Additive build (3d printing) vs subtractive (CNC mill) and were to start...

[Jaysen]

Ok... I'm tired of wasting metal and $ for things I need to make because manufacturers are gone or unwilling to send me parts. It looks like I need to invest in a small-ish 3d printer. Small based on budget more than need. Once I can pay for a big boy via profits I will, but until then I'm limited.

So far I'm considering the Creality Ender 3. I know our Alaskans are big on the Voron and Anet. I'm trying get in under $300 and am willing to sacrifice speed to make that happen. Modeling is in FreeCAD. Expected materials are PLA and maybe ABS. Output will be rod holders, prototypes for old (and new) real parts before going to the CNC, random parts for boats, trolling bodies, and whatever my wife decides I need to make to justify the purchase.

Anyone want to advise me to change plans? The only real fixed point here is the budget (for now).

[bklake]

Ender 3 S1. If not in a hurry, they go on sale for a bit less than Amazon is showing right now. You said under $300 and these are just under that right now. The S1 version of the Ender 3 has everything built in that you will need to venture into more exotic filaments. You can go for a cheaper model but to upgrade it to the S1 features, you are going to end up spending way over $300. The S1 comes with an extruder that gets hot enough, 300C, for ABS, and nylon. Not sure about other high end filaments. The direct drive extruder is mainly for flexible filament but it is more precise for all filaments. You will probably need and enclosure for ABS and nylon. PLA, TPU, PETG don't need and enclosure. Keep in mind that these smaller machines have a working area of 8"w x 8"l x 9"h. Is that workable? The S1 is faster than the old Ender 3 but more like going from 1st gear to 2nd. Some of the high speed printers are at least 3 to 5 times faster. It takes about 20 minute to print something about a 1" x 2" and 1/4" high. Time to print big stuff takes a long time. A 4" x 6" x 2" thing I wanted takes 18 hours to print.

PLA will work for any part not in the engine compartment as long as you can keep it out of the sun. I think it will soften in Florida sun heat. ABS should withstand that heat. Flexible filaments are my next area to explore. I want to make a little rubber dampener for my Volvo I/O. It stabilizes the raw water pump. I have to replace it every two years. It seems to melt away and turn to goo. Last time I checked, these were going for $28. Its a chunk of rubber about the size of a stack of 6 quarters. I recently saw a custom instrument panel someone made. It had two gauges and a few switches. Very tidy and made to fit his exact dimensions.

I bought a little 3040 CNC mill to play with but I haven't had time to mess with it much. It has a working area of 300mm x 400mm. The process and controls for this little thing are no different than a full sheet CNC router. I can dream a little.

Learning CAD has been my downfall. I just don't have the time to invest in it. I haven't found any software that agrees with me. This stuff just wasn't around when I learned computers and software and none of it makes sense. My daughter was 10 and working on a school science project. She needed a part, I could 3D print it. In 5 minutes, she had it modeled on Tinkercad. I can't make a cube in Tinkercad and there button that automatically makes a cube. I manage to screw it up.

I've made some useful things but only from files on Thingiverse. Gages, clamps, jigs, replacement brackets, upgrades to 3d printer. Not enough to make back the cost of the printer, but I've spent as much in a night of drinking and had nothing to show for it. I did make a spigot handle to go on my outdoor spigot that had no known replacement that fit. I was able to soften the PLA and custom fit the stem. It's been sitting in the sun for 3 years and holding up plus it won't corrode away like the pot metal original. I guess you can't put a price on that and I got my Vise Grips back.

[Jaysen]

I declared it Christmas last week and santazon delivered an Ender 3 s1 pro. So far I’ve managed the bunny test print successfully. Seem to be unable to get adequate adhesion on the build plate on one corner. Which means everything is warping like my general attitude about everything.

I’ve raised the heat.
Lowered the print head.
Leveled and releveled.
Slowed the speed.
Shut off cooling.

Not sure of there’s a coating problem on this flex plate or if I’m going to have to resort to glue stick. Kind of a bummer that my new toy isn’t working as well as I hoped “out of the box”.

