I have a glass bed on mine and PLA sticks to it awesome and PETG not so much unless it take it off and scrub it every time. I found some ultra cheap Rave hair spray and a little spray of that will make it stick for a few prints. The only downside is it's aerosol type and it takes a little practice to shield everything right to keep the overspray at a minimum.

Regular cleanings with alcohol help, but at times it needs a little more.

 

I mentioned earlier in this thread that I also use rave Hairspray, it does the job and it is cheap. I now believe the feed issue I fixed was responsible for the thin horizontal prints. We shall see, time will tell.

 

One question about the hex nuts. I see you have indents where the hex nuts go, in the shape of a hex i presume. Is it possible to then place the next nut in, then use the printer a second pass to cover over the nut so it becomes embedded into the plastic piece?

Yes, you can! You can pause the print at a certain layer, insert the nut, then resume the print and encapsulate the nut within the object you are printing. You can either manually pause the print by sitting next to the printer and watching it, then controlling it through the interface screen. Or you can embed commands into the file that tells the printer how to move, so the printer automatically stops at the correct layer. This technique is often used to embed magnets into prints.

 

I use prontoface to control my printer from a tiny computer so why you can pause it into other things I do not like to mess with a print in progress. I also use teamviewer for remote access and I have a camera set up so I can monitor the print from my room.

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this is a picture of my current setup, you can see my camera and below that my LED light strip acquired from harbor freight in the form of their small flashlight (which they frequently give away).

 

@Ya’akov
would you please include a link to that modification?

Surely, @Wendy , as in the post above, the Creality Spider kit can be found here.

Did you receive your VoxelPLA filament yet?

 

I use prontoface to control my printer from a tiny computer so why you can pause it into other things I do not like to mess with a print in progress. I also use teamviewer for remote access and I have a camera set up so I can monitor the print from my room.

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this is a picture of my current setup, you can see my camera and below that my LED light strip acquired from harbor freight in the form of their small flashlight (which they frequently give away).

Pronterface is great stuff. If you haven’t looked at possibly running Octoprint as mentioned above, I would certainly highly recommend it. It incorporates the camera as well, using a different method but integrating it into the printer display while also providing a rich set of tools, like a realtime G-Code viewer tied to the printers progress, among other things.

(I am pretty sure that if Pronterface doesn’t do realtime G-Code visualization, there is a plugin to do it. I have used Octoprint much more, both are impressive).

Both Pronterface and Octoprint can do PID tuning, which might be helpful with the relatively slow heated bed of the Ender. It’s worth a try, since it is “free” (Except for your time and has the potential to make a difference in first layer quality.

 

I have a glass bed on mine and PLA sticks to it awesome and PETG not so much unless it take it off and scrub it every time. I found some ultra cheap Rave hair spray and a little spray of that will make it stick for a few prints. The only downside is it's aerosol type and it takes a little practice to shield everything right to keep the overspray at a minimum.

Regular cleanings with alcohol help, but at times it needs a little more.

I have had excellent results by taking UHU or Elmer’s glue stick and dissolving it in 99% IPA in a small eyedropper bottle. The resulting slightly viscous solution can be wiped onto the bed for a very thin, very uniform application of PVA glue. I was annoyed by the surface imperfections of glue stick application, as well as the lack of control over film thickness.

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It takes a fairly long time for the glue stick to dissolve completely (hours, though agitation speeds things up), but it will. About 25mm of stick to 80ml of IPA seems to be a good ratio, but in the end it is about viscosity and the time it takes the IPA to evaporate, allowing for a full and even application.

You can mix up a small test batch if you want to try it. I am going to try a spray bottle with even more dilute solution to allow it to flow, though I am concerned about clogging—I just have to try it to see. I haven’t yet tried with IPA + H₂O (like the 70% “rubbing alcohol) but since the PVA is water soluble as well, it might be even better. When this batch runs out, I will experiment.

This said, I don’t use anything on the PEI plate, which is a kind of magical thing that just works. Though it depends on heat, so for a cool plate, PVA is my choice.

 

Bed leveling is critical and should be checked every once in a while.

It is important to get the first layer right. I don't know what is the actual thickness of the first layer but you want that first layer to be a bit squished down on the bed. I am guessing that if the printer layer thickness is 0.2mm then you want the first layer to be about 0.1mm.

You can get a good estimate of that first layer thickness by judging from the first extrusion on the side and on the perimeter brim.

