The 3D Printer Thread

[classicaholic]

I now have my shiny new printer and I am being bombarded with spam trying to get me to buy a low cost scanner, do they work as well as they show on the facebook ads and can I import the scan into a print file or will it take thousands to get a decent one?

[S6PNJ]

Have a word with Glow Worm. I think they have real life experience - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Yazza54]

New function piece I just knocked up, the cbr1000rr starter motors from My race engines have these insulating shrouds and they always break and can't be bought so decided to knock a few up. Took 5 mins to model and 10 mins to print

Printed on my P1P from PA-CF which is all I use for rigid prints now tbh, prints really well and has great layer strength. This and 95a TPU are My favourites.

[OutInTheShed]

I think my printer has rubbish firmware in it.
It is incredibly slow and only works with some legacy version of Cura Slicer.

I'm thinking of upgrading to Marlin/Arduino/RAMPS 1.6, probably with some silent stepper drivers.
I'm intending to go for new digital hardware rather than re-flash the old, as I don't want to risk breaking something which works 'after a fashion'.

Has anyone been down this route?
Any useful resources people can point at?
I've dabbled in a bit of arduino before.

[S6PNJ]

What is your printer?

[geeks]

S6PNJ said:

What is your printer?

Yup without knowing this it’ll be difficult to say for sure. That said beyond the brand names most of the parts are pretty interchangeable on bed slingers in terms of motors and boards/drivers etc with some work obviously

[OutInTheShed]

geeks said:

S6PNJ said:

What is your printer?

Yup without knowing this it’ll be difficult to say for sure. That said beyond the brand names most of the parts are pretty interchangeable on bed slingers in terms of motors and boards/drivers etc with some work obviously

It's a no-name clone of an Anet A8, a kit from China via ebay.
Your typical 'bedslinger', heated bed, dual z-axis motors, direct drive.
I put it together in covid times, and don't have any meaningful documentation, the instructions for getting it working were no help, but some Anet instructions I found online got it functioning.
The frame and slide rails/motion parts of it are poor, but I want to learn what I can from it and maybe build something with much better mechanics eventually. I'm keeping my eye out for an upgrade.

[Yazza54]

Depending on how much you use it whether it be for hobby work or to generate revenue, it sounds like you'd be best ditching it and just buying something decent, sounds like you'd be polishing a turd.

[OutInTheShed]

Yazza54 said:

Depending on how much you use it whether it be for hobby work or to generate revenue, it sounds like you'd be best ditching it and just buying something decent, sounds like you'd be polishing a turd.

I only use it for pretty basic stuff, spacers, brackets, case for my Raspberry Pi, nothing which needs to be accurate, strong or pretty.
It's nothing special but I don't want to be without that for any length of time

The current firmware seems to have a few issues with unexplained stoppages and (I think!) not respecting some of the settings in Cura.
The electronic hardware looks to be about £40. An Arduino Mega, a RAMPS board, LCD display and a handful of motor drivers.
I might not even need to buy the Arduino....
That's a pocket money upgrade, whereas a better printer is £300 unless the right thing crops up secondhand locally?

[S6PNJ]

Whilst I've never tried it, all you are trying to do is drive stepper motors (X, Y, Z and extruder) basically (I know heat the bed and nozzle as well) so I don't see why you can't cable your steppers up to , say, an Ender 5 board (4.2.2 or 4.2.7) and it would/should work

I think I have an Anet A8 clone (cheapy made out of hardboard) that I bought second hand for the steppers - one from which I'm making into a rotary chuck for my laser engraver (currently printing bits to test and try).

ATEOTD, your steppers are probably NEMA17 types and pretty much any control board (at the basic end where we are looking) should / would be able to drive them. Possibly, YMMV etc etc.

Edited to add - I was initially (before I bought one second hand) going to have a go at making my own laser engraver using this board - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003183498253.h... and I'm sure there are comparable boards for 3D printing, so just have a search and see what's out there.

Edited by S6PNJ on Sunday 31st December 16:37

[OutInTheShed]

S6PNJ said:

Whilst I've never tried it, all you are trying to do is drive stepper motors (X, Y, Z and extruder) basically (I know heat the bed and nozzle as well) so I don't see why you can't cable your steppers up to , say, an Ender 5 board (4.2.2 or 4.2.7) and it would/should work

I think I have an Anet A8 clone (cheapy made out of hardboard) that I bought second hand for the steppers - one from which I'm making into a rotary chuck for my laser engraver (currently printing bits to test and try).

ATEOTD, your steppers are probably NEMA17 types and pretty much any control board (at the basic end where we are looking) should / would be able to drive them. Possibly, YMMV etc etc.

Edited to add - I was initially (before I bought one second hand) going to have a go at making my own laser engraver using this board - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003183498253.h... and I'm sure there are comparable boards for 3D printing, so just have a search and see what's out there.