[bklake]

I don't know what coating is on your build plate but I do know a good place to start. Get some 99% or 91% min isopropyl alcohol and give the build plate several wipe downs. Oils and gunk get on them in shipping, think car windshield film. Really scrub it. I use Kimwipes because they don't leave lint behind. After each print I give the plate a quick wipe with iso and keep my grubby paws off it. Usually, the new type build surfaces are faulted for being too grippy. Let the print completely cool and it will pop off easily. Still warm and it sticks like it is glued on. The plate and print shrink at different rates and amounts. Let physics do the work.

Warping could be from drafts hitting the build plate. Buy or build an enclosure if you don't have a draft free work area. Ceiling fans, A/C or heat vents, open window all cause problems. Invest in a known good filament brand. The crap that came with it for testing is crap.

Adjust the build plate so the first layer really squishes down. It should be flatter than the rest of the layers. This will cause an elephant's foot and mess up your dimensions a little. Do this until you figure out why it isn't sticking. You can raise a little at time to minimize the elephant foot which will correct the dimension issue. Adjusting the build plate after it has been heated and the nozzle need to be hot. I let mine heat for a good 15 minutes before adjusting. A little blob of filament on a cold nozzle will screw up the adjustment, the nozzle needs to be heated too. There will be dimension changes between cold and hot. Do everything at working temps.

I have different colors of the same brand and name of filament that need different temperatures to print well. Usually withing 5-10 degrees but different. For PLA, I usually don't heat the plate over 40C. Anything over that and I have problems. I've seen people print at 80C. The filament is mush at that temp and can lead to all kinds of issues.

Make sure your machine is squared, trammed, and level.

[Jaysen]

These Creality don’t have much of a build to them. But I’ll double check the square on what they sent.

The build plate is their ABS targeted PEI coated flex plate. I’ve been running 70C bed, 200C nozzle, 15mm/sec, no cooling, 8mm brim in layer 1. After that, the default that Cura wants for PLA. It is the default Creality PLA. I’ll load the spoil of PLA+ today.

I will step up the wipe down game.

This thing is a two post XZ sitting on the breakfast bar. Enclosure will require negotiating or relocating (reducing my play time). I’ll cut some cardboard and see if I can buffer it a bit tonight without getting knifed.

That said I had a mostly successful print after a three hour table leveling session that I will get to do all over again. I think my approach of “don’t watch videos” will have to change. I just hate the videos. I prefer reading but most of the docs are too vague.

Thanks for the tips. Hopefully I’ll have something to show for it soon.

[bklake]

If your plans include ABS, you will need and enclosure. Make all the mistakes you can with PLA. It is cheap to learn on. In my experience, 70C bed is too hot. The filament is pretty soft at that temp. The pressure from extruding layers can squash your print down into the plate causing problems with following layers. The nozzle is further away from the object than the calculation says it is. PLA likes cooling, I turn the cooling off for the first layers but ramp it up, I think by the forth layer. The temp change is what pops the print off the build plate. The hotter the plate, the more chance of a temp differential. Don't heat it more than you need to.

If you are using the Cura that came with the printer, ditch it and get the real Cura, search for "Cura slicer", Ultimaker is the publisher. It is up to something like Ver 5.4, not sure I haven't updated in a month. The last update had a profile for my Ender 5 S1. The real Cura has a lot more settings and adjustments. It is daunting to learn them all but focus on the ones you need right now. I don't think you program the changes mentioned above with the Cura supplied by Creality.

Keep in mind, the printer was put together by someone working 15 hour shifts, in crappy working conditions, and may not be well trained. Belt tension should be checked and adjusted. Even tension on all the belts is the goal. I have two printers and belt tension was way off on both of them. If you have a machinist square, check the frame with that. These are all things you will need to periodically check. It's a $200 printer. You will have to spend a thousand $ to reduce this. Even then, you will have to check things after a number of hours of use. The more you spend the less you have to check.

[Jaysen]

I doe’s cura before I unpacked the printer. Was kind of a no brainer since the Creality version is crippled.

I’m using the matched profile (ender 3 s1 pro) and changed settings based on “internet research” that seems to match my symptoms. I’ll start over tonight and set everything back to default as well as put all the adjustments to “middle, known bad” then adjust to spec. Feels like I’m to that point.

