I bought a 3D printer

Published in

3D printing world

6 min readMay 23, 2020

Why did I buy a 3D printer?

Over the past couple of years I had phases where I thought about getting one, but I never had a reason beyond “wouldn’t it be cool?”. I’m not pretending that I came up with the killer use case this time. A combination of being stuck at home (COVID-19-disruption) and the thought of printing little things for my daughter’s little figurines and her LEGO installations was enough to get me (and my wife) excited about getting a 3D printer.

How did I decide which one to get?

There are so many different printers out there and they’re all optimised for different use cases, budgets, and beliefs in different technical capabilities.

Instead of looking for the “perfect printer” I looked for one that was suited for beginners and available (quick delivery on Amazon) within a reasonable price range.

I ended up getting the Ender 3 from Creality for £245 (~ 300 USD). The reviews on Amazon and some videos on YouTube gave me the confidence that I’d be able to assemble and operate this printer without additional tools or too much effort.

Getting it running and first steps

The printer came partially assembled. The lower part of the printer containing the mainboard, most of the internal cabling, and the electronics to move the printing base was already assembled. What needed to be done was to assemble the structure that controls the printing element, attach the control screen and the power supply.

The paper instructions that came with the printer — similar to IKEA assembly guides — is structured in 12 steps. Most of the steps were very easy to understand. In some cases, where I wasn’t sure about some of the details, I used a setup guide on YouTube. The combination of paper instructions and video guidance worked very well for me.

I didn’t check the time, but the whole setup didn’t take more than two hours.

The Ender 3 comes with a small amount of white filament, which should be enough to see how it works, but won’t suffice for something more elaborate than a quick test. Don’t forget to order more filament.

What to print with my new 3D printer?

Having a 3D printer doesn’t make this question easier to answer. The excitement of having assembled it in a way that it looked like the picture on the box drove me to make a fast decision on what my first print could be.

The ender 3 comes with some gcode files (printing instructions) on the SD card. Unfortunately these files all seem to take more than two hours to be printed. I would’ve liked a quick 20–30 minute test that shows the printer working and producing something tangible.

I created a ~29 minute test file that says “Hello”.

Beyond that I initially printed mainly small items for my daughter to play with.

Finding the right software

In order to design and print, two pieces of software are needed:

CAD software to design or arrange objects that I want to print. I’m using Tinkercad which is free and very easy to use. It runs within the browser.
Slicer Software to prepare the design for the printer to read the printing instructions. So far I’ve been using Astroprint which also runs in the browser and is free.

The best place to find designs for 3D printers is Thingiverse.com in my mind. There are more designs for fun, useful, and artsy things than I’ll ever need to print.

Easy to learn — hard to master

Getting the 3D printer assembled and printing the first few things is relatively simple. Within the first week I started to notice things that can negatively impact the printing quality. After what felt like a great start, I had a number of fails.

The bathtub-incident — or “how I wasted 4 hours of printing time”: I tried to print a little bathtub for my daughter. It started really well, but when I came back I found a pile of melted filament all over the printer.

After levelling the print bed and tightening the belt for the x-axis (where the printing nozzle is mounted) I was able to get good results again — So far I didn’t try the bathtub again.

The second fail of the week was when I tried to order an updated version of the mainboard — the element that controls the printing motors. The newer version 1.5 promises to result in better print quality and quieter printing. The installation of the board was relatively simple, as I followed an instructional video. Everything seemed to work fine, until I started the printer. When looking at the screen I noticed that my printer now self-identified as a “ender 5”, which was confusing and concerning. The printer motor controls were all over the place, so I realised that this is not just a “typo” in some configuration.

Looking again at what I ordered, I noticed that the board I bought was indeed for the Ender 5. While the product description on Amazon clearly stated that it was compatible with Ender3/ 3Pro/5 I forgot to click the right option in the ordering menu. There doesn’t seem to be any physical difference between the boards and all the connectors also are the same. Be careful when ordering it.

I thought about not replacing the board again until the new version I ordered (this time I made sure to order the correct board) would arrive. With a long four-day weekend, losing precious printing opportunity was motivation enough for me to reverse the upgrade and install the old board.

When being faces with some quality issues ranging from slight decrease in quality up to the “bath tub incident” I did some research what I need to do. There are generally three things to do to get better results:

Maintenance: 3D printers consist of a lot of moving pieces and this means things might get wobbly and misaligned. Keep your printer clean, the nozzle unclogged, the bed levelled, and the belt tight. For all of these tasks YouTube is a great source of information. This video covers all the steps to maintain a well-running 3D printer. The guy is very serious about it :-).
Printable upgrades: One of the advantages of having a 3D printer is that now I’m able to print pieces. Some of these can be very useful to make the Ender 3 more durable, improve quality, and convenience. Thingiverse is full of upgrades that can be printed.
Buy upgrades: As with every hobby the sky’s the limit when it comes to buying add-ons to improve it. So far I limited my upgrade-greed to a new mainboard (reducing noise made by the printing motors) and an auto-leveler to make the process of having a levelled bed easier.

YouTube is a great source of information as there are plenty of people who’ve spent more time and effort on their hobby than I have. It’s great to see how enthusiastic the community is about 3D printing.