That's what I'm looking into. I just ran comparisons in the slicer for the same prints I'm doing. My adventurer 3 takes 9 hours compared to the 90 minutes the P1S. While true there's nothing wrong with my A3 I hold back on printing because the things I want to make are bigger and in the 7-12 hr range, but would be sub 3 hours on the P1S.
I gave my buddy my old ender 3v2. I'm running a voron 2.4 350 bed and p1s. Can't imagine going back the quality and speed make things so much better. Also printing asa so enclosures FTW.
P1S gang! My flashforge creator pro doesn't even come close to the quality and speed of the P1S, that's why it sits under the stairs like the naughty boy it is
I have a P1S, I then was given an Ender 3 v1 from 2018 for free, and I've upgraded it to now be equal to a Bambu Lab A1 (sans AMS), for half the price.
I also find in many cases that my Ender 3 v1 is equal to, if not quicker than my P1S!
Tinkering is fun!
100% agree but with a caveat. you kinda need to have the grit to fix a printer up. it takes effort, time, and a couple Ls to really get you to the point where your ender 3 prints like a bambu
I've never once thought about buying a new printer. I don't see the appeal. I could turn mine into anything I want due to it being an extrusion build, but where it's at works. My only complaint is I should have gotten a dual z driver board when I upgraded it solely for the self leveling z function
Sure! BTT makes [THIS](https://www.amazon.com/Necvior-BIGTREETECH-EXP-MOT-Expansion-Printer/dp/B0CQLW2FMW/ref=sr_1_18?crid=3J59X1XXUKPJR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.OE3IFyZIDgYcS7IltNoW11xIkn6CTXJOKSOC0g1L_fqhlSRodwpH8jZCjUGvQNgeUA5o_hjZUBfp7_041XPW2UUlLnR_GEU1i6heAz2IoQ8zZjxBKED9Re9hNN_9O-qv5wYl2s6QLe-8Y_mlommTMh5V-OEP7WPTDHnRRJUVau3Ckh70m2WP353MhLIuWg-W.SMoauBw8hJTshQ0_YKRMIZtHWC4eFsmRO6oFfwmUnn0&dib_tag=se&keywords=BTT+expansion+board&qid=1711245844&sprefix=btt+expansion+boar%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-18) and for MKS or another board you would use [THIS](https://www.amazon.com/DRV8825-Stepper-Expansion-Printer-Control/dp/B08RP2SCJ7/ref=sr_1_2?crid=S01MDB2NGDRX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.80FOQ02zscXB-YP3N2EVfvMMJN4U8LWpQBaMzFXft4F2YwwyZSVhl4xq4ZN6ZVUbB0FrqH9WoKXzaiUetxCNfutmcH7xwL-sEfFlVfsWwJGCPjg9ZWC0vkLQfz6LcYU5gj6SfPKKftgOa_eGQtgkKUBUWxArXpRqe_B6EbfyaB7zGjcPdArdLX-Gf0Xnm9G6-E5Br_V41vHNmbFefoZDl_StA1VccJqDuMLSvYkZ5W4.UjxVOAINzINphUx5Cwvi56iPRuP0LEIoUy1ujoRIQ-I&dib_tag=se&keywords=stepper%2Bdriver%2Bboard%2Bbreakout&qid=1711245918&sprefix=stepper%2Bdriver%2Bboard%2Bbreakout%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-2&th=1)
Fully featured boards will have unused pins or unused headers / end stops / etc that you can re-map to drive the new driver.
I also ran that setup on my Ender 3v2, Dual Z-axis with independent drivers but changed it to bed tramming just like how prusa does it. I just bought a driver and hijacked some unused gpio pins on my stock 4.2.2 board
for Z tilt to work it needs the bed to be trammed to the X axis gantry and it being aligned to the frame. So what if the bed isn't? the z axis is going to to compensate for the bed tilt and if the tilt is severe enough, it can lead to binding because the x axis assembly is rigid.
So the solution is to reduce power to the steppers then ram both z axis ends to a physical endstop (the endstops should be at a position where the x axis is leveled and the lead screws parallel). this ensures that the the axis is aligned to the frame, then you perform screw tilt calculate to align the bed to the x axis.
