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Okay but like I was given an Ender 3 for free and idk where to go from there
Maybe the fact that the family member who gave it to me didn't want it around anymore should have been a sign
Make sure the screws are snug and the beams don't move. Level the bed, Youtube how. Then get a micro SD card and a slicing program. Slice the model, save to card, insert in printer, hit print from file and select the file.
That's like 95% of it. The other 5 is endless struggles and troubleshooting, but you can worry about that when it comes to it lol. Oh also keep filament dry.
People give the Ender 3 a bad rap all the time, but it's honestly a great little machine. I far prefer it to the $2500 printer we have at work that has "automatic everything" and can't easily be adjusted to manually correct its bad settings.
With that said, how far have you gotten with it? Do you have any software installed? Have you tried printing anything (and was it successful)? You didn't give much clue as to where you're stuck. Yes you need to take some time to learn how to fine-tune the settings, and yes it can be frustrating because there is SO MUCH to learn about 3D printing, but once you get over the hump you can start cranking out all kinds of fun things.
Not op, I got a free Ender 3 from a frustrated co-worker, and am now the frustrated co-worker. I've tried getting a new glass print surface, tried using glue sticks, tried changing print temps and speeds, tried levelling and re-levelling and re-levelling the bed, but I just can't get the print to stick for love or money. It's now been re-homed to the garage, as a parking obstacle for my bicycle.
Honestly at that point I would tear down the whole thing and use this video as a guide for reassembly. The most important thing to do is to make sure the framework is all squared up, otherwise all prints will suffer.
As for bed leveling... A lot of people think the paper test is all you need, but really that only gets you close enough to start leveling the bed. First thing is to tighten all the springs to within 1 turn of being closed, then adjust the Z switch so that the head homes to roughly that same height. After that you use the paper method to get the bed roughly level, then move on to live testing with a 5-point bed-leveling test print to dial it in. Ideally you want the nozzle gap to be about 75% of the nozzle size, so for a 0.20mm tip you would want a 0.15mm gap to get your print to stick.
As I mentioned to someone else, Creality's QC is garbage. My first glass bed had better adhesion than PEI and worked beautifully for a few years until the coating wore out. My second glass bed was trash, I never could get anything to stick to it without using hairspray, and now it sits in its box. I have a PEI bed now, which seems to have solved the problem. If you decide to try using the printer again, don't forget to clean the glass with 90% ISO. Worst case try flipping the glass over to the smooth side, clean it with ISO, then use glue sticks on that surface (you won't get any adhesion on bare glass without the glue or hairspray).
Hey, thanks for the advice. If I have some free time and spare gumption, I'll definitely give it a go. If that happens, I'll let you know what comes of it.
No worries, glad to help. I don't print a lot with my machine any more, but things still come up (like I got a shop press a couple weeks ago and found a knob for the release valve so you don't need a special tool for it ... printed with no trouble and now the printer sits idle again).
Not the person you responded to, but I had mine set up. I had the software installed, I (thought) I even had the bed leveled, but every print either failed to stick to the plate, or eventually stuck to the nozzle. I ended up with a lot of spaghetti. I got frustrated and decided to take a break. I'd come back to it fresh, and see what I could do.
... That was three years ago.
One thing I learned is that Creality's QC is absolute garbage. When I first got my printer I also picked up a glass plate. Everything stuck perfectly to it, hardly any fuss at all. After several years the coating wore out and I bought a new one. Total trash, nothing would stick without heavy usage of hair spray and I eventually gave up on it.
If you want to try again, look for PEI beds. If you have one with the magnetic base, there are several with the PEI already mounted on a spring-steel plate. PEI is one of the best surfaces you will ever find to print on, although I believe one type of filament (I think a variation of PLA?) sticks too well and can damage the PEI trying to take prints off... but I've used regular PLA, PLA+, and TPU with great success, and have heard that ABS also works well on it. Just keep it clean with 90% ISO and you'll eliminate at least one problem.
Of course there's also the whole thing with bed leveling. I run into a lot of people who think the paper method is the whole process for leveling, when really it's just to get your printer dialed in close enough that you don't ruin the bed when you actually begin to do the leveling. Getting the leveling wrong is by far the most common reason why prints don't stick well so do your best to nail that aspect. You want the nozzle gap about 3/4 of the nozzle size, so for a standard 0.20mm nozzle you would want a gap of about 0.15mm for your first layer (but still use 0.20 in the slicer) to get that proper smoosh. My leveling method involves using a 5-point bed-leveling test print, and you can judge the gap by eye from that. Takes quite a few iterations to get all the corners dialed in, but you shouldn't have to do it often.
