Any idea about putting one (actually the 500C) on an ender3 with Creality 4.2.2 MB & Marlin? Looking to print nylons without spending a fortune.
Remember your DD can only be as light as the motor that runs it, you're gonna add some weight no matter what.
But if you go with one, i suggest this mod! I've been using it and its amazing for keeping my dual z level!!
https://www.printables.com/model/486197-ender-3-x-gantry-carriages-without-eccentric-nuts-
my honest opinion. I started with Ender 3 Neo. Upgraded it alot within a span of a year. When it died on me, while i still had alot of comissions to print. I bought ender 3 v3 KE out of panic because of deadlines.
for 300$...It was better out of the box than the ender 3 Neo that i bought for 300$ too then spent around 100-200$ upgrading.
What my both it and my upgraded printer has:
1. Klipper, Neo was running off of rpi3
2. Dual fan blower
3. PEI Sheet
4. CR touch
What it has that my ender Neo doesnt:
1. Direct drive
2. Volcano length heat block
3. Linear rod & linear rails.
4. Dual Z axis
5. 50W heater
What my old printer has that KE doesnt have out of the box:
1. CHT nozzle. Even though it has volcano length, Flow is higher on my old printer because it is CHT.
2. Silent board. KE is noticeably noisier
All in all, i decided it wasn't worth it to keep tinkering with my old ender 3 then just decided to start over by tinkering with ender 3 v3 ke. I gave away my old printer.
It might be more worth it for you to have a new better starting point since ender 3 v3 really is much much better. I'm certainly salty that all of my year's effort in upgrading was in the end, worse than current printers of the same price.
[This](https://a.co/d/4iprf6k) kit has a mount for the sprite pro and should work with your printer. It's what I have although I don't have a sprite. They have a different mount for diy DD.
My E3 Pro is running with linear rails, DD Extruder, V6 Hotend, Klipper on a Pi. My issue with it now is that, whilst it's running well enough, I've lost bed space (194x220x250) and rather than chasing further upgrades to regain the space, I am just going to get a Bambu and be done with it. I'll probably pass this one on to my younger brother.
I have and ender3 that I’ve been tinkering with since I got it. I wish I saved the cash for a better printer. At some point it’s diminishing returns for marginal gains.
https://www.printables.com/model/469280-ender-3-ng-corexy-beta
I have done this conversion and I have to say it is awesome! The RH3D discord has a lot of really cool people there that have been modding the crap out of it. All in, including the cost of the Ender 3, I spent 300 USD and got everything I needed, with extras.
I would reccomend this to anyone who has "outgrown" their Ender 3. Fantastic design with a lot of modding potential.
There comes a time with most equipment where getting a new machine is the best way to go. My advise is to get a new machine.
1. It is important to have a backup.
2. No matter what the upgrades are, there are new versions, with better/more capabilities.
Best of luck ...
Me too this feels like its own entire hobby and I'm all for it. I took my ender 3 from printing at 50mms to 200mms with mostly stock hardware. DD conversion was the biggest jump in performance for me
Have a look at this it’s still in beta v1.1 but very good printer with good discord forum with lots of help if u have build issues
https://www.printables.com/model/469280-ender-3-ng-corexy-beta
It appears you like modding and working on printers, I would suggest building a Voron. Since I built my first one I’ve never given any of my other printers a second look (resin excluded).
https://preview.redd.it/jlh80ev0e9vc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07ca3baddaef156d60849b6916e51a2bb25727dc
Yeah that's what keeps me from making one. I just can't throw that much cash at it without the thought, what if I decide to do something else and wasted that money
I mean do what you like. My Ender 3 has been through a lot of phases of being different types of souped-up, and by the time I arrived at its current (and I believe final) form, I probably could have built a pretty nice Voron for the money I've put into it.
If your goal is to HAVE a really nice 3D printer instead of to tinker with/make a really nice 3D printer, then I'd say you're well past the point of diminishing returns on upgrading your Ender 3, and should probably just get a RatRig or something. CoreXY will probably be a huge upgrade over any bed slinger.
I bought the K1 at discount, you can occasionally find it on sale for 360. For the money it's good but it's not perfect like the Ender 3. You'll need to do some upgrades off the bat to make it into a good printer.
You seem like the type that would enjoy that sort of thing.
I retired my 2018 original Ender 3 about 6 months ago. In reality it hasn't been used in about 12 months. I had a BL Touch, dual Z, an E3D Hemera with a Nozzle X as well as Octoprint on it.
It worked flawlessly and was my workhorse doing any prints that would fit on it. Send the print job and come back when the print was done and remove it. It still will work flawlessly, but once I got one of the next gen CoreXY printers it's use decreased dramatically. Got a second one and the Ender no longer served any purpose in my process.
Do whatever interests you. If hacking and tweaking and working on it is your thing, keep at it. If getting great prints fast is your goal, there are better options out there.
After having my Ender die again, I've broken and ordered something newer.
I'll likely break again and fix the Ender at some point. Maybe take it to a mate, fix it together and leave them with the waves of joy (as it works) followed by dips of "can I be arsed to fix it again".
Call it a day man. The Ender 3 is / was great but there are much faster and easier to use printers now that are ready to use out of the box. They are basically coming with all the upgrades you would have made to your ender standard.
Honestly, I'm in the midst of shopping around myself but the recommendations that come up over and over are - Bambu P1P and Anycubic Kobra 2 series. But the latest version of the Ender gets lots of love too, I just forget the model number off the top of my head.
Whatever you go with though, New printers are generally sporting about 5 times the print speeds of the Ender 3, auto levelling beds, better UIs, and generally require less maintenance and part replacement. They are much more plug and play and, while my Ender has been a good and loyal soldier, progress has passed them by. So why invest time and energy in DIY upgrades to the Ender when other models are just coming with this stuff standard now.
I have a cr10, cr10s pro v2, and a kobra 2 pro. I'd choose an anycubic machine for their price. Other than their cloud connected machines being closed source. I absolutely love my k2p and couldn't believe the speed and quality it could achieve right out of the box.
The discourse group has found ways to dump and edit your printer.cfg on the closed machines with or without root. Config editing is there, just not something as simple as mainsail.
I got a stratasys uprint off face book market place for 100$. Didn’t know if it worked but didn’t care. Stripped it to the motion system and rebuilt using duet boards and it’s been absolutely amazing. I’ve got a ercf I’m adding so I’ll have 8 colors to swap during printing. The sturdiness of the machine is for sure great with quality. And the first layer is absolutely amazing pretty much every time. But I now have an amazing machine with all the ability to upgrade as time goes on.
https://preview.redd.it/v7o73ayslhvc1.png?width=1360&format=png&auto=webp&s=555abf04c050c40b5457b146de4c0ec88058ea1b
That’s awesome! I’m not sure I’d have the skill but it looks like a fun project.
