First 3d Printer, im a total noob.

[mendip_discovery]

So I had been thinking about getting one for a few years. Then one day I saw a Kickstarter and thought oh well might as well. So I put some pennies down on the Cetus2 which is a dual print head unit. Thinking this would be cool for printing the odd thing or two for the motorcycle and for random other things.

Almost a year and a bit later it turned up. Just now.

So as a printer noob, what do I need to look out for in regard to 3d print media? Is there a gold standard filament I should go for. I assume I will want ABS for most of my printing needs and maybe some PLA. I have dual heads as A) I could print 2 colours at a time. B) I hope to print using a cheap/washable filament for infill/support.

[Ian.M]

ABS?  In the UK^* in winter?  Without a heated enclosure? 

Prepare to enter warp city, with plenty of birds-nests due to first layer/bed detachment failure ahead

PLA is a lot more forgiving, but even so can be fussy at low or unstable ambient temperatures.

* Where central aircon capable of maintaining a uniform room temperature isn't exactly common . . .

[mendip_discovery]

ABS?  In the UK^* in winter?  Without a heated enclosure? 

Prepare to enter warp city, with plenty of birds-nests due to first layer/bed detachment failure ahead

PLA is a lot more forgiving, but even so can be fussy at low or unstable ambient temperatures.

* Where central aircon capable of maintaining a uniform room temperature isn't exactly common . . .

It could be worse, I could be in Scotland. Its fairly stable temp here as the house has thick stone walls and currently, it is about 16.7°C ±2°C.

I have ordered a pack on 5 colours of PLA and one of black ABS via Amazon with the hope it will be ready for tomorrow. Don't think I got any with the machine. Now to think of things to print, working my way up the learning ladder.

[CatalinaWOW]

I have settled on PETG as my go to material.  High enough melting point to survive many uses, strong enough, and relatively easy to print. 

Depending on where on your motorcycle the parts will be used you may need ABS or other high temp material.  But as stated above it is much trickier to print and definitely not the place to start your 3D adventure.  PLA is a good starting choice. 

Just dive in and start.  As you encounter problems just use the
many good online resources on all aspects of 3D printing.

[mendip_discovery]

For the most part, it will be just little things like a holder for the indicators but eventually, I would love to be able to print some of the bodywork as 1 panel is now best part of £300 and its in the wrong colour, even if I just print a buck to use for carbon fibre or fibreglass etc.

Just opened the box, 2x 50g amounts of filament, that won't last long. I wish that Maplins still existed as they would be a great place to stock stuff like this.

[Infraviolet]

As far as support goes, if you want to use a dissolvable filament there are plenty of options based on PVA glue, but with a good slicer like Cura and with careful setting of the clearance heights between the support and the main model you might find that siply breaking away with side cutters or by hand can give good enough underside finished for many parts.

PLA, PETG, ABS and typical dissolvables usually come in 1kg reels, typical price £20 to £30 for reasonable quality brands.

[Lindley]

Be very interested to hear how easy you find that new printer to set up and use.

As others have said, worth getting familiar with the printer and the design software using the less problematic PLA filament, can be a steep learning curve.

[Ian.M]

Last January I had little joy with PLA until I made an enclosure for my printer to exclude drafts.  The room temperature was a couple of degrees colder than yours, and the problem I was having was first layer bed adhesion failure - small parts would print OK with a wide brim, but anything larger would invariably unstick at one or more corners and warp, frequently warping enough to get knocked loose and birds-nest.  At the time, I was printing on masking tape on a steel bed, and I couldn't find a 'sweet spot' between sticking too well and ripping up the tape, and not sticking to the tape.   After getting fed up with re-taping the bed yet again, and requiring a better bottom surface finish, I switched to printing on glass, though that requires a *MUCH* longer warm-up time to get the surface up to temperature and stable, and typically lower adhesion makes it more draft sensitive.

The enclosure is rather rough - just a large cardboard box, upside-down, with one side cut away at an angle for access and a plastic sheet to cover the open side, taped to the box at the top and with a weighted bottom edge.  I really should re-build it out of fire resistant foil faced insulation board, with a flame retardant polycarbonate door.

[Flump]

Got my Ender3 5 years ago and it's been evolving ever since.

I only print with PLA and buy all my filamet from altec3d, I tried stuff from amazon and ebay but it's hit and miss on how good it is.
On every spool from altec there is a QRcode with data on when that spool was made and tolerance etc.
It's a bit more money than amazon/ebay stuff but its worth it.

http://www.altec3d.com/home.asp?cat=1%2E75mmFilament

[Lindley]

Got my Ender3 5 years ago and it's been evolving ever since.

I only print with PLA and buy all my filamet from altec3d, I tried stuff from amazon and ebay but it's hit and miss on how good it is.
On every spool from altec there is a QRcode with data on when that spool was made and tolerance etc.
It's a bit more money than amazon/ebay stuff but its worth it.

http://www.altec3d.com/home.asp?cat=1%2E75mmFilament

Always good to know a good source of Filaments    Had been buying branded filaments from Amazon and not experienced any problems.

Have the V2, be interested to know what mods you have made to your model.

We have changed the bed springs to the yellow ones, fitted a clone bl touch, opend the blanked off airways on  the psu cover  and feed the filament from a spool holder on the side.

