Look truth be told, I don't really need another hobby. But thanks to my 3D printer managing to be delivered just hours before the next Covid lock down came into effect, well I now have one!
That is once my kids have finished printing out any and all the completely random things they can find online...
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| It's a rare occurrence when a box this size arrives and it's for me. |
So I ended up buying:
CREALITY ENDER 3 V2 (AMAZON LINK)
A few more features than the first Ender 3 model (like the glass bed and silent drivers - I wish the fan was silent too..) but not as many as the Ender Max which seemed out of stock everywhere. At its core it's an affordable entry level PLA (the material it uses) printer ready to print out what you can throw at it.
Once it's setup properly that is. If it's not...well you're not going to be marvelling at any prints any time soon. A couple of days in I've found it's just like my old Mazda RX7 - people are impressed you own one, when it works it's ridiculous fun but when it doesn't...well the journey to work out which part isn't working begins which can be lengthy at times. What fun!
IT COMES PART ASSEMBLED
And with the provided set of allen/hex keys and bolts as well as some very vague instructions, you or someone in the family cluier than you gets to put it together. Now while this may put some people off, I can tell you if you take it slowly and double check everything along the way you'll be fine and it also gives you a far better understanding of how everything works given you effectively built your own production machine.
Just don't do what I did and have the kids hover around you mid build, continually pointing out what they want you to print when you're finally finished because even though it's getting late, they don't want to go to bed before they see this new toy in action. Trust me on this one.
THERE'S SOME FINE TUNING AND CALIBRATION INVOLVED
You need to level the print bed every so often to keep things nice and stable which is a process of turning things, measuring, turning more things, measuring, testing, working out you didn't do it right the first time and turning things again. Then if nothing's sticking to the bed and the filament is running all over the shop, the guessing games begin. The good news is you can swap out the springs for stronger ones so you don't have to do this so often. You can buy an auto levelling kit. There's things you can print with this 3d printer to help you level this 3d printer. There's a ton of support out there, especially for this model series which is awesome. You're not alone because someone somewhere has had the problem you're having, found a solution and posted it online somewhere.
THE BUILDS SO FAR
PRINT 1 - TEST PUPPY (One of the two test files that come on the supplied SD card)
You can imagine how thrilled I was watching the filament come flowing out successfully for run number one, printing out the test puppy in a little under 2 hours. Of course not seeing what the final product was going to look like before hitting the start button, I had no idea what size let alone what shape this was going to come out as. But just before I went to bed the puppy was finished and I was proud my first ever print didn't manage to drown the entire house in melted PLA filament.
PRINT 2 - DOLL CRIB
This took a few goes to setup before things started to stay in place. I changed heat settings (turns out the factory settings weren't ideal for the filament I was using), levelled the bed over and over and even used a glue stick coating to keep things from moving but no, the print kept lifting and shifting during the first layer so nothing was going right. Eventually I unclipped the glass bed and gave it a thorough wash, letting it air dry before reassembling. Happily things stayed stuck to the bed and the seven hour project to build my daughter's chosen dolls bed began, finishing up at around 2am after so many miss-launches.
PRINT 3 - HEROQUEST ZOMBIE
Now this was one of the main reasons I bought the Ender 3 V2 and that was to print out armies worth of models to paint and the first cab off the rank was the same guy I painted back when I was ten years old, the zombie from the board game Heroquest. Yes 31 years o
n and those pieces I loved that are stupidly rare (and according to Facebook marketplace, stupidly expensive) can be printed at home.
Boy oh boy did this guy bring back some memories as I watched him form!
Sadly I think I printed him a little undersized (you can change how big or small something builds very easily) because the printed supports that hold everything in place while he builds turned out to be very solid and removing them managed to break the dead guy's legs.
Luckily I had some two part epoxy in the shed for such an eventuality and he's currently getting repaired. Can't wait to paint him up again!
PRINT 4 - BRUH SIGN... (Printing while I blog this)
I setup the free online design program Tinkercad for my kids last night and for some strange reason the first thing my son designed and wanted printed was a small sign for his desk, saying 'Bruh.' Look I don't know either, but it's almost finished and he's happy with his design so far!
(As parents we're also very happy he's taken a shine to the printer and the thought of designing stuff too. Hopefully he can whip up dad a few more zombies soon ;)
FINALLY, A FEW THINGS I'VE LEARNT SO FAR
-Do a shipload of reading before you buy on which printer you're keen on. Check out Youtube videos of it in action, don't be afraid to ask questions either. There's fantastic resources out there for getting into 3d printing so don't try to fudge through things yourself when there's easy answers and recommendations out there.
-Depending on your project, some things can take time. The high detail on the crib took seven hours, the zombie only one. No you can't rush these things. Have lots of things on standby to watch or read while you wait.
-You only get 60gms of filament when you buy the Ender 3 V2 so it's a good plan to buy extra filament to arrive at the same time. I bought this with mine through Inkstation here in Australia and after dialling in the correct settings for it, it's worked fine.
My wife is super keen to try some of the glow in the dark filament next when the white runs out..
-Don't be afraid to upgrade. While it's working fine now, I've read the plastic extruder breaks easily and the metal one is much better so I'll be ordering that soon. Same with an auto leveller although I just discovered these upgraded level wheels that I'm going to try too.
-There's so much that people have already printed and plans a plenty so have fun finding your next project!
-Glue gun glue doesn't work with broken filament, use epoxy.
-You will need printing software to turn your made/downloaded print files into a gcode that your printer can read. I've found Ultimaker Cura works really well and has the settings for the Ender 3 V2 in the preferences.
Right, back to printing - stay tuned for what's next!
I've decided with all the printing stuff, rather than flood this page with 3d goodies, I've made a completely different blog for it. You can check out everything coming out of my printer over at 3D Migo!
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