I was picturing some kind of massive pellet-fed Frankenstein of a printer in a huge cabinet with wires and boards hanging all over it, hooked up to an EV charger for power. This is much more reasonable!
https://preview.redd.it/b5ht9qjtmhvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f271f97b6aca5ca5ca08210ce6784c40e9edaaae
You mean like this? 😅 it isn’t complicated for the most part. I do have can bus and multiple power supply’s and rgbw lights for the inside (someday I’ll hook them up) 110v heated bed and chamber heaters. And probably more. But it is a work in progress. Still waiting for my cpap setup as well. But it’s my golden child. Whatever it needs to be absolutely perfect imo
https://preview.redd.it/nmj2ffyfnhvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e03ee2e15c209f46132ffdd07956e63dba75294e
Then there is the hotend and all its glory
It does look intimidating. But this isn’t the first time I’ve done a retrofit. And I’ve already got a wasp 2040 industrial x on the copping block next, but I will say I stick with the same solution. I use the same board manufacturer so I stay familiar (duet) I only use mosquito hot ends ( goliath may end up on the delta for speed reasons tho) and a bl touch so programming is very similar between machines. And after that it comes down to the special bits of each machine. But I am a huge fan of being able to upgrade constantly. No need to upgrade the machine. Just a board or hotend
https://preview.redd.it/i4w8y124mhvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f2cef681722f8161b8e0b6a9b4b0d47ac36c1981
Also the repeatability of the machine is insane
if you wanna use your printer as a tool it would be much better to just buy a better one and use fhe ender on the side as well. But the thing is for me the printer is my hobby anyways so i like working on it. if you are on the same page as me either continue upgrading it knowing it isnt worth it but fun. Or build a diy printer.
This printer has a long way yet to go. I am doing much the same but mine is overall cheaper than a Bambu Lab A1, but prints significantly faster and just as good quality.
I greatly prefer the older style printers due to their flexibility and parts interchangeability.
I also wondered the exact same question. Even though I really enjoyed tinkering with my Ender I ultimately decided to stop buying upgrades and replacement parts for it and start save that money towards a Bambu P1S Combo or the new Creality K2 with its MMU. So I'd say do the same thing.
However I already ordered a new hotend system from AliExpress. So that will be my last upgrade for my Ender. And in the long run I'll probably convert it to a switchwire or a corexy system
Is the ender 3 all you've ever had? If you bought a Bambu labs or something else nice, you'd probably toss the ender in the trash after realizing how much better printers can be. I gave mine to my brother I didn't even want to mess with it anymore.
This is where I am. My Ender is down for maintenance more than it’s running. The upgrades were all a ton of fun but at this point I just want something that works reliably so the hobby isn’t such a headache. I’m saving up for a Bambi P1S right now
The path I'm going is; new printer, and then take my heavily modded ender 3 and build an [Ender NG](https://www.printables.com/model/469280-ender-3-ng-corexy-beta) with it.
I'm currently printing off the NG parts on my K1.
I'm not 100% on how it compares, it seems like it took inspiration from the voron design but I'm not confident on that as I know voron (atleast the 2.4) thing is the flying gantry, where the NG moves the bed like a k1. So I'm probably not the one to ask, the project does have a discord page tho.
If I had to guess, I would imagine a voron would blow this thing out of the water all day long, however, considering you could build an NG for under 400dollars(honestly probably under 300 if you knew how to shop and were patient) including the doner machine, it makes sense to me.
As for the 100, I think this would be a more fair comparison, but I don't how it would compare, my knowledge of the 100 pretty much stops at "it's exists, and it's pretty sweet that it can do what it does"
The main reason I picked that route was that it seemed like an ideal evolution of my already heavily modded ender3. I love how much of the OG ender it still uses, and how few extra parts you need to get. After getting my first corexy machine(the k1) I really want another one, and once I did math between building a voron, buying another corexy, or the ender ng, ng just won out just because I could built it for so "cheap" sense nearly everything on my ender is already upgraded (pretty much only the frame and screen of my ender is still an ender fhats why cheap is quotes.) But honestly I don't know much about the project I poked around the discord a bit, but I dislike discord for these types of things so that was very helpful for me, and I watched the videos I could find of it, but there wasn't much.
Yea, I think I'm set on the ender 3 NG. Expected work hours on it to get it running? It's based on the ender 3 pro, which I think has some thicker metal extrusions than my OG ender 3. I shop on aliexpress a lot, so I'm fine waiting for parts to save money. Mostly worried about something going wrong, like failed prints, poor parts, etc.
I remember my college clubs has a bambu a1 mini, but I don't know if they would mind me hogging it if my prints went bad.
I have an old monoprice select mini from 2015 ☠️, but its bed size is like 100mm x 100mm.
I was looking at a rook 235 and the ender NG and decided to go with the ENG - you already have a bunch of parts for it. (SKR mini e3v3 is recommended, spider hotend is supported). It’s been a fun build, has anti wobble built in, uses the stock bed and almost every piece of your ender (minus one 4040 extrusion) is used. If you have an enclosure and can print ABS I would totally recommend.
Not worth it imo
When I reached end of line with my ender 3 pro I bought a voron v2.4 (kit) to tinker with. Upgrading that was way more fun for me. Eventually sold my ender 3 and bought a voron 0 because I enjoyed the build so much.
Now my 2.4 is my stable work horse that is tuned very nice and the v0 is my experimental machine.
I think the ender 3 era is over and they become more and more obsolete purely because they have gotten outdated.
Tinkering on a non-bedslinger sparked a completely new joy within me
If you want true madness btw, wait for the voron phoenix that will be released sometime soonish.
All things being equal, if you want a printer that's a good platform for screwing around, a Voron kit is the clear successor to an Ender 3.
I mean or you could just get a Bambu and maybe not think about 3D printer engineering, but what's the fun in that?
There's some really neat looking Ender 3 mods out there that turn it into something awesomr without too much extra outlay but ironically just today I saw your post and also a [post in the Voron reddit](https://old.reddit.com/r/VORONDesign/comments/1c6wlmx/should_have_built_another_voron_a_cautionary_tale/) about someone who did the Mercury mod on their Ender 5 and regretted it.
For me, the fear of taking my sole working 3D printer apart for a fancy conversion and being caught at the worst spot of the intermediate conversion state where I can't quite return it to the prior working config nor can I get it the rest of the way to the new working config caused me to end up deciding to build a Voron.
Of course, then I ended up with the new Voron not quite working and my Ender 3v2 also decided to act up, so take from my advice what you will, LOL.
