3D Printer yet?

[mnementh]

            


Ender 3 bits & pieces FINALLY delivered; in the time it took Canada Post, I placed & received 3 deliveries from Amazon that weren't supposed to get here til first week of May. A bit concerned by the "UltraBase" they sent me; it doesn't have the AnyCubic logo, and to my knowledge theirs does not come with adhesive backing preapplied like this one. Can anyone here confirm one way or the other?

mnem

[mnementh]

mnem

7 points · 4 days ago
If you start searching Thingiverse for models now you might have a few by the time you get the printer.

[mnementh]

BEST USE. OF FILAMENT. EVER!!!



30 Seconds with a BIC lighter transforming leftover scrap of filament into a tool: $0.01

   

2 minute fix (including making tool): $0.00



Daughter's favorite coin purse all fixed: PRICELESS!

mnem
"DADDY FIX!!!"  ~my baby grrl

[mnementh]

The pieces are coming together...

      
   
Spent half the morning arguing with Fusion to come up with this... it is a modification of the shell for my Header Block that incorporates a 30mm-ish tube to act as a strain relief. It goes on the side of the PetsFang modular Fan base, and screws into the boss he made for the BLTouch.

Once it finishes printing, I'll trial fit it against the E3D hotend plate and the wiring, header block, etc to measure up for the cap/tubing clamp.

While it prints, I'm getting a thermal baseline for my testing with alternative fans; I found in my last test (which I'll describe in an upcoming post) that switching to a quieter 40mm fan on the heat-break made it run a fair bit warmer right at the transition area, and print quality did suffer, even though I didn't have any of the clogging issues as before with the hybrid E3/V6 hotend.

Stay tuned!

mnem
*productive-ily*

[mnementh]

      

Rev 2 now printing...

mnem
"The role of Failure in Design..."

[mnementh]

So I decided to do a little testing with a quieter fan... 


         

First, I modded the hotend cooler to remove the center fan guard in preparation for the new fan, then I wanted to get a baseline for the OE hotend... While looking for some sacrificial wire to to wire up my thermistor (really; what else is a VGA cable good for?  ), I remembered that I have a baggie full of LM35s for making custom Lixx packs with integrated thermal monitoring. As I have handy a piece of equipment that uses LM35 sensors, and will happily display 2 channels of temperature, I opted to do my first trials with that while printing Rev1 above.

   
https://thomasannet.wixsite.com/portfolio/thermal-analysis-hotend   

I had misgivings from the outset; due to the close quarters, it was impossible to attach the sensor only to the heat-break tube like I wanted to. But everything was right at hand, so I decided to go for it. Testing while printing showed that temperature stabilized quickly at ~32-33°C and remained there for the duration of the print. Comparison against the above thermal profile image above suggests that while I was on the right track, attachment right at the base of the heat-sink did excessively moderate exactly what I was trying to measure: the temperature right in the middle of the heat-break tube, where the "transition point" of the filament from solid to semi-solid occurs and the filament becomes a semi-fluid putty. This, I feel, is the proper measure of how effective the heat-sink fan is for comparison.

   

However, I decided to move forward; I had a number of prints to do, so this was good testbed time. Also, I wanted to see just how much quieter my 4020 fan was than the OE 3010 unit. I didn't want to permanently mod the OE hotend cover for the 4020 fan, so I attached it with foam mounting tape. Seemed like a good idea at the time... but I did notice that the center hub of the fan is so large, there was only ~4mm gap between it and the opening for the air to flow through, so I attempted to ameliorate this by spacing the fan further away with 3 layers of foam mounting tape.

         

Since I didn't have Rev2 finished in Fusion yet, I set the printer to work on a bridging test. Measured temps with the new fan setup immediately climbed to 43-44°C and stayed there, and stringing in the bridges started to manifest immediately. Otherwise the print seemed to progress normally til around 80-90 minutes progress, when I checked in to find that the fan had come loose and there was some bad layer shifting and the end of the print had broken loose. Measured temp was about 55 degrees, and layer quality was extremely blobby. I pressed the fan back on so it could continue printing, and temps quickly came back down to ~43°C. 

            

The next check was at print end; fan had come loose again, and temps remained around 50°C for over a minute while I took a quick pic, and didn't come back down until I reattached the fan. While the print DID complete "successfully" in that all elements of the print were rendered, bridging was quite stringy and layer quality was poor.  In retrospect, it is possible that the print breaking loose allowed the fan to snag and that's why it came loose. However, since my Ender 3 parts have arrived, I'm planning to move forward with the PetsFang upgrade here shortly; as soon as all the parts print. Since I'm not best pleased with this temp sensor, I'll be changing to the thermistor for testing while I print more parts.