[Infraviolet]

Personally I get a specific brand of filament from amazon and it works great, "eryone" PLA. I had tried buying branded (polymaker) filaments from more specialist suppliers beforehand but had bad luck with them (poor bed adhesion, reel snapping halfway through a print...).

This range of PLA across various colours has worked well for me:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07GNHZR1F/

I'd only buy plain colours, one should be very cautious about shiny (metal flecked) or glow in the dark type filaments, as they can have additives which wear away nozles very quickly.

[wilhe_jo]

FYI, my little farm runs exclusively on Ender 3 V2.
The roller guides make them basically maintenance free.

I have replaced the springs with cheap silicone spacers.

For the extruder, I use full metal dual gear ones from the CR10 series. Those last about 1000h of printing and cost around 15€... Maybe they last longer if properly greased from the beginning and if you're not running linear advance... Which I stopped since prusa slicer allows limiting the change of filament flow.

The extruder is now from E3D ... A revo micro... The revo CR should be a even smoother mod.

The classic nozzles always started leaking after some 100h of printing.

If you are okay retightening, the full metal hotends from the CR10 series are fine. Depending on the print temperatures, bi-metal heartbreaks can help.
For PLA, a stock full-metal hotend is fine.
Prusament PetG benefits from bi-metal ones.
Lower temp PetG (eg Extruder) is ok with the normal ones.

The stock hotend is shit. The PTFE tube pressed against the nozzle gives you really a bad experience compared to the full-metal one.

ATM, I'm also converting one printer to a E3D Hermera. This includes dual Z because the Hemera adds quite some weight and the filament pulling force isn't neglectible either.
This is conversion is simply because I have an upcoming application for soft TPU.

Oh, and I have mounted CR touch probes... Very smooth upgrade thanks the brackets and the ready made cables

The last thing I'm now experimenting with is the build surface.

The glass bed is fine for PLA.
PEI film on spring steel is ok for PetG, but wears relatively fast (it "chips" off).
BuildTak is ok for PLA on a magnetic bed.
ATM I'm testing PEI powder coated spring steel sheets from Creality. I don't have too much experience up to now, but this is really really really promising. Howevery, you should be ok with the texture.

FR2 and pertinax is coming as well. I tested this in the past and it was fine. However, I'm not sure how well it will do when combined with a magnetic bed.
In addition, the textured PEI beds are really nice so far. If they last 500h (thats about 100 prints on the same position on the sheet) of printing, I think I may skip these alternatives.

Regards

[Lindley]

@wilhe_jo   -have you experienced any psu problems with your V2 ?

As you can see in the pic of our V2 PSU  the air inlet has been reduced somewhat by the grille and there is no air outlet  ?
It is a Meanwell PSU but even so you would expect a decent airflow on any psu.
We modified the cover as below.

[wilhe_jo]

No. PSUs are fine. Everything is stock there.

ATM, I have had 1 Roller bearing to replace and 1 extruder isn't running since a week or 2.. I hope that's just a problem in the wireing...

But that's two manual interventions in 2 years for 5 printers.

Yes, you need to inspect them on arrival and you need to basically reassemble them.
Yes, you need to invest some money if you go the E3D route I explained above.
But if you do, you get a pretty stable and competitive workhorse which news close to zero maintenance.

Just slice, print and get the part some hours later...

The only time consuming part is dialing in your filament... 0.6mm prints fast as hell, but cooling is really a problem at 0.48mm layer height and cooling fans and PetG are not always good friends.

73

[mendip_discovery]

So I have printed a few bits but I was suffering with really good bed adhesion so I ended up with the bottom few layers being stuck to the bed and ripping away from the part. Poor Benchy.

There are a few examples on the memory card and they use both filaments and I was pleased at how they came out. I have yet to print the Dragon but more on that in a moment.

I got some ABS and tried to print a case for a Raspberry Pi I have. 4 attempts and it would just peel in a corner. I suspect a room that gets down to 11°C is a bit of a pain as I think that is causing too much difference between temps. Bed at 50°C, heads at 220°C and a cold room = warp. I have the heating on today and am currently at 16.5°C so will give it a bit more time and then try again. I may well build a shelter for it but during the summer the room is a good temp. I might try the Dragon later if it warms up but that is an 11hr print.

The software that comes with the unit is crap. Its a slicer but lots of info is oddly worded (Chinglish) and it's a little clunky to use. The machine was advertised as working with Cura etc slicers but as of yet it isn't actually working or even near completion.

The machine isn't too bad, there are some reports of them letting the magic smoke out of the boards causing a failure. Mine says it has been on 17hrs and though I have been good and powered off once the head gets down to 30/40°C on powering up the fans make a bit of a racket so I may have to look at nicer fans for that. The fans are also always on, even when not printing. I may suggest a code change to turn the fans off if the head is cool enough just to save the noise. The machine itself is rather sturdy and prints fairly quietly, compared to my K40 laser cutter.

[wilhe_jo]

ABS really needs an enclosed printer. I'd say 50°C would be perfect inside during printing. ABS really is s difficult to print because of this!

Try PetG. That's kind of similar and works stupidly easy compared to ABS... Still more challenging than PLA, but certainly doable.

73