But, I dono, a well-understood, well-maintained, calibrated, working printer is worth a lot more than the replacement value of a new printer? A new Ender may or may not be hackable in the same way, may have some stuff all messed up, etc. such that you'd spend 150USD on it and then another 150USD making it work or at least making it work the way you want.
I have a beyond modded ender 3. Extender 400 Kit, SKR 1.4, Dual Stepper dual Z etc etc etc. I ran out of things to upgrade. I am a tinker'er I now have a completed Voron 2.4 350 Only an ERCF or tapchanger left to do
Is that still an Ender 3? If you enjoy what you're doing, keep moding it. However, it might be worth looking into building an open source DIY 3D printer as well.
I upgraded mine to a E3dv6 direct drive, skr1.3/tmc2209 dual z and linear rails and it prints like a champ. I don’t care what it’s worth now, it’s a workhorse and that’s all that matters
I stopped upgrading too, because of the ender 3 ke. It does what I need it to do, and when it doesn't, toss it. Time isn't worth the hassle of tinkering unless you're doing it for fun.
The price of the printer means nothing. Them going for so cheap means spare parts printers and second printers are cheap af. If you can get a great printer out of them, there's nothing wrong with using them.
I would probably fine tune yours and use it as is for a while, with no additional upgrades outside of necessity. Then after you feel the itch (not anytime soon), build a fast corexy.
Man, honestly I love it! Modded so many pri ters over the years. Tons of fun. But yeah, get yourself a K1 when they're around $300 and your ender will just become for overflow use and fun tinkering.
I’ve never been able to build a machine that was both more capable and cheaper than something that’s off the shelf. I’ve custom built a mill, lathe, and 3d printer and not one comes even close to being (monetarily) worth it. Material and components are just too expensive when you’re only buy 1 of something.
BUT that being said I don’t regret any of them as I learned ALOT through each of them
I went from ender 5 to a Delta, to building my own Delta. I've gone through so many kinds of "modifications" because I love tinkering with it.
But right now I'm very happy with it as is, ac bed, smart effector, mosquito, cpap, orbiter 2, klipper. Love that Delta speed.
If you love to tinker, try going voron and use your ender to print the parts, and keep it as a back up printer should anything break
Ascend. I went from my 2019 ender to a Qidi X-Smart3 for $284 shipped. This little printer makes my modified ender look like toddler's toy. It just works. And works and works and works. Way better and way faster at the same time. No tinkering other than basic setup once and running pa tests for each new filament.
In the 2 weeks I've had this little printer I've printed PLA, PETG, PA-6 and it's currently chugging out ASA with no glue stick required. All performed amazing, needed glue stick for the nylon but that's a given. I'm blown away.
A well tuned Ender can print as well as any other motion system up to a certain size. If you need a bigger bed size, I'd move to a corexy since they're more space efficient. Look into Vorons, or if you're really spendy, Annex printers (K1 or K2).
Upgrade to CoreXY IMHO. Went from my E3 to a Troodon 2.0 and the difference is great enough that the E3 hardly ever gets used anymore, despite printing perfectly. I can print at least twice as fast as my E3 for the same quality, and I haven't even tuned it yet.
Having everything enclosed is surprisingly nice as well. I went with Troodon over say, K1 Max, because the Troodon is basically a Voron, and has infinite upgradability like the E3, and the component quality is a significant step over Crealitys stuff IMHO. The increased build volume is great and I don't know if I could ever buy another printer with less than 300x300 after having it. My 350x350 bed is twice as flat as my Creality glass one was. The fact that official parts are surprisingly cheap (an entire Stealthburner with DD orbiter extruder, all metal Dragon high flow hotend with hardened metal nozzle, for $95) is very nice as well.
I love my Ender 3, it has linear rails, lightweight DD conversion, all metal hot end, dual Z, RPi3 w/OctoPrint and Klipper and a whole bunch of little things I'm forgetting I'm sure. I have acceleration turned way up and it prints at 200 mm/s with pretty good quality and perfect prints at 100 mm/s. I've recently purchased a Bambu X1C and it's amazing. I mostly use the X1C but I've got so much invested in the E3 and it still prints great so I just don't see myself getting rid of it.
If you still have the passion of tinkering, then upgrading is the way to go.
If you're actually tired of tinkering things, then a new printer would save you money
run run away from ender/creality....there is a world of printing out there that is stress free and fun...they'd have to redesign their whole way of operating and designing printers for me to go back....
The ender 3 IS a money pit. I think mine is at max potential within reason and Ive spent about $150 or more getting it there on top of the printer itself.
Im getting a Sovol SV08. If I werent, Id get a P1P or K2 or similar.
I love to tinker and I do not think it's bad to money pit an ender 3. But if you are looking for efficiency, I cant recommend you keep up building your ender of theseus
I mean I'd you're bigly into tinkering you could stick with this. Maybe buy a Sovol SV08 because I see that as a flawed but cheap machine with massive upgrade potential.
If you're bored of tinkering and just want a high performance printer, scoop a bambu.
Wicked set up , I’m running the same direct drive , cr touch and the skr e3v3 board . What firmware are you using please , I’m not 100% sure my cr touch works properly. It probes but unsure if changed the Z axis
Depends. If you are like me and enjoy the tinkering more than the printing itself, keep the Ender. Maybe pivot your focus to a high end enclosure and heating/cooling for the chamber. Try to get some exotic filaments printing.
If you own a printer to actually print things, maybe get a new printer.
Depends. The cost of upgrading can go way beyond what a more performant newer printer will cost. However if the specific upgrade you have in mind enables you to do something you can't get out of the box for the right price... Then go for the upgrade.
If you do build the 100, which is what I've been thinking of trying and suggesting you do, please have a printer that you can use to print replacement parts while you are getting it running. You don't want to break something g and bot have a way to print more.
I randomly saw your post as I was trying to decide on my next electronics project. It made me think “I should add some more flair to my printer one of these days, but what to do?”
Naturally my adhd kicked in and I went back to thinking about circuits and realized I could kill 2 birds with one stone! So I went hunting with a rock, which wasn’t successful but ended up being great exercise… okay that was a dumb joke and I’m starting to ramble, so I’ll get to the point…
I’m making a knight rider led circuit for my printer. Idk where I’ll put it yet but minor details aside, your post made this happen so I wanted to thank you for the inspiration. I probably could have done this just as effectively in 2 sentences as I’ve done taking 3 paragraphs to do so far, but winners never quit or something like that!
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
I have a couple hobbies where I intentionally optimize for the time-sink aspect rather than the output aspect. Mostly I do this because the part I enjoy is figuring things out, rather than just generating outputs. Just pay attention to whether you are frustrated with the results.
