The New 3D Printing Thread

Ok, anyone who's been around here for a while would remember my 3D printer thread about the trials and tribulations I went through from a total 3D modelling virgin to my current padawan level (still much to learn).  However due to the gremlins out there, a little bit of pilot error and maybe a drink too many one evening that thread has unfortunately gone to the great trashbin in the sky.

So this gives me a chance to start afresh and try to make this one more concise with various information I've gathered over the months.

Just to give you a bit of background I started with a 'Delta' printer called the magician by a company called Biqu.  This on paper was superb, fully assembled, had a 32bit cpu, auto bed levelling, touch screen, basically everything you needed and it was less than £150 delivered.  Although it did also have a couple of drawbacks in that it was only really able to use PLA filament, had a non-heated bed (not a problem for PLA most of the time), and a small build area of 100mm circular by 150mm height.  But the real problem was over a 2 month period I had 3 of them due to unreliability issues, the biggest problem being the power supply which blew on two of them.



So at this point I was in a quandry, the whole point I picked the Magician was because it was fully assembled and I just felt happier with that as with no knowledge of 3D printers felt it was an easy introduction.

Anyway I eventually took the plunge and bought a Creality Ender 3, this cost me just under £200, was a kit (although most assemblies were built you just have about a dozen components to put together, then wire it up etc), did not have auto bed levelling, no touch screen (LCD menus with a knob/button combo) and it was not a 'Delta' printer instead it was a more traditional 'Prusa' style setup (movement in the X-Y-Z axis's).



It turned out though to be a revelation and its plus points was it has a build area of 220mm x 220mm x 250mm (width, depth, height), a heated print bed so you can use other types of filament such as ABS, PETG, and in theory TPU, Nylon and other exotic materials.  Although as I've learnt everything except PLA has its advantages and drawbacks which I'll expand on as time goes by.

The best news was though apart from my trepidation of assembly (no idea why I've built numerous PC's and servers over the years) the machine went together like a dream and has generally been exceptionally reliable and produced some great prints.  Sure the bed levelling can be a pain and the interface is old fashioned and clumsy, but it has worked beautifully.  I did have one problem where a MOSFET blew on the motherboard, but I easily got that replaced by the supplier and was up and running again very quickly.  In fact I was so happy with the machine that I eventually ended up buying a second one to leave at my girlfriends so that I can print no matter where I am lol!

So that now brings me up to today.  There has been quite a bit of talk about my version of Daisy which I finally completed and have produced prototypes of which have been nicely received (check the relevant thread).  But today's big announcement is the addition of a new printer to my arsenal, having got used to the Ender 3 I had been tempted to get a 2nd one for home so I can have one printing stuff while I have another available to mess around with prototypes etc...  I did around the end of November get a Geetech A10M which is fundamentally an Ender 3 clone, but with a dual extruder setup which allows you to have two rolls of filament that feed through a single nozzle, so you can print in one colour or the other or indeed a mixture of the two which did appeal.  But unfortunately this turned out to be an out of box failure and went straight back to Amazon as I couldn't face another Magician debacle.

So until then I had sat on the fence looking at other options.  A lot of other printers out there didn't really do much more than the Ender 3, the Creality CR-X was expensive and although featuring dual extruders was not as flexible as the failed Geetech as you could only print in one colour or the other and you had the overhead of a 'purge' tower which effectively was wasted material.  It was also pricey and apparently the quality was not good suffering from things like artefacts.

But today after watching some great reviews of a machine I finally took delivery of a Creality CR10-S Pro, an update on their exceptionally popular CR10-S which was one of the biggest sellers of 2017 and a predecessor of the Ender 3.  So why did I go for the CR10-S Pro, well apart from some nice upgrades to the electronics under the hood it has;

• 300mm x 300mm x 400mm build volume (W x D x H)
  
• An integrated base containing all the electronics, power supply etc...
  
• An upgraded 'hot end' and fan assembly.
  
• Dual Z axis screws/stepper motor setup.
  
• An upgraded all aluminum extruder with dual geared drive wheels.
  
• A filament 'out' sensor so that in the event the filament runs out the machine can detect this and pause the print.
  
• AUTO BED LEVELLING!!
  
• TOUCH SCREEN interface
  
• Improved stepper motor driver chips which effectively makes the printer silent apart from the fans.
  
• 24v operation of the heated bed and hot end like the Ender 3 (the old CR series were 12v which means the bed etc take longer to heat)
  

Anyway here a link to a video that shows a guy unboxing and testing the printer which is what sold it to me;