ABS is planned (reel here) but was planning to have dedicated, heated space next to the CNC by then (temps in there rarely < 90). Was expecting baffles. I figured this unit would mostly wind up printing parts for its replacement. I’ll have to figure a way to enclose. Will be inconvenient as many components move outside the expected boundaries.

The advice is appreciated. Thanks again.

[Netpackrat]

Jayson, sorry I missed this thread completely until now. A couple of years ago I got into 3D printing in a big way, and now have 2 Prusa Mark 3 based machines, a Voron 2.4 (enclosed ABS printing monster), and a Voron Trident kit (awaiting assembly) in my workshop. I would probably have advised something other than the Ender as a first machine, but now that you have it, it's still a reasonable platform for learning with and they can make good prints once tuned.

Were it me, I wouldn't spend a huge amount of money or effort trying to print difficult filaments (ABS, etc) with the Ender but instead concentrate on printing stuff for your shop (organization, shop aids, tool attachments etc). Once you have learned everything you can with it, then upgrade to a printer that is built from the beginning to print the higher temp materials. There's several good fully enclosed printers on the market now, or with your IT background, building a Voron running the Klipper firmware (which runs on Linux) might be right up your alley too. If you do end up going that way, I would be happy to print you a set of Voron parts out of ABS as a way of thanking you for the time and effort you put into keeping this forum running well.

Anyway, I will have to defer to bklake for anything to do with Cura, since I am running PrusaSlicer. As I understand it, both Cura and PS tend to have roughly equivalent features and capabilities, because they are both open source projects that borrow back and forth from each other. But the interfaces and the way they go about setting parameters are different. There's other choices as well, which tend to be based on PS, which is itself a fork of an earlier open source slicer (Slic3r).

As you have discovered, build plate cleanliness is essential, BUT the very best thing you can do is drag your build plate into the kitchen, and scrub with hot dish soap and rinse with hot water, hot as you can stand and then whatever you do, don't touch it with your bare hands. I have mainly used 99% isopropyl alcohol for cleaning between prints, but if the plate has never been cleaned with soap and water to start with, you might find the iso to not be completely effective on its own. Lately I have been experimenting with Windex as a substitute for cleaning with ISO, mainly because it's a lot easier for me to get here in Anchorage. Seems to be working OK so far.

CAD is a whole other subject... If you can make Freecad work, then more power to you. I know it can do a lot, but I looked at it briefly and the interface didn't seem very intuitive. A lot of people swear by Fusion360 but their subscription and cloud storage model isn't something I am interested in dealing with. On the recommendation of a friend, I have been using a program called Alibre Atom3D, which seems to be capable of anything I have wanted to do with it. The company that sells it has been pissing me off because they have a habit of calling my phone early in the morning, waking me up to ask how I like the software. Due to the time zone difference and the fact that I work a swing shift, I have been pretty upset about this, but the software itself seems to be fine. My CAD skills are fairly rudimentary although I have had quite a few people download my stuff on Printables, and I even managed to pull off an honorable mention in one of the design contests on that site.

https://www.printables.com/@Netpackrat/models

[Jaysen]

Nice!

The e3s1p is doing well for me with PLA. I’ll paint some pics of “the project” that’s paying for this habit. I’ve been too busy to get back to ABS but I did manage a few calibration cubes in it.

The current hang up is 1.0mm nozzle setup. It will make sense when you we the pics/vid of what I’m doing. I’m likely to stick with cheap Enders for “production” on this project but voron is definitely in my future. Mostly because I’m a nerd.

The cleaning thing was an early lesson. As was constant level and mesh calibration. I have the normal “chess a$$ ender!” 0.25mm warp in the plate. Every time I pull the spring plate the shape changes just enough.

Which brings me to more nerd stuff… 4days and I was into octoprint. I don’t think I’ve used the as card/print from internal after the fist week. I like issuing command at the terminal and controlling what it’s doing more discreetly.

I’ve thought about moving to klipper but… it works well enough for my needs “today”.

[Jaysen]

Here are some photos of what I’m making…

If you want to see the tube with a Bonita in it, we put one in a bucket, sent off shore, and gave it a try…. https://facebook.com/that.guy.reels.and.stuff