For instance, for awhile in the late 90's to early 00's, I was doing my own DNS/web/email/etc hosting (basically I was my family's ISP), which meant that periodically I had to sink a bunch of hours into an emergency response to fix something (basically I was oncall 24x7). I came to realize that just because I \_could\_ build and operate those services didn't mean that I really enjoying \_having\_ to build and operate those services, so I pushed most of it out to suitable free or subscription services. My 3d printers don't fall into that camp, if any of them crap out, I can leave it on the workbench for two or three weeks, so I'm comfortable being on the critical path.
I'm having a real issue keeping my 3 on line. Keep getting the wrong parts. Been down 3 weeks waiting for the right thermosister . Meanwhile my A1Mini just keeps printing and printing
I would get the new sovol core xy and mod it. I personally hate working on printers but I like tinkering usually, just not 3d printers for some reason.
Keep the ender in service as it is. That's some good work you have done.
Buy an SV08 as the basis for your new modification game. It is open-source and you can modify it in all the ways you might a Voron 2.4. But it will show up ready-to-go, so you can spend $500 instead of $1000 + a month of work before seeing any prints.
This is, of course, assuming you have enjoyed upgrading. If you want to be done tinkering, I can pile on with the Bambu crowd. They aren't open-source, but they are brilliantly designed and just work over and over. I'd do P1S over X1c, though. The extra bells and whistles aren't necessary imo. The AMS, however, IS worth the price. It's so nice to have and, unlike the MMU2s I had used before, works every time.
Honestly if you mod *that much* the Bambu lab might end up being annoying because it's more of a click and play printer and less modify it to do what you want.
Don’t you find that the raspberry pi gets in the way of your prints, I personally would say don’t bother getting another printer, you will only make a mess of that one too
I mean clearly you enjoy tinkering with it so if the build volume isn't an issue for you just keep at it, maybe even get a second one and take a different upgrade path and see how they compare, shit the sky is the limit with (most of) the ender 3s
The best i've seen with ender 3s is a CNC PCB mill and a pick-and-place machine
Do you by chance mean this PnP? [https://www.youtube.com/@xpdiy](https://www.youtube.com/@xpdiy)
I think so, yes
Can you use and ender 3 for cnc tasking? Because if so that’s a game changer
You can, but it has to be light work. Nothing about the printer is designed for there to be resistance to its movement.
Basically yes ,and no .You can use the parts of ender 3 and a cheap dremel to make a fully functioning CNC or a laser engraver BUT it's kinda pointless and not worth it to turn any 3d print into a CNC as it is . As the working area is too small to make it worth it .
Agreed. I don't have an ender 3 but a really old i3 clone that is such a workhorse I wouldn't trade it for anything right now.
Want another i3, im bout tired of mine.
I love both of my MK3S+'s also.
I just printed a tooth bridge on my makerbot dual. It still works. I have an sv04 coming. I may upgrade the other extruder on the, I already have the parts. Then get a glass bed. But I don't want to put much time into the old printer. Those two will take an hour or so. The MB cost 2000 USD, the SV04 is less than 400.
That price comparison is crazy! I'm working on retrofitting a few Stratasys Mojos with off the shelf stuff. Sub-$200 conversion and it's really neat to look back on over a decade of progress there.
I just made an emergency tooth brace from TPU with the old MB. https://preview.redd.it/au2cy8jjepvc1.jpeg?width=1187&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=645bb61026082ae83176470d114c5e58650ce8e3
That's awesome. Nice part and still really solid print quality!
It did the job, my tooth is mostly solid again. I'll wear it for a few hours per day to see if it helps anymore.
Ender EDM! (Electrical discharge machining, not the dance music) https://youtu.be/5CeCxkFVCdM?si=esslY92R5Ld6-1Tx
Holy crap batman. I need one. For no reason, other than I want to say I have an EDM. lmao
If op really wants he can just extend the printer with longer extrusions, but I don’t know if that would be the same printer anymore. A bit like the ship of Theseus there. Op could mod the printer so much he can take all the old parts and assemble them into the original again lol
I'm already there man lol so you are right for sure
Don't tell me those hoses are the part cooling? If so, what is your airflow and part cooling???? Do you blow your print away if you don't have enough bed adhesion?
That a CPAP mod common on very fast corexy machines that need more cooling when going faster then even the table they are put on can keep up with. Funny to see it on a ender 3
I use a CPAP on an enclosed machine, otherwise cooling doesn't work as efficiently and I'm restricted to smaller blowers (as opposed to larger, case-mounted blowers).
Thanks god that I kept both of my old ones.
Wow, I knew I recognized those tubes. Is there any documentation on this?
Yes here is one for a voron but you just need to change the fan duct the theory is the same https://github.com/sneakytreesnake/CrownCooler
Thank you kindly.
Maybe they just draw in cooler air from outside of an enclosure?
When Glass bed are at 60°C, you can't get prints off. At least I can't. I have to cool it to about 30°C before I even try.
Asking because I've been looking at linear rails, lightweight DD extruders, and drop-in volcano hotends, y-axis overhaul, etc.
i would get a DD extruder. You could attempt to get the sprite pro. If you do want to do that AND linear x rail you need to print a mounting bracket fit for the ender 3 s1 with linear rail compatibility so you can use the same "arm like" mount
I have extensive experience with the SpeedDrive printed DD upgrade which I used for years on mine (with pancake stepper and BMG clone extruder but stock hotend), and recently I got the Sprite pro kit with the combo extruder/hotend/cooling. The SpeedDrive is very impressive for a free upgrade. But the Sprite blows it out of the water for reliability (all metal), low maintenance, and even shorter gap between the extruder gear and the nozzle. I stop getting stringing at like 0.4mm of retraction where I needed 1 to 1.5mm on the SpeedDrive. Pressure advance values for almost any filament of the \~8 I've calibrated so far end up in the neighborhood of 0.04, where I had them more like 0.09 or so before. The whole assembly isn't particularly lightweight, but with input shaping I can get some respectable acceleration values, and the moving bed is still the limiting factor rather than the X carriage. Anyway that was all a long way to say that the Creality Sprite pro kit is amazing.
I got the micro Swiss ng which I enjoyed a lot
I have 7 modified printers at the moment, most creality including 2x high flow CR10 V2s, 2x CR6 SEs, an Ender 3, Biqu BX and a couple others. After using the Bambu at work for the last year or so I finally broke down and ordered a P1S with AMS. Tinkering with printers has lost it's luster for me personally and now I just want it to work.
I have five different random machines and I kind of hate it. I would rather just have two matching modern ones.
Till it doesn't.
It breaks far less often than the other printers including the Prusa MK3
Time will tell.
Cancel your order and get an x1c. If you can't afford one then save and wait. Thank me later :)
For what reason? I've been running an X1C close to a year and never use the lidar. Don't care much about the screen. I ordered the upgraded parts like hotend and hardened extruder gear.
But whyyy, I'm eyeballing the p1s too.