      


Here we can see what I've contrived for a thermistor mount; tin-snips and a quick cut of some thin spring steel salvaged from an Epson printer yielded this little clip which I formed with chain-nose pliers to snap onto the heat-break (cringe) tube and hold the thermistor directly against it. Installation included a dab of silicone/zinc oxide thermal paste to ensure good conductivity. Final check peeping through the fan after cover installation shows it stayed right where I wanted it. Then it all went downhill...

After getting to this point, I fired up the printer to preheat and went to do a couple quick mods to Rev 1 in Fusion. This turned into over an hour, with revision going all the way back to the original 2D sketch before I was able to get something close to what I wanted... and all the while, my poor printer sitting there cooking away.

   

Finally I had the model ready and sliced... I set the printer to work and everything turned to crap; ugly, blobbity, smeared lines of print everywhere. 3 tries before it even got a sufferable 1st layer down; heat-break (cringe) temp was around 62°C and varied from 60-70°. I could see it cool as the extrusion speed increased, but it never broke into the 50s. By 3 AM, I checked a 3rd time and saw that it had lifted horribly on one corner; I pulled the plug and went to bed. 

   

This morning I awoke with a thought; that most of my problems the night before were probably due to heat soak from the extended preheat. The U30 profile recommended in Cura for this printer tends to run the hotend and the bed a bit hotter than the E3, and I suspected it just wasn't able to recover and cool down. Over my morning cuppa I resliced using the Ender 3 printer profile in Cura and set it to work. Even after a good 10 minute preheat, measured temp only came up to ~50°C, varying only +/- ~3°.

Again, I could see exactly what I was interested in: as the extruder ran faster, the temp dropped; as it ran slower (or the layer fan occasionally cycled off), temp would come up, but always a few degrees above or below 50°C. If I hadn't been so annoyed with multiple printing failures the night before, I'd have noticed that the primary experiment was a complete success!!!   

First layer went down perfectly and after a few hours I had Rev 2 in my now much-less-stressed-out little hands; next round of tests will involve several different fans on the hotend. For now I'll leave with this pic of test-fitting Header Block & Strain Relief Rev 2 to the Ender 3 Hotend & Fang.

mnem

[beanflying]

This is turning into the Grandfathers Axe stories of 3D Printing  I am enjoying the read 

[mnementh]

Thanks for the feedback. 

You know how it is with this sort of thing; sure I've spent a lot more $$ than if I'd just bought a Ender 3 at this point. But I'll conjecture that at least half (if not more) of what I've spent is upgrades I'd eventually do to a E3 anyways; and here I have a tinkery/learning experience I can share with others. Like life itself; it's not about the destination, but the journey.

mnem
*currently sitting at a bench with bits o' 3DP scattered from hell to breakfast*

[mnementh]

   

Rev2 didn't fit... I failed to allow for interference with the belt tensioner.  As there isn't adequate room for material thick enough to redesign (within my skillzz level in Fusion anyways), and I don't want to rebuild my printer with the old stuff AGAIN to print a few parts, I decided to "drop back & punt" and am now doing it the old fashioned-way: saw/file/fettle a piece of aluminum into the desired form. This was my stopping point about an hour ago when I decided it was time for bangerzz, eggzz & coffeez.

mnem

[mnementh]

Moving forward... For good or evil, the Creality Upgrade is complete. IT IS ONE STINKY MotherBLEEEEP!er...

      

Hopefully, that will burn off; it was bad enough that my wife even noticed upstairs.  Installed Ender 3 Hotend plate & hotend, PetsFang V2, Creality Silver CNC Extruder, Capricorn Bowden tube, and my plug-in pin header for quick fan & hotend swaps.

First impressions... it runs a bit hotter. Measured temp at the transition point is running ~67°C. Varies only a +/- degree or so. However, hotend temp on the printer screen seems to overshoot a lot; it often jumps up 4-7° above setpoint and lingers there.  Trying a quick print of my Rev 0 Header block cover as it's all 1mm walls so will show me quality of layer adhesion. Next maybe a cal cube to see surface quality.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

   

Tried 24V 4010 fan, Heat-break tube temp dropped to ~55°C. Cal cube print quality is pretty freakin' awesome. Temp overshoot still pretty scary; think I'm gonna dismantle the hotend and do the thermal grease thing.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

D'OH!!! Think I found the reason for the temp overshoot; maybe the cause of the stinky operation too.    Guess my online research that indicated the CR10 plate & hotend were the same as the E3 missed a small difference... the E3 and my Longer A3 clone run on 24V.

mnem
*TV time widda boi*

[beanflying]

D'OH!!! Think I found the reason for the temp overshoot; maybe the cause of the stinky operation too.    Guess my online research that indicated the CR10 plate & hotend were the same as the E3 missed a small difference... the E3 and my Longer A3 clone run on 24V.

mnem
*TV time widda boi*

  yep I carry both heater elements as spares  Still haven't needed to replace either but given the low cost and distance/time to get one I carry what I think might be needed.

