3D Printer Blog

[Chako]

Roger on the filament storage. The Overture filament I have so far bought comes in a reusable zip lock bag with a desiccant packet inside. I did buy 4 rolls from PrintOxe to try it out. That may not come seal-able bags.

Vidar, I did try one of that artists works. I was a bit surprised it was so small. I had to scale it up 600x to get this...but it did turn out very nice. It took a little less than an hour at 80 mm/s speed.

IMG_8506A by Chako, on Flickr

I just bought a set of roller bearings online. I see that the included spool holder sucks. I have printed about 3/4 of a roll of red PLA thus far, and noticed a bit if a squeak on my last print. I examined the roller and saw a lot of black powder between the holder and the filament spool. A quick wipe did the trick but I decided to go over to Thingiverse to search for an Ender 3 spool upgrade and saw the perfect thing that uses skater ball bearings. That should fix this issue.

I must admit, I am having way too much fun with my Ender 3. Even upgrading it is kinda fun so far.

[Chako]

I am still learning all the features of Cura. I at least figured out the best way to orient an object and to use the right support features. I am growing more and more confident. I still am clueless on the types of fill patterns however. I am off to see if there is a nice article explaining the difference between grid, line, triangle, tri-hexagon, cubic, cubic subdivision, octet, quarter cubic, concentric, zig zag, cross, cross 3D, and gyroid. 

[Don Pablo]

I am still learning all the features of Cura. I at least figured out the best way to orient an object and to use the right support features. I am growing more and more confident. I still am clueless on the types of fill patterns however. I am off to see if there is a nice article explaining the difference between grid, line, triangle, tri-hexagon, cubic, cubic subdivision, octet, quarter cubic, concentric, zig zag, cross, cross 3D, and gyroid. 

This is what I read when I was doing similar research:
https://m.all3dp.com/2/cura-infill-patterns-all-you-need-to-know/

[Chako]

Thanks for the link...bookmarked. 

[Chako]

87% complete.

IMG_8515A by Chako, on Flickr

Edit: Just finished the part and had a little difficulty removing the support around the thread section. I did finally get it all off with a lot of picking, and even tried it with the spool nut it is designed to work with. I even tried the small dowels...and it all fits nicely. My only worry, I bought a set of 608 bearings off of Amazon. I just checked, and it tells me sometime in July to August for arrival?!?!

I am not sure I can wait that long to upgrade the spool holder. I might be forced to locally source them if I can. Time will tell. I do know that shipping it all out of whack right now.

[Vidar]

Well, I concluded that a wheel is easier to make on the lathe than printing, casting and then the lathe... 

So new plan - holder for a camera housing. Camera and housing ordered so I can make an holder for them. 

[Chako]

Got another package in today, and it is the second Creality printer I bought because I found it way too cute for its own good. Meet the Creality Cr-100, a printer aimed at children, and possibly adults that have never grown up. 

Man, It is way smaller then I thought. The box is smaller than the Ender 3.

IMG_8516A by Chako, on Flickr

Designed to look like transport, it features a build area of only 100 x 100 x 80 mm. Auto bed leveling sort of, and no heated bed. The little bed is one of those magnetic removable plates, which is a good thing because my largish hands would have a difficult time fiddling inside this printer.

IMG_8517A by Chako, on Flickr

Surprisingly, it comes with a remote of all things. There is a 3 button touch pad on the top of the unit, along with a fairly small but coloured LCD display.

IMG_8519A by Chako, on Flickr

Here is a closer look at the removable build plate.

IMG_8520A by Chako, on Flickr

I am going to install the spool tomorrow and play with it. I do note a few things. I guess I can upgrade the extruder to a metal on as it is the same one used on the larger Ender 3. I also noted that there are several printable spools as this one will not accept 1KG rolls of filament. Another surprise, they have included a full roll of white...just not sure if the roll is 500g or 250g, either way, it is more generous that what came with the Ender 3...which I estimate to be around 15g of filament.

This is a petite 3D printer. Smallar than I thought it would be. Very cute though. I thought I had bought a red unit..but I think I much prefer the blue now that I have one to look at. So there you have it, my second 3D printer.

[Vidar]

That is a cute one. 

I've thought about it. I don't get what the remote is for? I mean, I know what it is for, but why a remote? Then again I don't have one so I don't know what I might be missing out on.

Somehow I see a collection of 3D printers in your future? 

[Chako]

OMG Vidar! I am struggling very hard in not doing that right now. 

The CR-100 looks better in person. It has a nice weight to it, and the build quality is up there. I have no clue about the remote other than to keep little fingers away from danger. However, the cute little colour LCD is top of the unit, and the IR sensor is located in front of the unit. 

[Whoey]

I would have wanted the red one... optimus prime style...