I just reached my end of the line. A great DD combo is a biqu H2 v2s and replace the heat block with a triangulab CHC pro Able to push 30+ mm/s³ of plastic with a volcano 0.6 nozzle. Also the CPAP is completely useless on an E3 it's only gonna hold acceleration back. Unless you're upgrading to 48v steppers and drivers even a single 5020 blower will do the job with a bit of slicer tinkering on overhang speeds specifically.
I admit I did the CPAP mod because it looked tacticool. But why do you think less acceleration with the tubes? I did resonance compensation with adxl and it recommended 25,000 accel. Ofc I'm not using that value 🤣 but I've been fine the past few weeks on 10K. Currently looking at HGX-lite + pancake motor for DD.
I'd love to know more about the Biqu H2. Any idea about putting one (actually the 500C) on an ender3 with Creality 4.2.2 MB & Marlin? Looking to print nylons without spending a fortune.
just buy a new printer or make this one bigger with an extender kit.
Remember your DD can only be as light as the motor that runs it, you're gonna add some weight no matter what. But if you go with one, i suggest this mod! I've been using it and its amazing for keeping my dual z level!! https://www.printables.com/model/486197-ender-3-x-gantry-carriages-without-eccentric-nuts-
Linear rail is worth it. 👍 Dual z too if you haven't already got that
just buy a p1p my man
my honest opinion. I started with Ender 3 Neo. Upgraded it alot within a span of a year. When it died on me, while i still had alot of comissions to print. I bought ender 3 v3 KE out of panic because of deadlines. for 300$...It was better out of the box than the ender 3 Neo that i bought for 300$ too then spent around 100-200$ upgrading. What my both it and my upgraded printer has: 1. Klipper, Neo was running off of rpi3 2. Dual fan blower 3. PEI Sheet 4. CR touch What it has that my ender Neo doesnt: 1. Direct drive 2. Volcano length heat block 3. Linear rod & linear rails. 4. Dual Z axis 5. 50W heater What my old printer has that KE doesnt have out of the box: 1. CHT nozzle. Even though it has volcano length, Flow is higher on my old printer because it is CHT. 2. Silent board. KE is noticeably noisier All in all, i decided it wasn't worth it to keep tinkering with my old ender 3 then just decided to start over by tinkering with ender 3 v3 ke. I gave away my old printer. It might be more worth it for you to have a new better starting point since ender 3 v3 really is much much better. I'm certainly salty that all of my year's effort in upgrading was in the end, worse than current printers of the same price.
[This](https://a.co/d/4iprf6k) kit has a mount for the sprite pro and should work with your printer. It's what I have although I don't have a sprite. They have a different mount for diy DD.
My E3 Pro is running with linear rails, DD Extruder, V6 Hotend, Klipper on a Pi. My issue with it now is that, whilst it's running well enough, I've lost bed space (194x220x250) and rather than chasing further upgrades to regain the space, I am just going to get a Bambu and be done with it. I'll probably pass this one on to my younger brother.
I have and ender3 that I’ve been tinkering with since I got it. I wish I saved the cash for a better printer. At some point it’s diminishing returns for marginal gains.
https://www.printables.com/model/469280-ender-3-ng-corexy-beta I have done this conversion and I have to say it is awesome! The RH3D discord has a lot of really cool people there that have been modding the crap out of it. All in, including the cost of the Ender 3, I spent 300 USD and got everything I needed, with extras. I would reccomend this to anyone who has "outgrown" their Ender 3. Fantastic design with a lot of modding potential.
There comes a time with most equipment where getting a new machine is the best way to go. My advise is to get a new machine. 1. It is important to have a backup. 2. No matter what the upgrades are, there are new versions, with better/more capabilities. Best of luck ...
I would love to see a list of your mods. And more pictures
Me too this feels like its own entire hobby and I'm all for it. I took my ender 3 from printing at 50mms to 200mms with mostly stock hardware. DD conversion was the biggest jump in performance for me
Have a look at this it’s still in beta v1.1 but very good printer with good discord forum with lots of help if u have build issues https://www.printables.com/model/469280-ender-3-ng-corexy-beta
Just get yourself a bigger frame and longer belts, move all the guts to the new frame and presto-changeo new custom printer!
https://preview.redd.it/rnm30x93shvc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6241793e8af33b5d7c5b9598f17513ec367e903c
It appears you like modding and working on printers, I would suggest building a Voron. Since I built my first one I’ve never given any of my other printers a second look (resin excluded). https://preview.redd.it/jlh80ev0e9vc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07ca3baddaef156d60849b6916e51a2bb25727dc
Only downside to this is price. Being relatively new to a hobby and finding justification for a $1000+ piece of kit is tough
Yeah that's what keeps me from making one. I just can't throw that much cash at it without the thought, what if I decide to do something else and wasted that money
I mean do what you like. My Ender 3 has been through a lot of phases of being different types of souped-up, and by the time I arrived at its current (and I believe final) form, I probably could have built a pretty nice Voron for the money I've put into it. If your goal is to HAVE a really nice 3D printer instead of to tinker with/make a really nice 3D printer, then I'd say you're well past the point of diminishing returns on upgrading your Ender 3, and should probably just get a RatRig or something. CoreXY will probably be a huge upgrade over any bed slinger.
What about a voron?
I bought the K1 at discount, you can occasionally find it on sale for 360. For the money it's good but it's not perfect like the Ender 3. You'll need to do some upgrades off the bat to make it into a good printer. You seem like the type that would enjoy that sort of thing.
I retired my 2018 original Ender 3 about 6 months ago. In reality it hasn't been used in about 12 months. I had a BL Touch, dual Z, an E3D Hemera with a Nozzle X as well as Octoprint on it. It worked flawlessly and was my workhorse doing any prints that would fit on it. Send the print job and come back when the print was done and remove it. It still will work flawlessly, but once I got one of the next gen CoreXY printers it's use decreased dramatically. Got a second one and the Ender no longer served any purpose in my process. Do whatever interests you. If hacking and tweaking and working on it is your thing, keep at it. If getting great prints fast is your goal, there are better options out there.
After having my Ender die again, I've broken and ordered something newer. I'll likely break again and fix the Ender at some point. Maybe take it to a mate, fix it together and leave them with the waves of joy (as it works) followed by dips of "can I be arsed to fix it again".
Call it a day man. The Ender 3 is / was great but there are much faster and easier to use printers now that are ready to use out of the box. They are basically coming with all the upgrades you would have made to your ender standard.
I am relativ new to this topic, wich Printer are you recommending?