[mnementh]

Resolved. Not my first rodeo.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

               

Finished refitting the hotend; modded with COB LED Worklight in perfect location. A little aluminum, a little silicone adhesive, a little blood, and the lighting is PERFECT.

mnem
If you must know, I drilled my thumb. Hurtzz like a summitch. STILL. 

[mnementh]

CReality Branded Silver Extruder: Not Your Imagination; it IS BETTER!

           

https://www.amazon.ca/Official-Creality-3D-Construction-CR-10S-GRAY/dp/B081R1G4S7

A few weeks ago, I got in and sent back one of the Red CNC extruders for Creality CR10/Ender 3, citing just how disappointed I was in the quality thereof compared to one of these silver ones I'd installed on my Tevo Tornado a few months ago. A week or so later I received the replacement; a silver CNC extruder similar to the red one in general appearance, but branded with the CReality logo and having the silver pneumatic fitting, blue lock clip & adjuster cap for the spring which were glaringly missing from the red version.

Recently, I installed this kit as part of my "Bits O' Ender 3" upgrade; in the course of doing so I noticed a few other differences that are not so obvious until you have the parts in hand. these differences make the Silver CNC Extruder kit simply better, and for the dollar or two difference in price, a value so much greater that you simply should NOT put up with the cheap knockoff, even if it is supposedly being sold by a CReality-authorized vendor.

      

First and most important: The silver pneumatic fitting is the same as the one on the hotend. Why is that important?  Because on the hotend, you install the fitting so it's a couple turns loose, and push the Bowden tube in until it bottoms out. Then you tighten the fitting down so the tube bottoms out and jams the coupling up tight; this makes it so the Bowden tube can't work back & forth with the force of extrusion & retraction. There's more detail in this conversation here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/3d-printer-yet/msg2994662/#msg2994662

All the cheap extruders use a different type of fitting that is prone to just this sort of back & forth "slop" in the Bowden tube. What good does it do to spend the money on Capricorn if the tube moves back & forth every time it extrudes/retracts?

Well, the Silver Creality Extruder kit not only has the same fitting as the hotend, it ALSO is machined with a recess the exact diameter of the Bowden tube; together with the silver fitting (yes, it is one of the good ones discovered in the above conversation) they work the SAME as the fitting on the hotend. You thread the fitting on a couple threads loose, push in the Bowden tube until it bottoms out, then tighten the fitting so it jams up and the Bowden tube can't move. Then you pop the blue lock clip in place for insurance (or to reduce the play if you don't know how to do the above technique, which I had to discover myself by wading through endless posts on various 3DP threads), and you're good to go.



There is ONE caveat to this technique: When you do this, it makes a pretty heavy groove in the Bowden tube; as a result, it is almost impossible to "Back the fitting off" the tube. You can pull it through, but the fact there are now two of this fitting opposing each other on the tube means that if you ever NEED to take a fitting off of the tube, or you accidentally move a fitting up on the tube, you're going to have to cut the tube to get one of the fittings off. Image above (yes, same as posted earlier in thread) should help you visualize this.

Okay; that's more than enough reason in my mind to choose this extruder for my Ender 3 (or clone); it's the only one "made for them" that actually works correctly. But there's a lot more; some of it better quality and some of it better engineering. Let's move forward.


            


Next: The little "adjuster cup" isn't JUST an adjuster. By having this arrangement instead of just a couple opposing screws to keep the spring captive, it is possible to fully assemble the extruder WITHOUT the spring in place. With my original extruder, and going by the instructions I've seen for the red one, when you assemble the lever, you have to install the spring and squeeze it while you install the pivot screw and screw it down. The 2 opposing screws on the inner sides of the lever make it almost impossible to put the spring in place after the lever is installed; at least not without it flying off into outer space.

With the Silver kit you assemble the extruder complete with lever, but leaving the spring off. Once the pivot screw is tightened down, it is EASY to just pop the adjuster cup inside the spring as seen above, and slide it in place. Then, tighten up the adjuster screw and the spring is held captive, plus you have a small amount of adjustment on the tension so you can set it for a firm grip, but not so firm it chews up the filament in normal operation.