[Vidar]

I would have wanted the red one... optimus prime style...

I think there is an Optimus Primus around here somewhere. That is greyish blue though. Not sure if that counts? 

[Whoey]

this one...

[Vidar]

I was thinking this one. I guess it is more for starting fires:

[Chako]

Found a problem...and I looked online for a solution, and just finished emailing Creality. I was about to play with the little CR-100 in Cura when I found out it did not have a profile. I looked at all the electronic files that came with the printer's micro SD card...and all I could find was info for a CR-10 which is a totally different printer. I played around with Cura and figured out where I could make a custom profile, but I do not have all the parameters. I know the build size is 100 x 100 x 80 mm, and that the nozzle is 0.4, and that is about it. I have no clue on start stop parameters, X,Y, and Z settings, etc., I couldn't find anyone online with the info I needed. I emailed Creality and see if they will respond. 

[Vidar]

Found a problem...and I looked online for a solution, and just finished emailing Creality. I was about to play with the little CR-100 in Cura when I found out it did not have a profile. I looked at all the electronic files that came with the printer's micro SD card...and all I could find was info for a CR-10 which is a totally different printer. I played around with Cura and figured out where I could make a custom profile, but I do not have all the parameters. I know the build size is 100 x 100 x 80 mm, and that the nozzle is 0.4, and that is about it. I have no clue on start stop parameters, X,Y, and Z settings, etc., I couldn't find anyone online with the info I needed. I emailed Creality and see if they will respond. 

Creality have their own slicer? (I have no clue, but I do see this: https://www.creality.com/u_file/1911/photo/e0840a8e91.png. That, whatever it is, has a CR-100 profile it seems?

[Chako]

Ok. I decided to install the slicing software included with the CR-100, even though it is a far older build of Cura modified by Creality. Lo and behold, there is a CR-100 profile included with this. After using the most current version of Cura, I am not really liking this older interface. Cura 4.6.1 is far more polished than this 1.3 Creality version. Now, I have dug deep into the Creality slicer and am trying the included lion file for now. Better yet, I have dug into the various aspects of the slicer and found a lot of info that I could possibly transplant into Cura 4.6.1 I will look into this as a possible custom profile. Ideally I would rather use one piece of software for both printers.

Got the first print going...

IMG_8522A by Chako, on Flickr

Non heated bed...so rafts are the thing I guess.

IMG_8525A by Chako, on Flickr

I now feel much better about possibly having a profile for the CR-100. I did email 2 places...and will see what the response will be if they respond.

EDIT: Vidar, both on the same page at the same time. 

[Chako]

A few first impressions as it prints. the nozzle heats up quicker than that of my Ender 3. The printer is much quieter in that the extruder fans aren't as loud. The stepper motors are about as loud as that of the Ender 3. I will have to print a larger spool for this machine. Not sure why they only allow smaller filament spools on this thing. The printer came with 200g of white filament. The spool holder will not fit a 1Kg spool...but there are a few mods I found over at Thingiverse that will fix this issue. Still a really cute looking printer. I bought this to see if it might make a good classroom printer. Noted they use the same plastic filament feeder mechanism as on the Ender 3. I might have to get myself another all metal kit to upgrade this. I have seen online photos of wear and tear of plastic parts that eventually get eaten by the filament. The metal kit prevents this from happening.

Still a bit surprised that the current Cura 4.6.1 does not have a built in CR-100 profile. This tells me that the little cute printer might not be selling all that much. 

[Chako]

First print was a failure. I didn't clean the bed with my alcohol wipes. Noticed the raft was actually designed with little contact on the bed. Going to play with the settings tomorrow if I get the chance. What did print was good, but it let go about half way to completion.

[Vidar]

First print was a failure. I didn't clean the bed with my alcohol wipes. Noticed the raft was actually designed with little contact on the bed. Going to play with the settings tomorrow if I get the chance. What did print was good, but it let go about half way to completion.

I've never tried a non-heated bed, but I imagine that might come with some challenges too.

I've made lots of half-prints, messy prints and random treaded nests. Until the settings are right (if ever) that comes with the territory. (I think some 3D printer and material manufacturers have some curated settings that should work for their combination).

I generally prefer the resin printer.

[Chako]

Creality stating that the CR-100 has auto bed leveling is a BIG FAT LIE. I just attempted another print and I could tell right away that the nozzle is extruding too far away from the build plate resulting in an immediate lifting of the raft on the model. I took a gander at the instructions once again and noted that the nozzle assembly is on a spring loaded gantry, and that there is an adjustment screw for the gantry...however the access hole is covered by the filament spool. I gather I will have to adjust the screw with a piece of paper between the bed and the nozzle. Can't adjust 4 corners like the Ender 3. Little written in the instructions about leveling this printer. So much for being a "kids" easy to use printer right out of the box with auto leveling. The CR-100 is harder to adjust and is not as user friendly as the Endeer 3...go figure.

