3DPrinting

Is there a small printer with ease of use and quality comparable to the A1 mini?

I was gonna get that one but the drama with BL has got me looking for alternatives.

My priorities are ease of use (no tinkering) and small size

Thanks!

Was getting tired of searching around my toolbox for my electric screwdriver and its bits so I figured it was time to design a nice simple stand with space for my most used bits. I decided to give it a tray just to help with not losing screws. The project was modelled up in blender in an hour or so using a mix of sub-d and boolean workflow. The stand printed out nice on my old dependable ender-3 in about 6 hours. I did a number of test prints of just the holes so that I could get the fit right. Getting The bit holes right took time as my printers accuracy is just a bit off and different bits had extremely small differences in dimension. The bit holes actually taper slightly so that the gradually become .5 mm smaller. This saved me having to throw out a whole print if I got it wrong.

So far it's met my goals. I have some changes I'd like to do if I ever reprint:

1. add compartments or seperators to the tray so I can use them as "steps" to aid in re-assembly of projects.
2. add more space between the bits and the driver holder in the center. My finger can't get between there and it makes it hard to pull out the bits.
3. make a base with a bearing so the whole thing spins.
4. make a notch on the top so the driver can rest horizontal. No real reason just a nice feature that would add to the utility.

Link HERE should anyone want it.

I don't need anything too fancy, I just want to be able to watch the camera, and stop a print if it goes wrong.
Networking is all set on my end too. Got an OpenVPN tunnelback to my house for other stuff.

Hi all, I've currently got a big folder full of a bunch of mishmashed sets of files in nested directories:

• model files downloaded from thangs/thingiverse/etc
• source files for models
• my own SCAD source files for my own modeling projects
• the stl exports of those files
• I don't store the cura projects, but maybe I could
• all the gcode. These get copied over to octoprint to print stuff.

Before I go organizing it all, I wanted to ask how the community sorts their modeling files, or if they use other tools to help keep it all sorted. Any best practices out there?

Additional question: do you just use a good directory structure, or do you use other tools that manage projects for you? I've never used any other CAD software besides OpenSCAD, so maybe those applications do some organization for you. Or maybe you self host something like manyfold

Paper mentioned in article can be found here.

Annealing prints has been something I've wanting to do more of, probably with proper temperature control as my experience has has more waste than I'd like, mainly warping.

Paper claims some pretty dramatic improvements to interlayer strength, they're running filament through a bath before entering the extruder, not sure how accessible the entire thing would be in a hobbyist environment (using chloroform and specialised microwave equipment). Makes me wonder however if carbon fibre filaments would be able to be processed similarly, how well it'd perform with stuff like abs or nylon and if you could achieve that with consumer microwaves.

Back in December I got my P1S and since I mostly printed Vases and plant pots back then, I decided to mostly use PETG.

That PETG as I now know was just Wet, which caused it to ooze out of the nozzle after the print, a Fact I hated. Since at the time I must've be pretty stupid, I decided to clean it by Heating the Nozzle to the max of 300°C and let it ooze fully out. It did work and the prints after it where fine... so I did it another 10-20 times until I got a Brass Brush and started just using that...

In retrospective, Filament really shouldn't be heated over its limit... because that probably Backed in the PETG really hard. Mustve been to the point where the nozzle clogged, getting me to cold pull it a lot.

Big question is, is there still Backed in PETG in that nozzle, even after 20 or so Cold Pulls? It definetly seems to underextrude a noticable bit. Should I use the replacement nozzle or look into other reasons for said Underextrusion? Thanks!

Edit: Did as suggested and tried swapping the nozzle, thermistor was stuck and getting it out broke it, replacement thermistor is gonna take till thursday to arrive, god I hate this machine

So I had a problem that when i print multiple prints sometimes they dont fit together perfectly, theres a bit of bleed. I found a neat trick where you can just wave the joint over a candle for a second or 2 and fit it together. The filament becomes slightly soft and when connected it hardens to fit a bit better. That bottle cap just wouldnt screw in but now it does.

I was cleaning out my project closet the other day and I found an entire bottle of resin for my printer, still sealed and unopened... but it is several years old at this point.

I didnt see an expiration date or anything on it, so I just wanted to ask before I open it and potentially make a huge mess... Does Resin Expire or otherwise go bad with time if its factory sealed? or in general?