Next is quality of components:

First, the screws. Most of the cheap CNC kits manage to be so cheap by cheaping-out on the hardware. They use the cheapest possible m3 screws wherever possible. The silver kit has much better quality stainless screws, and it has the right size for each location, and uses flat-head where it should be instead of all just the cheapest possible button or cap-head screws.

Next is the CNC work. My red one came with improperly machined lever or drilled hole; whichever it was, the idler bearing did not align with the filament channel in any configuration. As it comes out of the kit, the idler bearing was too low. If you put the included lock washer under the bearing (NOT correct assembly) it was too high Same no matter which way you flip the bearing. I started to hunt up an appropriate-thickness washer to shim it up and got disgusted; that was when I decided to send it back. 

Speaking of the bearing... it was passable quality at best in the red kit. Smooth enough to work, but definitely pretty loose. The one in the silver kit was much better grade, period. Tighter and silky smooth. And the drive cog in the red kit... it was the same cheaply knurled thing that came on my Alpha-3. It chews the filament up all the time. The one in the silver kits has clean, smooth knurling, and it measures ~0.20mm larger than the Silver kit. It grips tightly, yet when you pull the filament by hand it feels smooth, like a good zipper vs a cheap one. And it leaves clean impressions in the filament instead of chewed-up ridges.

All things considered, there just isn't any reason to settle for the red one; the Silver CReality-branded one simply is so much better for the few dollars more.


mnem

                      *slightly modified*

[Monkeh]

Just say no to crap spur gear extruders of any brand and get something better!

[beanflying]

Things to be aware of is that depending on your source the Red Extruders are actually a Creality product and not necessarily a knockoff or of lower than factory quality just an earlier model. 'Some' of them almost certainly are now cloned so buy from the various Creality online stores be it Evilbay, Aliexpress or Amazon.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32805027459.html?spm=2114.12010612.8148356.12.35d56bbcyJRN31

And the 'upgraded' newer one with some improvements for a few extra $ which is a no brainer to opt for of the two now it is available.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32993337712.html?spm=2114.12010612.8148356.13.35d56bbcgTaB9s

[mnementh]

Just say no to crap spur gear extruders of any brand and get something better!

Every extruder I've looked at drives with one or two spur gears. Only difference vis a vis how it drives the actual filament is material and quality of machining. I'm not that impressed with gear-reduction drive as a concept or in how it's usually realized; it introduces its own problems, and until I get into more difficult materials, I don't NEED the additional torque. When I'm ready to get my Kung Fu on and fix the e-step/calibrate extrusion, I'll install the dual-drive model I have. for now, since all I plan to print is PLA, it's easiest to stick with the OEM Ender 3 geometry since it works great out of the box.

Things to be aware of is that depending on your source the Red Extruders are actually a Creality product and not necessarily a knockoff or of lower than factory quality just an earlier model. 'Some' of them almost certainly are now cloned so buy from the various Creality online stores be it Evilbay, Aliexpress or Amazon.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32805027459.html?spm=2114.12010612.8148356.12.35d56bbcyJRN31

And the 'upgraded' newer one with some improvements for a few extra $ which is a no brainer to opt for of the two now it is available.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32993337712.html?spm=2114.12010612.8148356.13.35d56bbcgTaB9s

https://www.amazon.ca/Official-Creality-3D-Construction-CR-10S-GRAY/dp/B081R1G4S7

I bought BOTH of mine from the CReality Store on Amazon. I paid about US$4 more for each of them vs AliEx; for that I got Amazon Prime service instead of AliEx "slow boat from China" service. Even the 2nd one, which was "delayed due to COVID-19", only took a week. Fair dinkum, sez I. 

That is EXACTLY what I'm saying in my article... all the red ones are a cheap-ass POS in comparison to the silver one tattooed with the CReality logo. For the couple pesos difference, a no brainer... Having already gotten one on my Tornado 8 months ago, regardless of one's opinion of the breed of extruder, it was a huge step down in QUALITY. One I was NOT willing to put up with.



[EDIT] The two you linked to are identical to the ones I just reviewed, so I suppose it's possible the red ones are also genuine product... if so...   

No, on second look the red one you linked to is yet a 3rd design. It has many elements in common with the Silver model, including all the missing parts and better hardware by the looks of it; but has the compression collar integrated instead of the separate pneumatic fitting. Since I bought BOTH of mine from the on Amazon...   Seriously CReality... What. The. Fuck.   

mnem
My Kung-Fu is weak.