[Don Pablo]

Sounds like a case of the cheap stuff needing more tinkering?

[Vidar]

Sounds like a case of the cheap stuff needing more tinkering?

I've always found this entire leveling thing, automatic or not, as an indication that 3D printers don't have the best structural solutions. Other machines that needs their worktables to stay level seem to manage that just fine - set once and forget. Well, I guess expensive 3D printers don't have that issue either. Likely a cost thing.

[Don Pablo]

I've always found this entire leveling thing, automatic or not, as an indication that 3D printers don't have the best structural solutions. Other machines that needs their worktables to stay level seem to manage that just fine - set once and forget. Well, I guess expensive 3D printers don't have that issue either. Likely a cost thing.

Agreed.
When was the last time you used a milling machine that cost 300?  

[Chako]

That sounds about right. The Ender 3 is a breeze to level because of its open design.

On the plus side, I received my BigTreeTech SKR Mini E3 main board today. That means, when I am up to it, I will upgrade the main board and the LCD. This will be a huge improvement if it all works. I have to laugh though...the board came in and it is so small. It is designed to replace the existing 8 bit board, upgrading it to 32 bit with more RAM, and a lot of extra goodies such as a BL Touch connector on the main board replacing the inelegant daughter board that comes with the BL Touch kit for the Ender 3. Upgraded OS as well. There are a few more benefits...which the video will go into greater details...if you are interested in watching it. 

[Vidar]

Agreed.
When was the last time you used a milling machine that cost 300?

Milling machine and milling machine... I got a cheap milling table some time ago for a project. It just didn't work. The table got stuck trying to move sideways. I tried to fix with some gentle swearing, a hammer and various screwdrivers. Now it is really stuck. On the positive side I now have some spare parts which magically appeared.

No, price of course have a lot to do with it. But I'm not convinced that is the entire story.

[Chako]

Got into a spot of trouble with the Ender 3. I changed filament from red to black. Amazes me I sill have a bit of red left after all those print jobs. Anyhow, I did something I now know I should not have done, and I learned from my mistake. There was about and inch of black filament that was kinked because if was pushed through a side hole of the spool during shipment to prevent it from unraveling. Instead of cutting off that inch, I just trimmed the end to feed it through the extruder. What followed was a bit of fun as nothing would print correctly, not to mention I was getting strings and glop forming. I re-leveled the bed to no avail. I couldn't figure it out. I even took the fans off the nozzle and cleaned the nozzle with one of those acupuncture needles. I was a bit frustrated and left it for this morning. Today, I tried another print and all worked as expected. The only thing I can figure out, was that the kinked filament caused me grief. Note to self, don't be a scrooge, trim that bent area next time I feed another spool of filament into the printer. I can only assume the bent filament section was fed through the extruder and all is good now.

This is what I was getting. Not an even layer of filament laid down, it would sputter, and ultimately not adhere to the heated bed. Luckily enough I stopped several print attempts quickly.

IMG_8526A by Chako, on Flickr

And this morning...back in the black. Sorry I couldn't help myself with that bad accounting pun.

IMG_8529A by Chako, on Flickr

I hope all goes well to completion of this test kitty.

[Chako]

50% and so far so good.

IMG_8532A by Chako, on Flickr

I still haven not played with my little CR-100 as of yet. I am thinking I may need to get a glue stick or something. I never understood how important a heated bed is for adhesion, or is that the glass is a far superior surface. I may have to look into getting a glass sheet for it down the road...maybe. It is small compared to the not all that large Ender 3 which I consider a medium sized machine.

IMG_8533A by Chako, on Flickr

[Chako]

Ok...the piece let go 3/4s of the way. I examined the base and there was little material there. I think before I should try another attempt, I will have to delve deeper into the base and fill rate settings. I am more than happy that I am no longer having weird extruder issues however. As it stands, I can use this cat as a pencil holder or something, seeing that it is hollow.

[Vidar]

I never understood how important a heated bed is for adhesion, or is that the glass is a far superior surface. I may have to look into getting a glass sheet for it down the road...maybe.

I know from frustrating experiences that some materials are very sensitive to the heated bed temperature - as little as a few degrees here or there makes a difference.

I might be wrong about this, but I think a non-heated bed is basically limited to a smaller selection of materials. On the upside it should work fine with those though.

[Chako]

I had a successful print of two utility knives however the tolerances between the two pieces are such that when I attempted to put them together, they got jammed. 

However, the model did not come loose from the heated bed...so that is a good thing. I am going out today to buy myself some glue sticks to try that out.