My son is about ready for his first printer. His school is running Cetus MK3 printers, he has a class using them, and his teacher has recommended this printer. He also has an educational seat of Fusion 360.

I'm proficient with Mastercam and hand written/modified G-code. I can help him with CAD no problem. Alignment, assembly, adjustment, and backlash are second nature for me. Have a little better than layman's understanding of printers. (Lusted over the Markforged printer that could do continuous carbon fiber.)

Eventually, will be building my own shop and hope my son might work with me. Hope to include printing, especially in metal.

I've seen some of the flap about Bambu and them closing up the software tool chain. I would like to avoid that sort of thing, for now, openness is better.

Top of my budget is around $500, with $200 probably being better.

Usable prints for tooling/spacers/repairs would be a bonus as would being able to print UV resistant plastic.

My goal for him is to get gud at modelling and get a feel for computer controlled movement. Another goal, harder to describe, is him finding the joy in mechanical tinkering and producing an idea made physical.

Thank you much! What do?

Finally got it out of the box, setup, explore the new features, amazed at those, and the extreme exhaust fan noise.

So what do I do with this monster that I couldn't do with my ender 3? yup bag clips.

I'm wondering if anybody has this working on their printer.

I have an Ender 3 Pro (v1.5) with the Creality v4.2.2 board. It's mostly stock. I'm looking to add the BigTreeTech Smart Filament Runout Sensor (v1.0). It's installed (plugged into the main board, not LCD), but will trigger a runout after a few minutes of a test print and then it seems to go into a loop where it triggers a runout after a few seconds of restarting. I've recompiled the firmware (Marlin) from these instructions. I saw a post on Amazon indicating that the cable needs rewiring, but can't find it anymore.

Before I go rewiring anything, I was wondering if anybody has this working in their setup and if they did anything different than the instructions.

I'm using the Marlin 2.1.2.5 config and updated the following config items:
FILAMENT_RUNOUT_SENSOR
FILAMENT_RUNOUT_DISTANCE_MM 7
FILAMENT_MOTION_SENSOR
NOZZLE_PARK_FEATURE
ADVANCED_PAUSE_FEATURE

And it's been a year since this video! So that makes 2 years on the gaskets. I wonder how they're doing.

Howdy y’all! If a post like this isn’t allowed, feel free to remove it. But I wanted to give it a shot.

I’m working on trying to recycle my old PLA - I’ve got a (heavily) modified industrial paper shredder and my friend & I are building an extruder. But I’m still working on experimenting with the shredder and trying to get proper sized pieces of PLA. Problem is… I’ve run out of scrap prints to test on! So… I know it’s a long shot but figured I would ask anyways. Does anyone located around Minneapolis, MN, have a decently sized bin or source of scrap PLA (failed prints, Bambu AMS purges, etc) they’d be willing to donate to the cause?

eSun and (obviously) Bambu provide filament configurations and process configs for their filaments in Orca Slicer (or Bambu Studio,but that won't be used here anymore).

This is quite useful as a starting point for filaments you never used before, you don't have to transfer the manufacturers recommendations (who often are quite generic. 170-250°? Really?) and is quite helpful for new users (which I sometimes have to help).

The question is: Are there any other manufacturers who do that? There are of course a few stock one delivered with Orca,but is there anyone else?

Edit:

So far we have the following:

Thank you @dwsharp

Polymaker

VoxelPLA

Thank you @alleycard

Extrudr

Thank you @Bronzie

Add:North

Others:

eSun

TL;DW: A fairly automatic postprocessing script to convert your print's walls to brick layers to attempt to achieve more tensile strength in the Z axis, i.e. against layer separation. Some brief description of the current patent clusterfuck, and an observation that the new patent in question (which is probably void anyway) has not been filed in Europe...

Link to the author's github for this: https://github.com/TengerTechnologies/Bricklayers

It seems from the github issues report that this is not 100% perfect, but it appears to be at least mostly functional for those of us who would like to mess with this and not have to do it manually.

Note, I am not the author of this.

Okay, this is an update of my first method using regular paper to splice filaments that I posted last week. It was okay, but it did require cleaning the splice because some paper stuck to it.

Somewhiteguy suggested in this comment that baking paper might yield better results. And boy! does it ever!

