Since my last post, the world has kind of come to a screeching halt. I’ve decided to take a little break from getting my new business going, for a few weeks at least, to see how things go. I’ve had some more free time on my hands lately.
I fired up the 3D printer the other day to try to get it dialed in a bit better. It occurred to me that I’ve never printed a Benchy before, so I gave that a shot. With the exception of oozing on the corners of the stern, most of them came out in pretty good shape. One change I made early on that seemed more helpful than I expected was to change out the computer running the show. I had my printer connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero W running OctoPi. I discovered a couple months ago that the Zero W is not recommended for use with OctoPi, but didn’t give it much thought. I switched out the Zero W for a Model 3B+ I had hanging out and it seemed to make some of difference. At the very least, the printer responds to commands from OctoPrint like moving the print bed much faster. I printed a couple new cases for my various Raspberry Pis yesterday.
I came back to the printer this morning to find it no long functional. I think there’s an issue with the power supply. The fan inside doesn’t spin. The display on the front of the printer says there’s a problem with either the X or Y axis limit switches. I opened up the printer hoping there was just a loose connection, but I tried all of them to no avail. I gave the power supply a few smacks with a hammer, but that didn’t help either. I looked for new power supplies and found a few for around $60. I’m not totally sure it’s the power supply, so getting a new one would be a $60 shot in the dark for a mediocre 3D printer. So it looks like I’m in the market for a new 3D printer.
It feels like everyone on the 3D printing subreddit recommends the Creality Ender 3/Ender 3 Pro for people with a budget under $500. The Ender 3 is a fine printer, and pretty cheap. Almost criminally cheap, actually. The Ender 3 Pro is only $240 right now, making it really, really easy to get into 3D printing. For that price, I can’t believe there isn’t one in every house. There are a few things about the Ender 3 I don’t like though. Number one, it looks like shit. It looks like something that was slapped together in a garage, with the exposed power supply being its most egregious fault.
I suppose I could get over inferior aesthetics for superior functionality. The functionality equation breaks down for me due to the way the axes move. The extruder moves though the X and Z axes, while the print bed moves though the Y axis. This means that every time a Y axis movement needs to happen, which is all the time, your object gets jostled around. On objects with a short height, this might not be a problem, but as things get taller they’re more likely to wobble and cause problems with the print quality.
Creality also sells the Ender 5 Pro, which is what I think I’m going to buy.
The Ender 5 Pro offers a slightly larger build area than the Ender 3, with a print bed that moves in the Z axis only. The price is fairly attractive at $390. Allegedly, it should be pretty quiet too. It still has that rustic, garage-made look, but it’s not too awful. It comes as a kit that requires about a half hour of assembly according to reviews. Like all Creality and Prusa printers, there is a huge community behind them providing printable parts to improve or repair the printers and support for dialing in the printer or installing modifications or troubleshooting. I posted on Reddit to see if anyone has any opinion to offer on this printer. If I don’t hear anything negative I’ll probably order one in a few weeks.