My old 3D printer (Monoprice Maker Select Plus) hasn’t been working successfully since Padre printed a box on it in late 2018 or early 2019. Something got messed up at some point during either that print, the next print, or at some non-printing point in between and the extruder won’t pull in any filament. I took that apart, cleaned out the gear that pulls it, made sure it was aligned properly, and put it back together…but it only worked again for a few minutes. Further attempts to resolve the issue haven’t worked. Since we moved in 2019, it’s been sitting in the box and I haven’t tried to get it working again.
…so I decided to give up and ended up getting a new 3D printer. This is an Ender 6 Core-XY. Looking forward to getting this set up. I’ve already got a list of things I want to print…most of which are related to my 3 year-old’s Thomas & Friends trains. (We need some track adapters and I need to print some replacement couplings for a few of his train cars.) Also want to print some tabletop pieces for a D&D campaign.
What’s everyone else printing lately? It’s been years since I’ve printed something, so I feel like I’ve missed a lot.
If I knew someone who had one, I’d be interested in having a simple capped tube printed to fit inside the metal mesh of my cold brew maker to push and hold the grounds down below the water. (They otherwise float, which doesn’t really seem to affect the taste, but I think it would work even better if they were forced to be submerged.)
Otherwise, I can’t really think of anything I would print or want printed. I mean I guess I could make interesting Christmas tree decorations, if someone else had the talent to come up with the designs.
I keep looking for ways to justify the purchase to my wife, who sees no reason for us to have one. I am convinced we can use one to print household items we would buy normally, but I can’t seem to make the argument well enough.
I’ve heard that people have done studies to show how having a 3D printer can save money, but I can’t find them anywhere.
What sorts of items? There is too much plastic in use on earth already, so hopefully you’d consider better choices made from renewable sources like wood instead of making something out of plastic.
My 3 year-old son wants me to print trains and helicopters…constantly. He has VERY specific demands too. “I want a red diesel train with a white dot on the front and one on the side.”
He’s fascinated by “Mr. Printer” (as he calls it). …and whenever I start a new print, he waits about 15 seconds and then asks, “Is it done yet?”
I could see printing train car/engine “bodies” to go onto hobbyist tracks to be an amazingly attractive option to the serious “rail roaders” who build those amazing track layouts.
I’ve been thinking of getting a 3D Printer… maybe an Ender 3 v2 or an Elegoo Neptune 2s, though I’m tempted by the large print volume of an Ender 3 Max.
A lot of Benchys Just bought my first roll of PETG and I’m trying to get a good profile on my Ender 3 V2. Clogging, stringing, you name it. Getting closer to an acceptable result though.
@PDelahanty What should you print? Lots of things. What must you print? Shameless self promotion! Your kid will love it. It’s also a great tuning aid for retraction and bridging.
Oh, boy, lots in this thread. Let me see if I can help people out.
@vernonlvincent What sold my spouse was xmas decorations. I set them loose on ThingiVerse and the next thing I knew, I had a long email full of links to prints. Most ornaments are pretty easy as they’re planar and normally decorative in nature, so some white, clear, or shiny red or green filament will make them look great. There are more complex ones with actual mechanical parts which will be harder to print, but there’s plenty of low hanging fruit.
@PHolder What sorts of prints? Well, my MIL had a nice set of vertical blinds on her back patio sliding door. One of the clips that holds on the valence broke (it was acrylic and from the 90’s), so I measured it up and designed a replacement in PETG which worked great and made her happy–never hurts to make the MIL happy.
@Fredrik did you get your PETG tuned in? It can be a bit of a challenge on Bowden style extruders. It’s soft enough that a tight sprocket will tear it up if you do a lot of retractions–and you have to as PETG tends to string. I print it wonderfully on my direct drive printers as they suffer very little from retraction related problems–direct drive extruders don’t need as much retraction as Bowdens do due to their shorter and better constrained filament path.
@PDelahanty Did you ever get that older printer fixed? It sounds like you have a damaged PFTE liner in your hotend–assuming it’s a lined hotend. The fix is a tiny little cheap piece of PFTE tubing inside the heatbreak. It can be a real pain to diagnose until you solve it the first time and then it’s a bit easier. Sadly I learned from experience. I ended up buying a large length of the correct diameter tubing so I can replace mine when they fail–and they do fail with time. They expecially fail if you print hotter.
Well, yes, but not at that time, I gave up. But I was home sick for a week a while back and put some time in getting a good PETG profile. Now I get really good results. I increased the printing speed from 15 mm/s to 40 mm/s, putting down the first layer at 15 mm/s. Nozzle temp 230°C, bed temp 70°C. Retraction 6 mm, retraction speed 25 mm/s.
I had huge problems getting the bottom layers right. Turned down the flow to 90% did the trick.
But I thought it seemed strange if I hade to do that. Eventually I found that one reason could be that the vslot wheels on the side w/o the lead screw on the z axis were too tight. This caused the “passive” side of the z axis to bind(not sure if this is the correct expression) and not move up until it had reached like layer 4-5. This caused elephants foot. I loosened the excentric nut a little( I didn’t even think it was tight) and the result was miles better. I set the flow back to 100%, and it was even better.
