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Does anyone else have a 3D printer? I just ordered a Creality Ender 3 Pro, and was looking for one or more kindred spirits.
After watching a crapload of videos, and reading a crapload of articles, I ordered a crapload of upgrades, and hope to soon be printing a crapload of little plastic things.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I have a Prusa, love it and print all kinds of goodies.
You'll be needing a good CAD program before long. You can only print so many things that others create before you start saying; "WHy hell I can make one better than that".
Until then Thingiverse - Digital Designs for Physical Objects[^] has a lot of stuff to wade through.
I'm not sure how many cookies it makes to be happy, but so far it's not 27.
JaxCoder.com
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I have a Anycubic i3 Mega-S, and it works really well.
For CAD, I can strongly recommend AutoCad Fusion 360, with Ultimaker Cura for the actual slicer. Both are free, or free for hobbyists / startups.
Have a look here: Adventures in 3D printing Part 1: Fusion, you CAD![^] - it covers my initial steps.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I built an Ender 3 for my brother in law... check the connections inside the main control board box, the hotbed power connector was loose on arrival, and tried to overheat the connector.
Other than that it is a good little machine.
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Yep, just checked that. The connections are tight, and it appears as if Creality is listening to youtubers, because my printer came with a genuine XT60-H connectors on the power supply pigtail.
The print area is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. I'm considering getting the Ender Extender 300 kit (300x300mm print area).
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I've had an Ender 3 for about 7 months.
You can print a lot in 235x235x250 mm^3 and you can always split a model into several pieces in the slicer or, better, design it so it prints in pieces which fit together.
Also, printing smaller models means that when a print run screws up you haven't wasted as much filament. 
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And another Anycubic I3 Mega S here.
A good choice if you want a filament printer and a big build volume. However, if you need a better quality and can live with a small build volume, then take a look at the Anycubic Photon.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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I read and watched a lot of YouTube videos on FDM printing, but all of the printers in my price range appeared to need a lot of fiddling around to get quality prints. I wound up getting an Elegoo Mars Pro resin printer. After 10 minutes of unpacking, plugging it in and setting the build plate height, I've been printing lots of miniatures and board game upgrade pieces. The post processing is a lot messier than FDM, but I knew I wouldn't have the patience to get an FDM printer dialed in. Now I've got another new skill to work on - airbrushing, because it would take far too long to prime and base coat everything I've printed using brushes.
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It does take some work to get the base leveling done, but it's effort well rewarded.
I got it roughly right, then printed a dovetail to attach my dial test indicator to the head.
Then I could slot the DTI in and get actual measurements across the plate, which makes it a load easier than faffing with paper thickness.
And once you have it right you shouldn't need to do it again until you swap out the hotend or the nozzle.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I ordered a BLTouch setup for mine.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I already had a DTI, so it made sense to stick with that.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Why is it that it's taken me 7 months to find mention of using a Dial Test Indicator to level the bed? 
I've been fiddling about with paper and even considered getting a BLTouch even though I don't think it's a true solution since it just compensates for a non-level bed rather than actually adjusting it.
And since I would still need to do basic bed levelling manually, I might as well do it properly so, since I have a glass bed which should be flat(1), I don't need a BLTouch!
Of course, as soon as I search for "3D printing dial test indicator" Google returns loads videos, mounts, etc.
I've ordered a cheap DTI off eBay and will be designing(2) an attachment shortly to see how well it works!
--
(1) The glass could be warped, in which case a BLTouch would help, but if it was noticeable, I'd just replace it.
(2) I have a custom mount for cooling fans round the hotend so standard fittings aren't going to work.
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There are a bunch of youtube videos showing the use of a DTI. Do your search in youtube instead of google.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Thanks, my Google search already found lots of YouTube videos.
My comment was really on the fact that I've probably seen several hundred videos/articles about 3D printing over the past year but I don't recall encountering the use of a DTI until I explicitly searched for "3D printing dial test indicator"!