I've been thinking about trying this the entire week. Finally I got me a roll of the cheapest baking paper I could find at the supermarket while doing the groceries for the weekend and gave it a shot.

It is SO MUCH BETTER!

And here, just to prove it, I filmed myself doing a splice in real-time (sorry for the harsh light and the flickering, I filmed this under neon light in the lab).

Less than 3 minutes from start to finish if you ignore me fumbling with my cellphone to film this. No cleanup, perfect splice, and the roll of baking paper cost me a dollar and will last me a lifetime!

I genuinely thing this is the cleanest, cheapest, easiest splicing method that doesn't wastes bits of PTFE tubing at each splice.

I've been using my Bambu P1S Combo for roughly 2 Months now and have been loving it. I liked its User Friendliness, Speed, Quality and Reliability so much, that I wanted to get a second P1S Combo for all Multi colour stuff and then go on to try the A1 Series for Mono Colour Prints in a planned small Size Print Farm...

Needless to say, Bambu shit the heatbed so hard with its recent changes that I can no longer support them, leaving me to wonder what printers hit the same Notes that I liked and mentioned above.

One Printer I've been curious about since I joined this hobby was the Ankermake M5. If what I heard is true, then it would make for the perfect Monocolour printer as it would allegedly hit all above mentioned points... especially considering I could go for Refurbished models for half the price, only 260€ which seems endlessly enticing...

Thoughts? What are some other options? I especially could need a reccomendation for an enclosed Multi Colour Printer with P1S quality... as for price wise I am very open and flexible honestly. I'm kinda just curious what options there are in general nowadays!

A friend sent me this link of someone's awesome custom laptop project. It's not all 3d printed, but the story of the device's creation is inspiring and informative.

I think it may be about time I laid my hands on some different nozzle sizes for my printer. Recommendations for good sources of 0.15mm nozzles in the UK?

I thought this may be interesting for some of you. I filed a ticket with BBL to let them know I disapprove of the coming firmware auth changes. Today I finally got a reply, but it's just a lame ass copypasta, basically retelling what the update on their blog already stated, ie. "there will be developer mode and people are lying about the implications" (paraphrased tl;dr)

Dear Customer,

Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the recent Firmware Authorization changes. Due to the overwhelming number of requests we've received on this topic, we've created this unified response to address your concerns.

We've recently published a detailed blog post explaining the updates introduced by this firmware. We’ve made the decision to implement an optional Developer Mode feature(under an updated LAN Mode), to provide advanced users with more control and flexibility. The developer mode will be released later.

To explain: When LAN developer mode is enabled by the user, the printer will retain the necessary interfaces, including MQTT channel, live stream, and FTP, to support third-party integrations that rely on LAN mode. Please note that Bambu Lab cannot guarantee full compatibility or provide customer support for this mode.

Additionally, we hope to clarify that online claims such as remote disabling of printers, mandatory subscriptions, or unauthorized monitoring of printed files are completely false. For details please kindly refer to the blog post.

At present, the Firmware Authorization update is available in Open Beta exclusively for the X1 series. Participation in the beta program is entirely optional, allowing you to explore and provide feedback on the new features. Alternatively, you can continue using your current firmware.

Please feel free to reach out if you still have questions or need further clarification after reading this. We'll do our best to assist you.

Best regards, Bambu Lab Customer Support

I am just curious as I want to build a filament extruder.

Brick layering is shifting layers just slightly so that they interlock with the adjacent row, like bricks side view on a wall. See the video for more clear explanation.

Cnc kitchen did a video on it as well https://youtu.be/5hGm6cubFVs

In the past I've gotten around this by printing on the left side of the bed, but some things need the space so here I am.

I've got an Ender 3 V2 with some tasteful mods: OctoPrint, BLTouch, a magnetic flexible bed surface, and a few other things people are bound to do with an entry-level printer they got for $100 with a Micro Center coupon. One issue I'm having with it is that any printing done on the right side of the bed seems to have a pretty big gap. I have the G28 and G29 commands in to run the bed level, I try to get it leveled properly with the springs (with help of the bed visualizer plugin for OctoPrint) and no matter what I do, the nozzle drifts just a little farther from the bed on the right side, so the filament does not stick.

I'm open to more mods, but before I spend more time and money on this for what I think is the problem, does anyone actually have a good idea of what's wrong here?

Thanks much!