3D Printer Blog

[Chako]

That flashing the firmware certainly fixed a few other things. Now I can actually read data on the screen side and in touch screen mode. The screen adds both a USB and SD card reader over the micro SD slot found on the motherboard. Now both appear to be working. Me thinks I might be good to go now. Everything appears to be working now. Whew.

[Chako]

Printing out a bowl today to test everything. Looks good so far. I must say, I was so used to the old motherboard's whinny stepper motors that I could monitor the printer from my computer desk despite the printer being in a different room. Now, all I hear are the slight whoosh of the fans. I find myself checking to see if the printer is even working a bit more often than I used to. 

It is uncanny how much the Ender 3 is quiet with the motherboard upgrade. When I looked up the old Creality 8 bit board, it came up as one of their quieter motherboard revisions. Nothing like what it is now. For this reason alone, the motherboard swap was worth it.

[Chako]

Note to self...need to upgrade or modify a printed part to be more efficient.

I guess part of the fun of getting into an open source 3D printer is all the options open to you in upgrading it. One of the first parts I printed was an arm extension that pushed the filament outwards away from the printer to allow for a more rounded pathway into the extruder. What I didn't figure at the time was the wear and tear of having PLA filament rubbing on a section of the printed PLA part. Like will wear away like quickly it seems. Funny that, because I didn't hear the squeaks until I upgraded the motherboard that makes the printer whisper quiet. It took me a short time to figure out where the squeaking came from, and upon closer examination, I can feel a groove being dug into the filament pathway arm part. I fixed this with a largish piece of aluminium foil folded upon itself and cut to size and tie wrapped to the arm. I figure the metal should wear better than plastic on plastic. This did eliminate the squeaking sound whenever the extruder worked. The aluminium foil was a bit of quick temporary MacGyvering.

Now toying with the idea of looking for a fishing rod tip or something like that. I am thinking that might be better...possibly.

[Chako]

Should probably rename this a "3D Printer Blog" or something. It would appear I am posting my trials and jubilations venturing into the fascinating world of 3D Printers.

Here is the latest...a useful bowl. I still have the black PLA installed.

IMG_8599A by Chako, on Flickr

I cannot stress this enough...if you ever go the awesome Ender 3 3D printer route, do yourself a favour and get the SKR Mini E3 motherboard and switch the one that comes with the printer. I do think it is THE best upgrade possible for the printer. The upgraded touch screen is nice but not as important as the motherboard upgrade wise. Both are a killer combo though. The LCD screen does also give you the ability to use USB and SD cards to install your files to the printer...however you can only have the 1 file present or those two will not work. I had to find that out the hard way as I kept getting USB or SD card drive errors. The printer is so quiet now that I can possibly sleep in the same room as the printer is working.

The BLTouch appears to be a good upgrade as well...but it is so new that I haven't had the time to really assess the improvement, or the lack of having to level the bed manually in the future.

On another note. I bought a set of metal bed leveling knobs and upgraded springs way back when I got the printer back in mid May. Of course they never arrived. I just placed a claim as they were supposed to be here at the latest on June 8th. Anyhow, after much digging, I have noted that some folks on Amazon are selling these solid silicon pillars with a screw hole drilled in the middle that are used to prevent the bed from moving once you have a BLTouch auto leveling sensor installed. I am thinking I may go that route.

[Chako]

So far, my experiences with the Creality Ender 3 have been mostly positive. It is an open source printer with a lot of community support. This is a really good thing because most of my issues come from Creality being a Chinese company and their instructions are lacking big time. if it isn't in Chinese, the English is so poor to be laughable. With that said, the community really shines because you will be able to find either a nice article written by someone online, or even better yet, a fantastic video to walk you through the process.