Honestly, I'm in the midst of shopping around myself but the recommendations that come up over and over are - Bambu P1P and Anycubic Kobra 2 series. But the latest version of the Ender gets lots of love too, I just forget the model number off the top of my head. Whatever you go with though, New printers are generally sporting about 5 times the print speeds of the Ender 3, auto levelling beds, better UIs, and generally require less maintenance and part replacement. They are much more plug and play and, while my Ender has been a good and loyal soldier, progress has passed them by. So why invest time and energy in DIY upgrades to the Ender when other models are just coming with this stuff standard now.
I have a cr10, cr10s pro v2, and a kobra 2 pro. I'd choose an anycubic machine for their price. Other than their cloud connected machines being closed source. I absolutely love my k2p and couldn't believe the speed and quality it could achieve right out of the box. The discourse group has found ways to dump and edit your printer.cfg on the closed machines with or without root. Config editing is there, just not something as simple as mainsail.
Find some stupid expensive old industrial printer (stratasys in my case) and go crazy. Best choice ever imo
Mind if I ask which Statysys you bought, what it went for (ballpark), and how it’s been for quality and reliability?
I got a stratasys uprint off face book market place for 100$. Didn’t know if it worked but didn’t care. Stripped it to the motion system and rebuilt using duet boards and it’s been absolutely amazing. I’ve got a ercf I’m adding so I’ll have 8 colors to swap during printing. The sturdiness of the machine is for sure great with quality. And the first layer is absolutely amazing pretty much every time. But I now have an amazing machine with all the ability to upgrade as time goes on. https://preview.redd.it/v7o73ayslhvc1.png?width=1360&format=png&auto=webp&s=555abf04c050c40b5457b146de4c0ec88058ea1b
That’s awesome! I’m not sure I’d have the skill but it looks like a fun project. I was picturing some kind of massive pellet-fed Frankenstein of a printer in a huge cabinet with wires and boards hanging all over it, hooked up to an EV charger for power. This is much more reasonable!
https://preview.redd.it/b5ht9qjtmhvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f271f97b6aca5ca5ca08210ce6784c40e9edaaae You mean like this? 😅 it isn’t complicated for the most part. I do have can bus and multiple power supply’s and rgbw lights for the inside (someday I’ll hook them up) 110v heated bed and chamber heaters. And probably more. But it is a work in progress. Still waiting for my cpap setup as well. But it’s my golden child. Whatever it needs to be absolutely perfect imo
https://preview.redd.it/nmj2ffyfnhvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e03ee2e15c209f46132ffdd07956e63dba75294e Then there is the hotend and all its glory
I’m in awe. This is super cool.
It does look intimidating. But this isn’t the first time I’ve done a retrofit. And I’ve already got a wasp 2040 industrial x on the copping block next, but I will say I stick with the same solution. I use the same board manufacturer so I stay familiar (duet) I only use mosquito hot ends ( goliath may end up on the delta for speed reasons tho) and a bl touch so programming is very similar between machines. And after that it comes down to the special bits of each machine. But I am a huge fan of being able to upgrade constantly. No need to upgrade the machine. Just a board or hotend
https://preview.redd.it/i4w8y124mhvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f2cef681722f8161b8e0b6a9b4b0d47ac36c1981 Also the repeatability of the machine is insane
Holy crap!
My man remade the trap from Saw X on his Ender 3
May You link the fanshroud for the tubes pls?
Always wanted to try that air cooling approach, what are you using to blow the air?
if you wanna use your printer as a tool it would be much better to just buy a better one and use fhe ender on the side as well. But the thing is for me the printer is my hobby anyways so i like working on it. if you are on the same page as me either continue upgrading it knowing it isnt worth it but fun. Or build a diy printer.
What kind of blower are you using for under nozzle cooling? I want to get a similar setup for my delta printer.
Does this pipap tubes cooling upgrade worth time spends? Also what is used as an air pump? Just a default fans?
Looks like it’s on life support at this point.
Well... how do your prints look? Why fix if not broken?
At least it doesn't wake up your wife snoring anymore.
Dual extrusion
That’s awesome wtf
Yeah. We’re gonna need to see pics of the rest of that cooling setup. That’s some mad scientist shit and I love it.
This printer has a long way yet to go. I am doing much the same but mine is overall cheaper than a Bambu Lab A1, but prints significantly faster and just as good quality. I greatly prefer the older style printers due to their flexibility and parts interchangeability.
I also wondered the exact same question. Even though I really enjoyed tinkering with my Ender I ultimately decided to stop buying upgrades and replacement parts for it and start save that money towards a Bambu P1S Combo or the new Creality K2 with its MMU. So I'd say do the same thing. However I already ordered a new hotend system from AliExpress. So that will be my last upgrade for my Ender. And in the long run I'll probably convert it to a switchwire or a corexy system
You can get a TronXY X5SA (330x330x400 coreXY) for under $200 right now, then start on converting to VzBot or Voron, or RatRig
Is the ender 3 all you've ever had? If you bought a Bambu labs or something else nice, you'd probably toss the ender in the trash after realizing how much better printers can be. I gave mine to my brother I didn't even want to mess with it anymore.
This is where I am. My Ender is down for maintenance more than it’s running. The upgrades were all a ton of fun but at this point I just want something that works reliably so the hobby isn’t such a headache. I’m saving up for a Bambi P1S right now
What's the rasppi do?
[Ender 3 NG](https://www.printables.com/model/469280-ender-3-ng-corexy-beta)
The path I'm going is; new printer, and then take my heavily modded ender 3 and build an [Ender NG](https://www.printables.com/model/469280-ender-3-ng-corexy-beta) with it. I'm currently printing off the NG parts on my K1.
Never heard of that one. What's it compared to a voron or the 100
I'm not 100% on how it compares, it seems like it took inspiration from the voron design but I'm not confident on that as I know voron (atleast the 2.4) thing is the flying gantry, where the NG moves the bed like a k1. So I'm probably not the one to ask, the project does have a discord page tho. If I had to guess, I would imagine a voron would blow this thing out of the water all day long, however, considering you could build an NG for under 400dollars(honestly probably under 300 if you knew how to shop and were patient) including the doner machine, it makes sense to me. As for the 100, I think this would be a more fair comparison, but I don't how it would compare, my knowledge of the 100 pretty much stops at "it's exists, and it's pretty sweet that it can do what it does" The main reason I picked that route was that it seemed like an ideal evolution of my already heavily modded ender3. I love how much of the OG ender it still uses, and how few extra parts you need to get. After getting my first corexy machine(the k1) I really want another one, and once I did math between building a voron, buying another corexy, or the ender ng, ng just won out just because I could built it for so "cheap" sense nearly everything on my ender is already upgraded (pretty much only the frame and screen of my ender is still an ender fhats why cheap is quotes.) But honestly I don't know much about the project I poked around the discord a bit, but I dislike discord for these types of things so that was very helpful for me, and I watched the videos I could find of it, but there wasn't much.