[mnementh]

Hmmm... maybe this confusion is a "known issue", and CReality released the tattooed silver model so folks could easily tell they were genuine CReality product...?   

mnem
*fulminating at the mind again*

[beanflying]

My memory of the Red ones first appearance was it came stock on the CR-10 Pro from earlier last year. It has then found its way onto other printers as an add on and almost certainly cloned by others. Within a few months the same thing is likely to happen to the silver one too.

[mnementh]

My memory of the Red ones first appearance was it came stock on the CR-10 Pro from earlier last year. It has then found its way onto other printers as an add on and almost certainly cloned by others. Within a few months the same thing is likely to happen to the silver one too.

Hmmm... I have one of the CReality-branded silver ones on my Tornado, which has been in storage for 8 months; the first "genuine" CReality part I ever bought. I suppose we'll be seeing the silver clones any day now... maybe that is the reason for making a branded part. 

mnem
 

[beanflying]

So my memory was a little fuzzy. The Pro came with a Bondtech based extruder. Here is Crealities how to on the Aluminium extruder. Shows the pointy CNC'd peak over where the connector fits in unlike the seemingly revised flat topped one.

[mnementh]

Yeah... that video shows the cheap POS red extruder I got; no silver fitting, no blue lock clip, no "adjuster cup" on the spring, and you install the lever while compressing the spring. Bet the bearing on it doesn't align with the filament channel correctly just like mine didn't, too. So there are 3 revisions of the CNC extruder, ALL evidently from or at least designed by CReality. I guess the obvious thing to look for is the missing adjuster cup and if it has that cheap brass fitting; If so, it's the POS one I got. 

Jeezus... when even a top name like CReality has 3 different flavors of bunge (including the cheap plastic one that comes on the 3DP) you have to wade through before you get to the good one, and ALL of them still in the pipeline at this time... you know you're still "hobbyist grade".

mnem

[mnementh]

In Other News:

I got up early this morning with my dB meter app and ran a battery of SPL testing on the various fans I bought to try; not best pleased with the results.

After all this BS with upgrading the hotend so I can try quieter fans... it appears the final configuration is a net draw on noise. Well, sortof. My best, quietest setup with the clear Blue LED fan seen above operates at 46dB vs 53dB for the OEM 3010 screamer. UNTIL the 50mm layer fan kicks in; that brings it up to about 53dB. Not too bad really, I guess... except it doesn't appear I can use the 4020 fan due to inadequate airflow per thermistor testing above.

What's killing me is the 50mm centrifugal blower in place of the 4010 axial for layer cooling; the OEM 4010 is considerably quieter, and can be re-used for cooling the hotend in the PetsFang. The 50mm blower adds 7-10 dB at full speed, so up to twice the perceived volume. That brings the measured volume of all other setups with all fans running at max to 57-58 dB, or the SAME as the OEM setup with all fans running at max. 

That said... there IS a qualitative difference; the piercing tone of the OEM 3010 fan on the hotend makes it much more annoying than any of the combinations with the PetsFang and 50mm centrifugal blowers.

The REAL PITA here is the firmware tho... unlike any other 3DP I've owned, THIS unit keep the hotend fan on ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Any time it's powered up that hotend fan is running, no matter what you're doing. I totally need to see where in the config files I have to go look to make that only run when the hotend is active.

DATA : Measured Directly in front of Diggro Alpha-3 Printer; microphone level with and approx 300mm from hotend

dB  Condition          Configuration   

37  Ambient            Measured in situ
70  Cough               Measured in situ
80  Sneeze              Measured in situ

With OEM 3010/4010 Axial Fans:

dB  Condition          Configuration 

53  IDLE                OEM 24V 3010 Axial on Hotend/4010 Axial on Layer Cooling
57  ALL FANS MAX

With PetsFang & 50mm Centrifugal Blower:

dB  Condition                  Configuration   

46  IDLE                         12V 4020 Axial on Hotend & 12V 50mm Blower on Layer Cooling
53  ALL FANS MAX

46  IDLE                         12V 4020 Axial on Hotend & 24V 50mm Blower on Layer Cooling
56  ALL FANS MAX

47  IDLE                 OEM 24V 4010 Axial on Hotend & 12V 50mm Blower on Layer Cooling
56  ALL FANS MAX

52  IDLE                    HE 24V 4010 Axial on Hotend & 12V 50mm Blower on Layer Cooling
56  ALL FANS MAX

52  IDLE                    HE 24V 4010 Axial on Hotend & 24V 50mm Blower on Layer Cooling
58  ALL FANS MAX

54  IDLE                    HE 24V 5010 Axial on Hotend & 24V 50mm Blower on Layer Cooling
58  ALL FANS MAX

mnem