Now if you are not upgrading the printer, a lot of this help will not be needed. I still urge folks to read and watch however, because learning about things is always a good process.There have been a few times where I recalled reading about an issue somewhere, and I found myself needing that info for an upgrade I had not planned for in the past, but in the present, I very much needed. with all of that said and done, there are a few Bizarre things out there that forced me to get way outside my comfort zone. As mentioned before, I am somewhat technical savvy, but when it comes to programming or engineering stuff, I am a fish out of water. Here is a good example. I wanted to add a BLTouch sensor to automatically level the bed. I was quite happy to find out you can add one to the Ender 3, which is usually a feature on a much more expensive printer. I bought the BigTreeTech SKR Mini E3 motherboard simply because I found out that the board has a special place for the BLTouch sensor cables. On the Creality motherboard that came with the printer, there is no such connector place. Now, I bought the Creality BLTouch kit made for the Ender 3. This kit comes with 2 daughter boards needed for a workaround to get the sensor working on their 8 bit boards. That is fin and dandy, but during my extensive research, I found that most folks couldn't put the motherboard compartment cover back on because these daughter boards piggy back on the motherboard, and once you add the necessary cables, there isn't enough room to close the hatch back on the compartment. That is the main reason why I decided to upgrade the motherboard to the BigTreeTech SKR mini E3 board. That and the E3 version is basically made to be put into and Ender 3. Well ok, so I vaguely recalled reading somewhere that there was a cable issue with the BLTouch. I dug deep and found out that the Creality Kit is wired differently than what is required on the upgraded board. Then I had to research how to change the wires on a Dupont connector, and also to look at the +/- schematics that Creality thankfully provided. I learned that I had to switch 2 cables around. It was easy to do with the right knowledge...but hard to acquire that knowledge. I found a helpful video from someone in India that was the key to my understanding of what I needed to do. Mind you, his video was hard for me to understand because he had a very thick East Indian accent...but thank God he did one in English. I could hug that guy.

I even bought a book online called "The Idiot's Guide to 3D Printing" when I first got into this. Unfortunately for me, it came in recently and I found the book to be practically useless. i guess I educated myself so much in the short time I got into this, that the book was a letdown. Not saying I know everything. Far from it, but a lot of what is inside the book I already knew, or are things I will never need to know, such as using a 3D printer for prototyping and manufacturing.

I must say before I close this post up...I can heartily recommend the Creality Ender 3 if you are looking for a cost effective quality mid sized printer with a build capacity of 220x220x250 mm.

[Chako]

The Sylvania Flute Light was better than nothing, but its 4 LEDs were not very bright. I did like how the magnetic base held onto the spool holder. I found a better replacement however, and I stumbled over it at Dollarama. It is called the Puck Light with suction base. I found that the suction cup was a rubber covering that was easily removed. I cut some Velcro to size and stuck it to the top of the gantry. This thing throws some serious light, and because it is round, illuminated both sides of the build plate. Superior to the Flute Light. Both are fed by 3 AAAs.

IMG_8603A by Chako, on Flickr

Currently building a small Sherman Tank. My first need to glued together project.

IMG_8604A by Chako, on Flickr

[Chako]

After watching the latest print, I swear that the new 32bit motherboard has improved the radius action of the printer over the older 8bit motherboard. It appears to do curves a lot better. 

[Chako]

Here is the little Sherman tank. The body printed in half, along with the 2 tracks, the gun, turret, hatch, and turret rod. Gluing it all together was relatively painless. Good details in this miniature. I think I may have to hunt the other tank models online and start a possible 3D printed miniature model tank collection. A nice touch, the turret rotates.

IMG_8607A by Chako, on Flickr

[Whoey]

need something to help judge the scale...

Is it just me that craves a 3D printer to make model kits to then finish and build?

[Chako]

It is the size of your average Hot Wheels. Mind you...you can scale up or down in the slicing software. The only limit is your build volume of the printer.

[Chako]

I just finished a STUG III Ausf B.I threw in a Vic for scale. These take about 2 to 3 hours to print.

IMG_8610A by Chako, on Flickr

Here is the Thingiverse file to give you an idea...

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2719632

And the designer...

https://www.thingiverse.com/juergen54/designs

[Chako]

Latest print...a Sd.Kfz. 251 Ausf. A.

IMG_8614a by Chako, on Flickr

And the every growing little family.

IMG_8612A by Chako, on Flickr

[Dutch_Tooler]

 
 

[Chako]

The latest print...a Tiger.

IMG_8616A by Chako, on Flickr

IMG_8618A by Chako, on Flickr

IMG_8619A by Chako, on Flickr

[Chako]

Using the glue stick on the smooth side of the glass plate ensures a great contact. In fact, to remove the pieces, I have found that if I let the glass cool down to room temperature,and use water to soak in under the pieces, they come right off easily.

[Chako]

The latest...a Sturmpanzer IV Sd.Kfz.166.

IMG_8622A by Chako, on Flickr

[Chako]

Still churning out little cute tanks. The latest prints is a SU-76i. The 6th in this series.

Before assembly.