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Well, I'm a car guy, so working on something until it's right is kinda my thing. There are a lot of things to consider:
0) Initial construction - for me, that means making sure the gantry is trued up as it goes together.
1) Ensuring you have a level bed - while you are not absolved of manually levelling the bed the first time, there are several auto-leveling systems available that help out later on.
2) Make sure your filament is feeding correctly. The printer I chose has a problem with a cheap plastic extruder, and I've oredered an all-metal extruder to replace it.
3) If your printer uses a bowden tube to feed filament, make sure it's properly connected/seated to the hot end.
4) It appears that you need an enclosure to ensure that the printer's environment is as stable as possible. This is even more important when you try to use ABS, carbon fibre, or other more exotic filament material.
Making sure the hardware is right is key. If you know your hardware is good, all you have to worry about is the slicer configuration.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Been there, done that (apart from building an enclosure  ).
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( Your mileage WILL vary ) I spent years as a machinist, so parametric CAD is how I think, some will prefer the "push pull prod" methods. There are several free 3-D cad systems out there that will handle single parts OK. Pick to your way of thinking.
Yes, an enclosure seems important, but I still got warp problems ( as the upper layers cooled - shrunk I was making an angle bracket camera mount 1.25" sq. flat base - not what the thing loves ).
Lost all my first tries to separation from the plate. Even after using a glue stick / blue tape I had two pop free ( One at done enough to work ).
PVA glue stick and or good ( paper ) painters tape can help for grip and separation. ( At least with my print surface. )
Oh, I used a piece of thin stiff plastic, ( a feeler gauge would work well ) for leveling, much better feel than a sheet of paper.
Have fun, keep your powder - oops FILAMENT dry.
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If you have a plastic extruder, you have the Ender 3. The Ender 3 Pro has a metal extruder already.
You don't really need an enclosure unless you print ABS and even then it is somewhat optional.
Levelling the bed is the biggest PITA I've had to deal with. I don't know how it keeps getting out of alignment.
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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I have a pro, and the extruder is definitely plastic.
I saw that a 3-point levelling plate is available for the ender 3, and that most "top-end" printers use that style of levelling. Seems to me that if it were that good, creality would have used it, because they wouldn't have had to spend money on a 4th adjustment wheel, spring, and screw. I've watched a number of youtube videos about it,but the jury appears to be still out on it.
I saw one guy had made a quick-swap tool holder and one of his tools is a DTI. Pretty clever...
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I have an Ender 3, hooked up to a raspberry with OctoPrint on it, modeling with Fusion 360 and slicing with Cura, I love it
I didn't order any upgrade except for the glass panel, because I messed up the height on a print and bore a hole in the plastic one 
But I printed a lot of upgrades 
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I'm gonna do the same thing RE raspberry pi. I'm using a Pi4x2 because it's faster, more RAM, and faster networking.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I found it's not really needed (I have both a 3B+ and a 4(4GB)), the 3 is more than enough, only thing to be careful about is power draw, the raspberry, the webcam for recording timelapses and the printer board (even when powered on by itself) make it very easy to go over the limit (it always was a warning and it never crashed but it might be a thing to keep an eye on), this considering a 5V3A micro usb power supply.
I don't know if things are better for the pi 4
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I also have a Pi3b+, and if I decide to use that, I'm gonna draw power from the printer's psu with a purpose-made power converter from th3d:
Raspberry Pi - 3 Amp Direct Wire Power Adapter - TH3D Studio LLC[^]
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I have Fusion 360 set up so I can use 3D Print under Tools to send straight to CURA and then the OctoPrint plugin in CURA so it can send straight the Pi 3B+ and start printing.
The Pi is powered off the printer's PSU (via buck converter) and also controls relays to switch the 24V supply to printer on and off.
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Be careful with buck converters. I did the same thing you did and discovered that many buck converters (specifically the ones with over current detection) have a small ~0.1 ohm resistor between input negative and output negative terminals to detect the amount of current flowing (which IMHO should be on the positive line). If the Pi is connected to the printer via USB cable (which it will be), you will get strange current flow on the negative rail and some weird things happening.
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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