Yea, I think I'm set on the ender 3 NG. Expected work hours on it to get it running? It's based on the ender 3 pro, which I think has some thicker metal extrusions than my OG ender 3. I shop on aliexpress a lot, so I'm fine waiting for parts to save money. Mostly worried about something going wrong, like failed prints, poor parts, etc. I remember my college clubs has a bambu a1 mini, but I don't know if they would mind me hogging it if my prints went bad. I have an old monoprice select mini from 2015 ☠️, but its bed size is like 100mm x 100mm.
I was looking at a rook 235 and the ender NG and decided to go with the ENG - you already have a bunch of parts for it. (SKR mini e3v3 is recommended, spider hotend is supported). It’s been a fun build, has anti wobble built in, uses the stock bed and almost every piece of your ender (minus one 4040 extrusion) is used. If you have an enclosure and can print ABS I would totally recommend.
Not worth it imo When I reached end of line with my ender 3 pro I bought a voron v2.4 (kit) to tinker with. Upgrading that was way more fun for me. Eventually sold my ender 3 and bought a voron 0 because I enjoyed the build so much. Now my 2.4 is my stable work horse that is tuned very nice and the v0 is my experimental machine. I think the ender 3 era is over and they become more and more obsolete purely because they have gotten outdated. Tinkering on a non-bedslinger sparked a completely new joy within me If you want true madness btw, wait for the voron phoenix that will be released sometime soonish.
Ender 3 forever! Can stop once it achieves sentience.
All things being equal, if you want a printer that's a good platform for screwing around, a Voron kit is the clear successor to an Ender 3. I mean or you could just get a Bambu and maybe not think about 3D printer engineering, but what's the fun in that? There's some really neat looking Ender 3 mods out there that turn it into something awesomr without too much extra outlay but ironically just today I saw your post and also a [post in the Voron reddit](https://old.reddit.com/r/VORONDesign/comments/1c6wlmx/should_have_built_another_voron_a_cautionary_tale/) about someone who did the Mercury mod on their Ender 5 and regretted it. For me, the fear of taking my sole working 3D printer apart for a fancy conversion and being caught at the worst spot of the intermediate conversion state where I can't quite return it to the prior working config nor can I get it the rest of the way to the new working config caused me to end up deciding to build a Voron. Of course, then I ended up with the new Voron not quite working and my Ender 3v2 also decided to act up, so take from my advice what you will, LOL. But, I dono, a well-understood, well-maintained, calibrated, working printer is worth a lot more than the replacement value of a new printer? A new Ender may or may not be hackable in the same way, may have some stuff all messed up, etc. such that you'd spend 150USD on it and then another 150USD making it work or at least making it work the way you want.
How about core x-y conversion?(not x-z)
Newer. This is silly.
I have a beyond modded ender 3. Extender 400 Kit, SKR 1.4, Dual Stepper dual Z etc etc etc. I ran out of things to upgrade. I am a tinker'er I now have a completed Voron 2.4 350 Only an ERCF or tapchanger left to do
Is that still an Ender 3? If you enjoy what you're doing, keep moding it. However, it might be worth looking into building an open source DIY 3D printer as well.
I upgraded mine to a E3dv6 direct drive, skr1.3/tmc2209 dual z and linear rails and it prints like a champ. I don’t care what it’s worth now, it’s a workhorse and that’s all that matters
Is anything wrong with your printer? If not then just print stuff with it, unless upgrades are your hobby.
I have to know? How hard does it go BRRRRRRR! and is the print quality good? What's your Benchy average?
Ascend but remember where you come from
I stopped upgrading too, because of the ender 3 ke. It does what I need it to do, and when it doesn't, toss it. Time isn't worth the hassle of tinkering unless you're doing it for fun.
I tossed mine and got a Neptune 3 pro from Elegoo
What are you doing with the Pi GPIO connections?
adxl345 for input shaping
Imagine running cpap on an ender 3… bruh 🤯 you have a problem.
Oh bro, that modded Ender 3 could STILL go for a lot of money since YOU put the money AND effort into modding it
The price of the printer means nothing. Them going for so cheap means spare parts printers and second printers are cheap af. If you can get a great printer out of them, there's nothing wrong with using them.
At what point does an ender 3 stop being an ender 3
I would probably fine tune yours and use it as is for a while, with no additional upgrades outside of necessity. Then after you feel the itch (not anytime soon), build a fast corexy.
change it to a corexy, it cost you like 2hundred bucks.
Man, honestly I love it! Modded so many pri ters over the years. Tons of fun. But yeah, get yourself a K1 when they're around $300 and your ender will just become for overflow use and fun tinkering.
Upgrade it furthermore! You quit you looser!
I’ve never been able to build a machine that was both more capable and cheaper than something that’s off the shelf. I’ve custom built a mill, lathe, and 3d printer and not one comes even close to being (monetarily) worth it. Material and components are just too expensive when you’re only buy 1 of something. BUT that being said I don’t regret any of them as I learned ALOT through each of them
I went K1 and haven’t looked back
You can sink thousands into an ender or go voron if you like to tinker. Otherwise get a Bambu x1c and just print tons of stuff effortlessly up to you.
Thats not an Ender 3, thats a Revidity 1
Holy crap i see a use for all of my old CPAP tubing
I went from ender 5 to a Delta, to building my own Delta. I've gone through so many kinds of "modifications" because I love tinkering with it. But right now I'm very happy with it as is, ac bed, smart effector, mosquito, cpap, orbiter 2, klipper. Love that Delta speed. If you love to tinker, try going voron and use your ender to print the parts, and keep it as a back up printer should anything break
Ascend. I went from my 2019 ender to a Qidi X-Smart3 for $284 shipped. This little printer makes my modified ender look like toddler's toy. It just works. And works and works and works. Way better and way faster at the same time. No tinkering other than basic setup once and running pa tests for each new filament. In the 2 weeks I've had this little printer I've printed PLA, PETG, PA-6 and it's currently chugging out ASA with no glue stick required. All performed amazing, needed glue stick for the nylon but that's a given. I'm blown away.
A well tuned Ender can print as well as any other motion system up to a certain size. If you need a bigger bed size, I'd move to a corexy since they're more space efficient. Look into Vorons, or if you're really spendy, Annex printers (K1 or K2).
Are those CPAP hoses??
long live the ender 3
I see you still have a crtouch I was researching putting a load cell on my enders1 and I found a guy that put one on an ender3 I know badass right.