IMG_8624A by Chako, on Flickr

All done and with the others.

IMG_8625A by Chako, on Flickr

Latest Ender 3 update.

I have noticed a growing issue with the spool holder. It is only made of injected molded plastic, and I have noticed a lot of squeaking during a print. When I examined both the 3D printed PLA filament guide and the spool holder, I have noticed some wear and tear. When I was printing my red filament, I noticed a lot of black powder residue on the spool holder as well as the spool . I guess all that rubbing is having an effect. That effect is increased friction and I would guess, more wear end tear on the motor as the extruder is now having to work harder (not to mention the constant squeaking is driving me up the wall). The 3D printed filament guide is also wearing where the PLA is rubbing against the PLA part. I suppose I could print the part out of PETG, as I do have a roll, but I am thinking of somehow modifying the part for a fishing rod hoop. I would think that might work out better, or something like a metal eyebolt might even be better.

The spool holder however has become a bit of a concern as I find myself having to clean both the spool and spool holder surface regularly. I spied a nice setup to upgrade the spool holder off of Thingiverse. In fact, I figure this is a rather common issue as there are a lot of different spool holder upgrade designs on that web site. I settled on one that would require a few 608 ball-bearings. I printed the upgraded spool and required 3 shafts when I had my red PLA installed. I then ordered the ball-bearings off of Amazon as I couldn't source any locally. Most of the places I would have looked were closed at the time due to COVID-19. The ball-bearings took their time, spending well over a month at a huge mail facility in the UK of all places. I wonder why it went through the UK when it was mailed from China. 

They finally came in a few days ago. However, I found that the original red shafts that the ball-bearings ride on were too large. I attempted to sand them down but did not like the results. I reprinted them using my now loaded black PLA, making sure to scale them slightly this time using CURA. I knew I should have brought out a set of calipers. Once again just a bit too large for the ball-bearings center holes (I did not want to use a hammer to force the issue). I got smart this time and did my proper measurements...transferred my findings to CURA, and reprinted them. Third time is the charm.

This is more like it. Now they fit nicely. I am not sure if the original shafts were designed to fit a slightly different ball-bearing with a slightly different diameter, or if it was something on my side with CURA and/or the Ender 3 settings. Either way, a bit of playing around fixed the issue.

IMG_8626A by Chako, on Flickr

Here is the upgraded spool holder with 3 608 ball bearings, each on their now properly fitted shafts so that the ball bearings turn easily.

IMG_8627A by Chako, on Flickr

And the original file from Thingiverse.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3979065

I hope this will solve a problem with the 3D printer. This one took a bit of time, and a lot of waiting to get the right ball-bearings. I am quite pleased with the results thus far. I did my latest tank print and I didn't hear the usual squeaks. 

[Chako]

I finally attempted to do the "Impossible Table" print. Here is the file from Thingiverse.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3970291

This was a lot harder then I thought it would be. If I had to do this again, I would combine the table with the support as one piece. I had a dickens of a time gluing the supports to the table. Worse yet, whenever I applied any force with the fishing line, one of the supports would twist away from the table causing everything to crumple into a messy tangle.

I did manage to get it done somewhat with much swearing and cursing.

Here it is.

IMG_8628A by Chako, on Flickr

In case you might be wondering, the supports were printed on the little Creality CR-100 in white PLA. the top and bottom was printed using black PLA on the much larger Ender 3.

Yep, Hopefully I won't be doing this one again...I suppose I should be happy for all the character building I guess.   

[Don Pablo]

Looks so fun.

[Chako]

The table looks amazing once done. It is just assembling it that was so frustrating. 

Part of the issue is that the glued supports are not facing each other. they are facing each other at a 45 degree angle. This means, anytime I placed any force on the outer fishing line, it wanted to twist on itself.

The other issue was the glue I used. Maybe the contact cement was not the right glue to use on the supports and table pieces. I am thinking epoxy would have solved my issues. Now where is that tissue... I need something to mop up the tears of joy that the Impossible Table trials are over. 

[Chako]

The latest little tank...a Panzerjager Tiger (P) Ferdinand.

IMG_8629A by Chako, on Flickr

The little collection is growing one at a time.

IMG_8630A by Chako, on Flickr

Today, I received my upgraded springs for the heated bed, and a pair of supports for the Z Axis machine screw. One should shore up the top end nicely. The other will be a spare, or if I decide to buy a dual Z axis upgrade kit down the road.