Speaking of which... another common complaint is the loose bed springs. You want to Crank those puppies down almost completely closed, then adjust the Z switch to that new position before starting the leveling. Tight springs means you almost never have to readjust the leveling knobs. I check mine about once a year.
PEI is one of the best surfaces you will ever find to print on, although I believe one type of filament (I think a variation of PLA?) sticks too well and can damage the PEI trying to take prints off…
That's PETG. I avoid using smooth PEI plates like fire when PETG is loaded. Even after swapping the filament to PLA, little bits of residual PETG can still stick leaving a shadow on the plate. Textured PEI is mostly fine, but single layer stuff like brims are a pain to get off.
Ah thanks for that! I can never remember PETG, probably because I've never used it myself.
Assuming proper level, mess with temp settings and maybe try a layer of glue stick glue. Helps big time with first layer adhesion but it gets messy if you don't clean it off. Though my bed is a mess and it still prints OK lol.
That's why I always recommended a Prusa Mk3 to beginners, if their budget allowed it.
Stuff like auto bedleveling is just too good to not have.
I set up and calibrated my Mk3 in beginning of 2020, and I never had to fiddle with anything on that machine again. It just prints.
Honestly when it works it works wonderfully. Most of my problems with my ender 3 come down to me being a dumbass and not taking care of it properly, and/or just the nozzles they ship with it being cheap as fuck and impossible to cold pull.
No joke my first ever successful cold pull was 2 days ago, because I had finally gotten a decent set of nozzles.
If you want to get really serious about printing there are better options out there, but for the cost they really are awesome beginner printers (to be fair I haven't kept up much with printers, so I don't know many other good cheap ones). I mostly only dabble with printing, but my ender 3 pro that I got like 3 years ago has served me very well.
You may be interested in these links, it can reduce or eliminate the problems which require cold pulls. Basically the issue is that the tubing moves up and down during printing and creates a slack space where the filament gets into a region of the nozzle it's not supposed to reach. This modification uses a short length of tubing inside the nozzle that is pushed down tight, then your regular tubing sits on top of that where the movement doesn't cause any problems. I've never had a single clogged nozzle or needed to do a cold pull in several years since making this change, so I highly recommend it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tCxO17XZtw https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4220059
Honestly, I haven't even plugged it in, just looked at what model it was and saw it frequently got clowned on lol
OK so you want to watch this video and learn how to manually do bed leveling. However if you really want to go over the whole machine (perhaps even tearing it down and rebuilding it so you know where everything is an can assure that it was assembled correctly) the you want to start with this video.
Once the machine is set up, it's time to install slicing software on your computer. Cura is a popular and free option, with support built in for the Ender 3 (you have to set up a new machine in the software and tell it what model you have). Following that, find something to print! There are many sites like thingiverse where you can download models from, but you want to start with something small to work out the bugs without wasting a lot of filament. Look for something like a calibration cube ("calicat" is my favorite) which will provide information on how well you have your machine set up.
Also to consider... if you live in a humid environment and you were given filament with the printer that is NOT in a sealed bag, you should be aware that filament absorbs moisture from the air and "wet" filament will print like hot garbage. Insanely cheap filament like the $12 stuff you find on Amazon can also cause problems, so stick with stuff more in the $20 range until you have some experience in working with your machine.
Yeah the filament I was given with it has clearly been sitting out for a long time and is covered in dust, I never really planned on using it.
You never know. Old filament CAN be used, but it takes special care with the slicer settings and it helps a lot if you have a dehumidifier to dry it out. I live in a dry climate, and have filament at work which has been sitting on the shelf for about 7 years, but I can still get beautiful prints out of it. All of my filament at home is left in ziplock bags but it still gets brittle over time (if you can easily snap the filament, it probably has a lot of moisture in it).
I found a printer in the trash that I grabbed, it had motors and frame but no PSU and mainboard. Five years later it is in worse shape than it was because I took the extruder off. I like to make progress on stuff by just increasing the scope so that it is overwhelming.
It's the raspberry pi of printers. It's good for hobbyist and as a learning platform. its very cheap to get/mod and find parts.
But it's not reliable enough for someone who wants printed parts. People who know 3d printing will underestimate the knowledge needed to use one of them.