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Ender 3 Pro
As part of MicroCenter's coupon deal in exchange for your personal data (fake email and phone #), I picked this printer up for $100 plus tax. The assembly was not bad once you understood the meaning behind the order of operations. What you do initially in the beginning of the setup ultimately effects the whole build, so a lot of caution is needed to ensure the frame is square, and that you're assembling it on a level, and flat surface.
Things you need to do/buy
Manual Tuning/Calibration
Hands down, doing things the hard way first makes it infinitely easier to deal with getting your printers dialed in faster down the line.
When calibrating, here is a good list I found via Facebook groups:
- https://all3dp.com/2/3d-print-stringing-easy-ways-to-prevent-it/ - https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printer-ringing-3d-print-ghosting/ - https://all3dp.com/2/xyz-calibration-cube-troubleshooting-3d-printer/
Using Cura for templates
Silent Motherboard
Any of these models now should be running the stock 4.2.2 board. It is a 32 bit board. Creality sells another board version, 4.2.7, which its main selling point is that the motors move “silently” when in operation. This is a huge quality of life improvement. The stock board motor noise is not extremely loud, but you know when the printer is running. With the 4.2.7 board, you could have it running right next to you on a work call, and it would not interfere at all.
Caveats
After installing the board, make sure to reload the latest firmware for the board right away. The one issue I ran into was hitting a thermal runaway (E1) error after getting the board installed, and firmware updated. Turns out, I was printing for PLA+ which operates at a higher temperature than PLA, and the calibration for temperature was off. It would climb to 205 degrees, and then error out. Inside Configuration → Advanced → Temperature, there is a PID Autotune for both the bed and nozzle. What you do is set the temperature desired to calibrate to based on your most frequent temp, and then it will automatically adjust the P, I, and D portions of the temp control/monitoring so that it is correctly reporting back to the system.
Auto Leveling Sensor
After mastering manual bed leveling (and many hours of shimming with aluminum tape to get things just right…) it's time to use that as the foundation for having a sensor go the extra mile for you. There are a few options, but I went with Creality's CR Touch. This effectively replaces the Z axis limit switch and allows you to get granular with having the software compensate for the curves that your bed has from the factory. Note, you still need a pretty level bed to really take advantage of the sensor, but once it's done, you never really have to worry about it other than occasional maintenance.
After installing the CR Touch Firmware to the printer
Before you install the physical CR Touch sensor, you need to update the board to take advantage of the sensor. There is specific CR Touch enabled firmware that gives you a bunch of additional features. After installing it to the printer, you may see that the language switches to Chinese despite choosing the english version. Here's a video on how to fix it:
Printed Accessories
Issues to address
Warped Bed
By far, the most common issue with these models are the warped beds.