[Dutch_Tooler]

 

"Dual Z axis upgrade kit"? Do tell... two belts?

[Whoey]

by the time I get around to ordering mine Chako will have worked out all the upgrades i need so I can just order them directly

[Chako]

Yes. Along with 2 screws. Not sure this is needed though.

Whoey, you can't go wrong with this printer.

[Chako]

I ran into a spot of trouble again recently. I attempted to print another model tank twice with both attempts resulting in failure. I manually leveled the print bed using a piece of paper at each corner. Tried again and this time I lowered myself to better see what was happening. Yeah. The nozzle was too high and when it deposited the filament, it fell down towards the heated bed and refused to stick. Hmmm...I did manually level the printer bed prior to this point. 

So something else must be going on.

I auto homed the printer bed and nozzle, and everything looks good. I then examined the menu, and for some unknown reason, my Z-Axis offset was at -1.85. 

I thought that now might be the best time to upgrade the bed springs. I bought a set of 8 orange coloured springs that are supposed to be stiffer than the ones that come with the Ender 3. The 4 spring installation went easier than I thought. I can say that the springs are indeed an improvement. I lowered the bed supper low so that the nozzle doesn't crash into the glass plate, turned the printer on, and auto homed the print head. I then went into the menu and placed the Z-Axis offset to 0. Manually leveled the print bed once again using the paper between the nozzle method at each of the 4 corners. Everything looks good now. I am now printing another tank and it appears to be so far successful.

Now, I am thinking that the only thing I did between a successful print and a failure was to use the BLTouch once to auto level the bed. I am thinking I may have to set it up somehow to work properly if that is the case. More reading will have to be done. For now, I am happy once again to have a working printer.

I guess with each failure, I am learning a bit more.

[Chako]

The good news...I got the printer once again chugging along nicely. The bad news...my little tank lost a tread as I was removing it from the build plate. It flew into a corner and I couldn't find it. Guess I may have to print the missing part at a later date. 

[Chako]

I was annoyed about that tank track that flew off into the hard to reach corner. So annoyed that I took out my very first Amazon purchase, an inspection camera. I had to recharge it, and wifi connect with my cell phone. Looked long and hard for the little black piece to no avail.I even looked under the couch with it. I swear the piece disappeared. So today, I am printing out another copy of the same tank along with an extra track. I made sure I was printing the right piece. Figured if I had to print the extra track, may as well print another copy of the tank. Time will tell if all goes well.   

[Chako]

Meet the latest little guy...a Marder II Sd.Kfz.131. Got two of them due to my losing one of the tracks as mentioned above.

 IMG_8636A by Chako, on Flick

And the latest upgrade...shoring up that Z axis screw. Personally not sure if this was even an issue needed fixing or improving. Did it anyways because I was curious to see if there would be any difference. thus far, I haven't seen any improvements...other than the Z Axis screw is more secure and it looks a lot better than just having the Z screw sticking up in the air.

IMG_8632A by Chako, on Flickr

[Chako]

Just came back from a nice ride in the countryside to commemorate Canada Day, seeing that there isn't much going on due to COVID-19. I even stopped with the better half to get a nice poutine at a roadside food trailer along the way. Can't get anymore Canadian than that. 

I thought it might be a good idea to assemble all my upgrades to the Ender 3, and speak a little about how I feel about them. But first, a preamble, or should I say, a bit of an introduction is due first.

When I bought the Creality Ender 3X, I had wanted something cheap because I wasn't exactly sure I would get into 3D printers. The Ender 3 is an open source 3D printer produced by a Chinese company called Creality. There is the original Ender 3, an Ender 3X, and an Ender 3 Pro. As I write this, later this month, Creality should be releasing an Ender 3 V2 which is sort of an Ender 3 with some of the upgrades I have already done to mine. Now, the Ender 3X comes with a glass plate and 5 extra nozzles. I went for it because of the glass build plate which I had heard was better than other materials. I am still waiting for my 5 extra nozzles that was omitted in my package, but I am now in conversation with the seller, and I think they will ship me them soon. I was tired of waiting, and have already bought 24 different sized nozzles off of Amazon.