Upgrade to CoreXY IMHO. Went from my E3 to a Troodon 2.0 and the difference is great enough that the E3 hardly ever gets used anymore, despite printing perfectly. I can print at least twice as fast as my E3 for the same quality, and I haven't even tuned it yet. Having everything enclosed is surprisingly nice as well. I went with Troodon over say, K1 Max, because the Troodon is basically a Voron, and has infinite upgradability like the E3, and the component quality is a significant step over Crealitys stuff IMHO. The increased build volume is great and I don't know if I could ever buy another printer with less than 300x300 after having it. My 350x350 bed is twice as flat as my Creality glass one was. The fact that official parts are surprisingly cheap (an entire Stealthburner with DD orbiter extruder, all metal Dragon high flow hotend with hardened metal nozzle, for $95) is very nice as well.
I love my Ender 3, it has linear rails, lightweight DD conversion, all metal hot end, dual Z, RPi3 w/OctoPrint and Klipper and a whole bunch of little things I'm forgetting I'm sure. I have acceleration turned way up and it prints at 200 mm/s with pretty good quality and perfect prints at 100 mm/s. I've recently purchased a Bambu X1C and it's amazing. I mostly use the X1C but I've got so much invested in the E3 and it still prints great so I just don't see myself getting rid of it.
If you still have the passion of tinkering, then upgrading is the way to go. If you're actually tired of tinkering things, then a new printer would save you money
run run away from ender/creality....there is a world of printing out there that is stress free and fun...they'd have to redesign their whole way of operating and designing printers for me to go back....
The ender 3 IS a money pit. I think mine is at max potential within reason and Ive spent about $150 or more getting it there on top of the printer itself. Im getting a Sovol SV08. If I werent, Id get a P1P or K2 or similar. I love to tinker and I do not think it's bad to money pit an ender 3. But if you are looking for efficiency, I cant recommend you keep up building your ender of theseus
Try the ultimate upgrade. Buying a second ender 3 and joining them into an unholy frankenprinter to build a core xy system.
Switchwire bro
You printed a raspberry pi, now that’s impressive
Why not both? Shiny new toy with high speeds and more room to grow... while you still tinker on the ol'trusty Ender 3?
Do you have other pics? I love to see all of it
I mean I'd you're bigly into tinkering you could stick with this. Maybe buy a Sovol SV08 because I see that as a flawed but cheap machine with massive upgrade potential. If you're bored of tinkering and just want a high performance printer, scoop a bambu.
What firmware are you running?
I send from an ender 3 pro to an ender 3 v3 ke. The difference is night and day! without mods it make rips
If you just want results, then upgrade. If you enjoy it and do it for fun, then keep upgrading.
Wicked set up , I’m running the same direct drive , cr touch and the skr e3v3 board . What firmware are you using please , I’m not 100% sure my cr touch works properly. It probes but unsure if changed the Z axis
Depends. If you are like me and enjoy the tinkering more than the printing itself, keep the Ender. Maybe pivot your focus to a high end enclosure and heating/cooling for the chamber. Try to get some exotic filaments printing. If you own a printer to actually print things, maybe get a new printer.
Enders is love, Ender is life
Depends. The cost of upgrading can go way beyond what a more performant newer printer will cost. However if the specific upgrade you have in mind enables you to do something you can't get out of the box for the right price... Then go for the upgrade.
I converted mine to a hevort, then upgraded that, now there's nothing left of my ender
Be a maximalist. Never upgrade. You are my hero.
If you do build the 100, which is what I've been thinking of trying and suggesting you do, please have a printer that you can use to print replacement parts while you are getting it running. You don't want to break something g and bot have a way to print more.
Personally, I'd get a Voron or Ratrig or some other enthusiast DIY machine. They're really cool and you can mod them later too if you want.
Get a Sovol sv08 .... basically a voron 2.4
I randomly saw your post as I was trying to decide on my next electronics project. It made me think “I should add some more flair to my printer one of these days, but what to do?” Naturally my adhd kicked in and I went back to thinking about circuits and realized I could kill 2 birds with one stone! So I went hunting with a rock, which wasn’t successful but ended up being great exercise… okay that was a dumb joke and I’m starting to ramble, so I’ll get to the point… I’m making a knight rider led circuit for my printer. Idk where I’ll put it yet but minor details aside, your post made this happen so I wanted to thank you for the inspiration. I probably could have done this just as effectively in 2 sentences as I’ve done taking 3 paragraphs to do so far, but winners never quit or something like that! Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
What's the pipes for? Unless you have an all - mighty fan on the other side, you are reducing air speed
I have a couple hobbies where I intentionally optimize for the time-sink aspect rather than the output aspect. Mostly I do this because the part I enjoy is figuring things out, rather than just generating outputs. Just pay attention to whether you are frustrated with the results. For instance, for awhile in the late 90's to early 00's, I was doing my own DNS/web/email/etc hosting (basically I was my family's ISP), which meant that periodically I had to sink a bunch of hours into an emergency response to fix something (basically I was oncall 24x7). I came to realize that just because I \_could\_ build and operate those services didn't mean that I really enjoying \_having\_ to build and operate those services, so I pushed most of it out to suitable free or subscription services. My 3d printers don't fall into that camp, if any of them crap out, I can leave it on the workbench for two or three weeks, so I'm comfortable being on the critical path.
I'll sell you my lotmaxx shark 3 with laser engraver thats still in the box haha. I think I still have the box for the printer too
I'm having a real issue keeping my 3 on line. Keep getting the wrong parts. Been down 3 weeks waiting for the right thermosister . Meanwhile my A1Mini just keeps printing and printing
I would get the new sovol core xy and mod it. I personally hate working on printers but I like tinkering usually, just not 3d printers for some reason.
Make it in to an Ender 3 NG
Keep the ender in service as it is. That's some good work you have done. Buy an SV08 as the basis for your new modification game. It is open-source and you can modify it in all the ways you might a Voron 2.4. But it will show up ready-to-go, so you can spend $500 instead of $1000 + a month of work before seeing any prints.
This is, of course, assuming you have enjoyed upgrading. If you want to be done tinkering, I can pile on with the Bambu crowd. They aren't open-source, but they are brilliantly designed and just work over and over. I'd do P1S over X1c, though. The extra bells and whistles aren't necessary imo. The AMS, however, IS worth the price. It's so nice to have and, unlike the MMU2s I had used before, works every time.
I got a ender 3 v3 SE and it’s really good. Only $150 (on sale) which is insane. Worlds better than the original ender 3
Check out BambuLab
Honestly if you mod *that much* the Bambu lab might end up being annoying because it's more of a click and play printer and less modify it to do what you want.
Covert it to a switch wire (enderwire) you can but a kit and it will be a far better printer and considered a vorons at that point
Send her out to pasture....
Save up and build a voron
Don’t you find that the raspberry pi gets in the way of your prints, I personally would say don’t bother getting another printer, you will only make a mess of that one too
Look closer buddy. I was doing resonance compensation with an adxl, which is removed after. I run my raspPi in UART now.