Edited by S6PNJ on Sunday 31st December 16:37

That board looks very cheap and capable.
I'm looking at Marlin opensource firmware, so basically jumping to a reference board for that makes a lot of sense.
I just really wanted to see if other people had done this, others may have some pointers regarding the pitfalls, PH is very good for that.
https://marlinfw.org/docs/hardware/boards.html

The motors all look bog standard NEMA 17, but as you might guess entirely un documented, so no ideal about torque or current spec.
I've read a little bit about putting accelerometers on the print head to see if the hardware is keeping up with the software, I have a couple of those chips somewhere....

The other thing that's worth a read is the Voron project, faster Pi based printers, but that seems to be above my needs, budget and skill level for the moment.
https://vorondesign.com/
This does make me a little reluctant to spend lots on a Creality.

[S6PNJ]

OutInTheShed said:

That board looks very cheap and capable.

Ah, but make sure you are looking at the correct options - the £3 is for an antenna, the actual board, with drivers and screen is either £25 or £30 (plus VAT).

OutInTheShed said:

The motors all look bog standard NEMA 17, but as you might guess entirely un documented.

If you take a close look at your steppers, them should have some writing on them. Mine (from my cheapy A8 clone) say - 42SHDC4023-24B which Googles to this: https://fudemotor.en.made-in-china.com/product/qjs... (other Google results are available). Just scroll down past the similar items to product description.

[OutInTheShed]

Without taking the motors out, I can't see any text.
I could measure the R and L to see what they are likely equivalent to, or maybe start by checking out what current the existing board is setting.

I've 'borrowed' the Arduino and ordered the other ingredients for under £25.

[SV_WDC]

I've recently got back into 3D printing & decided to upgrade to the silent board (v4.2.7).

Does anyone know where I can find firmware for this? The Creality & Marlin sites do not seem to have any for v4.2.7 with BLTouch.

My BLTouch is in the two pin & three pin config (the two pin goes into the Z-Axis port & three pin in the BLTouch Optional port).

I have seen some guides suggesting it is possible to compile your own Marlin firmware, however I am less inclined to do this as don't want to risk bricking the board.

Any thoughts or suggestions much appreciated. Frustrating it seems that Creality had this firmware on their site 12+ months ago, but no longer available

[S6PNJ]

You don't say which Ender printer, so the pics are for a Ender 5 Pro. having just looked at their software website ( https://www.creality.com/pages/download-ender-5-pr... ) scroll down to the mainboard links and find the 4.2.7 one. Download it, unzip it and you should see:



Does one of those meet your configuration? If not, using Visual Studio Code and GitHub isn't too much of a steep learning curve.

[S6PNJ]

Now my turn to ask a question.

I've just picked up a second hand Ender 3 Pro which came with a couple of spare boards. A 1.1.4 board which works fine and a 1.1.5 board which turns on and homes etc but makes a constant buzzing noise through the piezo speaker and will sometimes reset itself. I want to flash new firmware as I think the 1.1.5 board is flashed for a BL Touch or similar as it has bed levelling options in the menu - but I'm having issues with the process.

I've tried to do it using Cura but the board keeps resetting almost immediately I send the hex file. I've also tried AVRDude but I get communication problems with the following message "stk500_getsync() warning: attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x65" and if I let it continue, I get the same but 2 of 10, then 3 of 10 etc, so it never achieves a link.

I have access to an ST Link (used on another project) so can I use this direct onto the board (if so where) and then upload using VSCode. It's one of these - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005303809188.h... (STLink not DAPLink).

[SV_WDC]

S6PNJ said:

You don't say which Ender printer, so the pics are for a Ender 5 Pro. having just looked at their software website ( https://www.creality.com/pages/download-ender-5-pr... ) scroll down to the mainboard links and find the 4.2.7 one. Download it, unzip it and you should see:



Does one of those meet your configuration? If not, using Visual Studio Code and GitHub isn't too much of a steep learning curve.

Eeek, key info there - sorry to not mention

It is the Ender 3 Pro, I ended up on the similar pages last night but cannot see anything for Ender 3 Pro v4.2.7 with BLTouch

https://www.creality.com/pages/download-ender-3-pr...

Which download & which version in the zip would you recomemnd?

Edited by SV_WDC on Monday 15th January 14:36

[egomeister]

Try this:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1W3Ed91h_Gt...

Seems to list 4.2.7 with BL touch

[egomeister]

Outside ebay, does anyone have any good recommendations for second hand 3d printing stuff?

[Scabutz]

egomeister said:

Outside ebay, does anyone have any good recommendations for second hand 3d printing stuff?

Facebook Marketplace? Have to be wary of the scammers, but they are easy to spot.