I just got a new Ender 3D Pro V2. It appears that this printer has a different bed (PEI - polyetherimide), not sure.
What I have observed is that the job sticks too well to the bed and must be allowed to cool down in order to remove it from the bed. This is a good thing because the prints no longer warp at the edges as they did on my other printer.

I will have to play with the bed leveling and give it some extra space.

The CR Touch (formerly BL Touch) probes and auto bed leveling are marvelous. You still have to adjust the leveling nuts to a decent flatness, but the probed translation matrix takes care of a lack of precision, and irregularities in the bed like warping. There is a visualization plugin for Octoprint (seems likely for Pronterface as well, since the same code seems to be used with Klipper) that will show you the data so you can see if your bed is, in fact, warped.

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Warping is very common, if not universal—and I don’t find this surprising. But, with auto bed leveling translation it is immaterial unless it is so severe it causes adhesion troubles on it’s own.

As far as the PEI build plate, yes—allowing it to cool is paramount. PEI has an interesting property in that its surface energy is proportional to temperature. Higher surface energy means better bonding. So, when you heat up PEI other polymers can bind to it much more easily. When it cools, the surface energy reduces and the bond releases.

My experience is that you need to allow the plate to reach near ambient for some polymers (e.g.: TPU) before it is easy to remove the part. If it is hot, as in the normal range for the heated bed, some filaments will actually bond so well forcing the part off will take chunks of PEI off the plate!

A trick I use when I am in a hurry is an inverted duster (also my component cooler for troubleshooting thermal issues). A couple of blasts at the base of the part and it will come off as if it was never stuck. This works for problem filaments like TPU and some PET-G even at ambient, it feels like you are dissolving some kind of glue. With PET-G you can hear the part releasing from the plate.

 

Hey, @Wendy any updates on VoxelPLA?

 

I finally received it last Friday. That is my one and last order from those folks. My experience suggests they're not very customer oriented. I haven't had anymore trouble with my prints since I discovered what was restricting the flow. If I could find someone who would help me with service this printer I would upgrade it. As it is, I will do what I can do and ask for help for that I can't which I can't. A a friend from Dallas Makerspace assembled this printer for me. For which I will be eternally grateful . I got tired of waiting and had ordered A roll of Amazon filament, which is a good thing because it ran out on the same day I received the new filament this being last Wednesday.

@Ya’akov
BTW, May I see pictures of you printer w/ mod?

 

I finally received it last Friday. That is my one and last order from those folks. My experience suggests they're not very customer oriented. I haven't had anymore trouble with my prints since I discovered what was restricting the flow. If I could find someone who would help me with service this printer I would upgrade it. As it is, I will do what I can do and ask for help for that I can't which I can't. A a friend from Dallas Makerspace assembled this printer for me. For which I will be eternally grateful . I got tired of waiting and had ordered A roll of Amazon filament, which is a good thing because it ran out on the same day I received the new filament this being last Wednesday.

Sorry to hear your experience was 180° out from mine. I believe that they would be very surprised to hear you feel this way. I have found them very responsive and helpful. But I can’t argue with what you experienced. Can you elucidate what your bad experience was? I’m really interested. (You can do it in private, if that’s better).

I understand your have limitations and were I closer, I’d sure offer to help out with the upgrade. I am sure you would enjoy the new tool head and and the increase in performance (print quality and speed). Maybe you will come across someone who can help, until then I am sure you can make the most of what you have—it’s a good printer!

 

Mostly they kept promising a delivery date that they did not meet, like I said I actually ran out of printer filament before they arrived several days later. It turned out to be no big deal because the Amazon printer filament arrived first period

 

Mostly they kept promising a delivery date that they did not meet, like I said I actually ran out of printer film it before they arrived several days later.

That’s a shame. They are a small business and I’ve had unsolicited emails from them concerning potential irregularities with orders. They certainly don’t have speedy shipping, even when things are in stock, because they use a low cost carrier and offer free shipping.

Still, if they promised a certain date and failed to deliver (literally), that’s not good.

When you get a chance to try the filament, though, I would be very interested in your thoughts on it.

 

BTW, May I see pictures of you printer w/ mod?

Sorry, I missed this. Here’s one, I can get you more in a bit if you’d like.

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One of the things I find myself frequently doing is to print test Prints to match panel components. It occurs to me that some of these might be useful for other people I will include the SketchUp 16 model as well as the dot STL model. All prints are one inch by 1 inch unless they need to be larger.



small variable resistor the notch on the side prevents the resistor from spinning once inserted, the little bump around the knob minimizes the amount of material that sticks through on the front panel.



I'll be adding more as I come with them on this post.

 

Recommended tools for an Ender 3 pro.