A peek into week 2 of 3D printing life
(previous article: week 1 of 3D printing life)
The first week of 3D printing went pretty smoothly — with the exception of me ordering the wrong board. I expected more roadblocks and that it would be harder to get the first prints working out. After watching some YouTube videos made by people more experienced, I’m somehow prepared for things to be difficult at times.
Day 8: Downgrade to stock board — change filament
After the disappointment of getting the wrong board (in order to reduce the noise level while printing) I replaced it with the board that came with the printer. Aren’t I lucky that I didn’t burn it as part of a premature celebration? (You shouldn’t burn electronics anyway.)
As I just went through the process the day before, it was relatively fast to replace the wrong board with the stock board.
One advice I came across a few times is to level the bed on a regular basis. The objective is to have the bed leveled in relation to the x-axis of the printer, so that the nozzle has the same distance on each corner. The YouTube channel called Filament Friday has a good video and some test-files that helped me level my bed.
- Video: Level bed,
The Ender 3 comes with four wheels that allow you to level the bed on each of the corners. With every time I remove the printing-surface, there’s a risk of “unleveling” the bed. This is why it makes sense to check the bed level once in a while.
- Test run without print to level the bed
- Test print file to see if the bed is leveled and the filament sticks well across the bed
These and other files can be found on the Filament Friday website.
For the first time since setting up the printer, I decided to change the filament. Removing the existing filament is simple. Heat up the nozzle to printing-temperature — you can do this through the menu or just by starting a print and then pause it before it actually starts to print. When the nozzle is hot, the filament can be pulled out from the extruder: push the lever behind the z-axis and pull on the filament. It might resist at first, but as the nozzle is hot, you’ll feel it coming out.
When this is done, you can push the new filament through the tube until you feel resistance. Getting the filament into the tube can be a bit fiddly. It helps if the tip of the new filament is straight and has a clean cut.
Day 9: Improve belt tension
I noticed that the print quality has degraded and I had a few prints that failed completely. Looking for advice on how people maintain their printers, I stumbled upon someone describing how they make sure their belts are always tight. A quick pull on my belts revealed that while the Y-axis seemed to be ok, the X-axis felt much looser. Increasing the belt tension is very easy, especially as the tools came with the printer. Loosen the bolts and use the largest hex-key that came with the printer to pull the wheel away from the printer — while tightening the bolts again — video (starting at 2:52)
After getting the belt tension fixed it was time for another cat.
Day 10: Baker’s cube and upgrade attempt
After spending most of my printing-time on upgrades or cats, something practical caught my eye. A baker’s cube that helps to measure various sizes of teaspoons until ½ cup.
The print took 18 hours and 40 minutes, which up to this point was my longest print. I still noticed some issues with quality that likely indicated the bed was not leveled perfectly.
Day 11: My first design
While I still have to learn a lot about 3D printing, I felt motivated to come up with something I need. As most others, I spent the past three months (March, April, May) working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I use a Portal from Facebook device for most of my video calls, which I truly enjoy. The device wasn’t at the right height for my liking, so I decided to design and print a stand for my portal device.
I used Thinkercad to design the stand. Having no experience in designing 3D objects, it took me a moment to come up with a design that seemed to work for this purpose. With the exception of some of the non-bearing elements, the print turned out well and the stand has served me very well since then.
Day 12: Laptop for toy figurines
Today I didn’t have much time to print. I ended up printing a miniature laptop for my daughter’s figurines.
Day 13: Filament Guides
The lack of a decent guide for filament is probably one of the easiest fixes Creality could make to add value for the Ender 3. I printed a few myself, but they kept on breaking under the pressure.
The basic filament guide — works well, but I’ll have to spend some time to print one of the fancier ones with a bearing.
Files on Thingiverse
- Basic filament guide
- More advanced filament guide (ball bearing required)
Day 14: Failed overnight print
My attempt to print an alphabet puzzle for my daughter turned out to have failed during the night, due to the bed jumping off the printer — a thing I haven’t seen happening since.
I also noticed a clicking noise on the extruder, which I was able to fix by pushing the tube containing the filament down on the hot end. Thanks to the friendly people on reddit.
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