The Ender 3 came out in 2019, and Creality is a company that listens to its end users and is constantly updating their product, hence the V2 coming out later this month. My Ender 3 is different from the original Ender 3 in having a removable build plate. The original version had a build plate that was essentially a sticker you stuck to your aluminum heating plate. The newer ones come with a few fixes that I found out during my research in upgrading my printer. For example, the Z-axis motor no longer needs a shim to straighten out the Z-axis screw. This was a problem with last years printers. They fixed that and a few other little things. The Ender 3X now comes with both  removable plastic build plate and a glass build plate. The Ender 3 Pro comes with a better power supply, a wider Y-axis rail, motherboard compartment flipped over to have the cooling fan on the bottom of the compartment, and a flexible magnetic build plate. The magnetic build plate deteriorates if you exceed a temperature of 80 degrees however. Personally, glass is the way to go. It is straighter, and once cool, offers easy removal of your projects.

So I bought the 3X because the price was right and the reviews appeared to be generally positive. I thought to buy a cheap printer and maybe buy a better one down the road if I liked 3D printing. Once I bought the printer and found out I did like to 3D print, I started reading about how to improve the printer. I found out there is a lot you can do with this open source printer. Because it is super popular, there are a lot of upgrades out there, and better yet, a very knowledgeable community with lots of articles and videos to help you along the way.

Here is what I have done to my printer with my thoughts. All the printable upgrades on my printer are printed in red PLA simply because that was what I had at the time.

IMG_8637A by Chako, on Flickr

1. Glass plate came with my printer. However, you can buy it separately for 23 Canadian dollars. Glass is the way to go because it has great characteristics that make taking your prints off much easier. Not only that, but it is probably flatter than your aluminium bed which tends to warp. This makes leveling your printer a lot easier. I bought an extra glass build plate to have a spare.

2. On Thingiverse, there are a lot of printables to help you upgrade your Ender 3.
a. Power supply fan shroud. This is to quiet the power supply fan. It does work by shunting the exhaust towards the back of the printer.
b. Motherboard cooling fan guard. On the Ender 3 and  3X, the fan is pointing upwards and in a bad spot to get bits of plastic falling inside and causing issues. This simple fan guard will protect both the fan and and motherboard. On the Ender 3 Pro, they flipped the motherboard box. Now you do not have to worry about stuff getting inside the compartment as the fan is now facing downwards, but because the motherboard is not upside down as well, upgrading anything in there means you now have to put the printer on its side. Frankly, I would rather have to print a fan guard and have much easier access to the motherboard compartment than having to put the printer on its side.
c. Filament guide arm. This arm pushes the filament away from the printer, reducing any bends in the filament from the spool to the extruder. I printed mine in PLA...and when PLA rubs on PLA, it will wear it down. I am in the process of thinking how to improve the rubbing surfaces to reduce wear and tear, and also to reduce any friction that the extruder needs to overcome in the system.
d. Filament Z-axis guide. The Ender 3 filament comes into contact with the greased up Z-axis screw. Printing this little piece moves the filament away from the screw. Keeping the filament clean is a good idea.
e. Storage drawer. The Ender 3 has an empty spot in the front of the printer. A lot of folks have thought of ways to fill that void with storage. The one I printed allows the drawer to slide in and out. Simple  and highly effective. There are a lot of different drawers out there...so you do have a lot of choice.
f. LCD cable clips. The wire that comes from the motherboard compartment on the left side, must go across to the LCD panel on the right side of the printer. These clips tidy the wire and keeps them out of the way for any front storage solution you want to print.
g. Extruder knob. I found a Yoda version, but once again, there are many options out there. The extruder knob allows you to advance and retract the filament easily. Good for when you are removing or adding filament to the extruder.
h. Tool storage rack. There are a lot of different prints you can do to stow away your included tools. Some of them are on the side of the LCD, on top of the power supply, and the one that found resonance with me, on top of the gantry.
i. Spool holder. The original spool holder that came with the Ender 3 is made out of injected plastic. However, I quickly found out that the spool and the spool holder were wearing each other away. Plastic powder was being created, increasing friction, not to mention evidence of wear and tear. Looking online, there are many printable solutions. The one I settled on was a version that uses 3 608 ball bearings. This greatly reduces friction, making the extruder motor work easier and probably more efficiently. Anything involved with improving the filament feeding should translate into better prints.

3. During my research, I found out that there are some really great upgrades for the Ender 3. BigTreeTech was a company that kept coming up on some videos. After doing some watching, I thought to myself that upgrading the motherboard would improve things nicely. At the same time, I noticed that you could also upgrade the LCD panel as well. I ordered a BigTreeTech SKR Mini E3 motherboard along with a BigTreeTech TFT35 E3 LCD screen. The motherboard is a fantastic upgrade. Not only do you get a 32 bit motherboard superior to the 8 bit Creality motherboard, but it gives you better connectivity to other peripherals such as a BLTouch auto leveling sensor, filament auto detect sensor, neopixel LED, WiFi module, etc. The biggest advantage however is how much quieter the Ender 3 will run under this 50 dollar upgrade. The printer runs so quietly that I cannot hear the printer working anymore other than the soft whoosh of the cooling fans. The LCD upgrade works very well with the motherboard. It upgrades the Ender 3 with a touch screen/classic mode, SD card and USB drive reader. Both work very well with each other. The motherboard also upgrades the OS to Marlin 2.0 which enables thermal runaway protection...something the original Ender 3 motherboard did not give you.

4. BLTouch auto leveling sensor. This is something I still have to play around with. I was able to successfully install it and have it running with a firmware upgrade, but due to lack of instructions, I do not have the settings dialed down as of yet. For now, I am manually leveling the bed and bypassing the sensor. However, once it is working properly, it will make leveling the bed a lot easier. I bought the official Creality BLTouch leveling kit, and this caused me some issues. With the original motherboard, plugging the sensor into it involves 2 daughter boards that need to piggyback onto the motherboard. This is done because the original Creality motherboard does not have a way to install the sensor. The kit bypasses this. However, because I upgraded to a BigTreeTech SKR Mini E3 motherboard that does support the BLTouch without the need of daughter boards, I found that the wires needed to be switched around for it to be compatible with the SKR Mini E3. Another big plus with the BigTreeTech stuff, you do not need to have a boot loader dongle to update the firmware. Just install your .BIN file onto any of the media and start it up and it will automatically update the firmware. The Creality BLTouch kit came with the boot-loader dongle, which was not needed with the upgraded motherboard.

5.LED lighting. I found these fabulous little suction puck lights at a dollar store that I Velcro to the bottom part of the upper gantry. Now I have a lot of even lighting.

6. I have upgraded the X-axis belt tightener to a better all metal one with a knob adjust feature. The included tightener involved an Allen key to loosen and tighten 2 bolts. The upgraded part is easier to do on the fly, and I can control the belt tension a lot easier and with more precision.

7. I also bought a Z-axis screw top support bracket to shore up the screw and to finish the look of the printer. It looked odd with the screw pointing upwards with very little support to the printer. I am not so sure at the moment if this was worthwhile in improving the print, or more of an aesthetic move on my part.

8. Upgraded the mostly plastic extruder with an all metal version. I have seen images online where the filament wore a hole in the plastic parts over time. The metal upgrade will prevent that from happening.

9. Upgraded springs for the heated printer plate. These are stiffer and should keep your adjustments better than the original lighter springs. Easy to install and does improve the build plate stability.

10. I have also purchased a knob tightener bracket for the Y-axis as well. I like the one for the X-axis so much, I figured I should also get one for the Y-axis belt. This part has not arrived yet.

11. I also bought a BigTreeTech filament sensor that I have not installed yet. There is a place on the SKR Mini E3 for it and hopefully, once installed, all I need to do is go into the printer settings and enable it. The sensor will stop the printer if it detects no more filament.

That about sums up all the upgrades I have made with the Ender 3. If you get an Ender 3 Pro, some of the above upgrades may not fit. The newer Ender 3 V2 looks like it has incorporated some of the above upgrades from the factory with pros and cons...



Photos...

Spool holder upgrade.

IMG_8639A by Chako, on Flickr

2 LEE puck lights. I am on the prowl for a third one to place center.

IMG_8640A by Chako, on Flickr

Printed parts tray that pulls out.

IMG_8641AA by Chako, on Flickr

Yoda extruder knob, and behind that, the Z-axis filament bracket to keep the filament away from the oily screw. Both are printed upgrade parts.

IMG_8643A by Chako, on Flickr

X-axis tightener bracket.

IMG_8644A by Chako, on Flickr

In summary, the Ender 3 is a nice entry level and cheap printer with a lot of room to grow. Some of the upgrades are quality of life upgrades, and others improve the print quality. I am getting to the point where there is not much more I can do to make it better. Yes, I am almost there. 

[Dutch_Tooler]

Awesome summary Chako

Printed any motorcycle parts yet?