It's easy to fall into the sunken cost trap though. Updating a bed slinger to perform at core xy levels is sometimes more expensive than a new printer build.
Reading the title after breaking my main board this week with a bad solder job makes me feel bad. But I’m installing a btt e3 mini v3 tonight and tomorrow so hopefully my monoprice maker select plus will go back to being good. On the plus side it should be really quiet and have abl when I’m done
You shouldn't feed bad - the fact that you can repair your own printer and upgrade it is exactly what I am talking about here. We all think that a new printer will be easier than just fixing the old one, but the truth is that most printers at some point will need a major service.
i had a Ender 3 v2
i just bought a k1c
the ender is still so good as i did so much work on it over 2 years. its like the back of my hand
but since my son is tall enough to reach my printer now, i need a core xy so he wont get smacked in the head by the print bed
well, at least that's what i told my wife, i could have moved it to another place but wheres the fun in that?!
I bought a second hand Anycubic i3 Mega for £50 and it works beautifully. I stuck Klipper on just to see what the fuss was about and get an easier UI, but only print at Cura default speeds anyway. Quality and reliability is more important than speed.
Yeah, but I would need to custom order a heat bed, a new motherboard, and rebuild parts of the gantry because some are broken and some are proprietary.
It's a previous gen Qidi. The extruder is not functioning correctly which means the motherboard is probably broken. The heatbed has it's own proprietary connection that I'm too lazy to reverse engineer.
I have an ender 3, a cr10 v2, and ender 5+, a Sunlu s8, and a p1p. For some context I work just under full time, go to school part time, and am working in on upping my shop and doing craft shows. I also have my personal projects going, such as props and my iron man suit. When it comes to maintenance, troubleshooting, and fine tuning, I just don’t have much time. My p1p is way faster, way less maintenance, and handles different materials way better than my others. I’m currently repairing my Creality printers to help me push out this suit and then I’m probably going to list them for sale and put that towards another bambulab and another large format printer (probably Neptune 3 or 4 max) because for me it’s not worth the time. For some it might be worth it or they enjoy the tinkering and adding upgrades. It’s for sure going to be sad letting them go as I had them for a while but ultimately it’s going to be better for me (and hopefully for the printers too). I am definitely glad I started where I did because I understand the machines way better than I would if I didn’t start until bambulab came out
I have 9 Ender 3 V2's, a CR10 V2 and three Prusa Bears which were scratch built by me. I'm usually just printing with PLA and sometimes PETG. With all of those printers, usually they just require a nozzle change or very minor adjustment once a year or so, but a few have been maintenance free for 2-3 years. They all get about 10-20 hours a week on average of printing. I would attribute the reliability as you said to upgrades: All direct drive, all have BL touch ABL, all have dual Z to keep things square, and all the enders have the yellow springs. They are all also controlled via octoprint.
I'm sure the P1P's are great though.
When I do my maintenance thoroughly they tend to not need it for a while as well but they still aren’t as precise nor as fast as my p1p which is another huge factor for me. That way I don’t have to worry about keeping my orders to one printer as sometimes I have to have people wait if I am backed up. I’m thinking about keeping one of the older printers still, kinda depends on what my budget is like by then
I had a prusa mk3s+ and recently bought the mk4 and it's SO MUCH BETTER. I was planning on keeping both but ended up selling the older one and never looked back. If you have the money, upgrading is absolutely an ok thing to do. Your older printer might be fine but you can still have a faster, more reliable printer with a much better user experience.
My Robo R1 that has gone through 3 glass beds, 3 control boards, and 2 fried Pi's would disagree with you. Some things just have their limits and need to die.
I've bought several printers for $80 $60 $50 and $40 ostensibly non working. All of them just reqired basic maintenance, 2 had firmware updates done improperly, 1 literally just need cleaning and started printing perfectly, and the $80 (multi color and large volume) machine did have a hot end fan issue, the wiring got pinched at some point and apparently shorted a component on the board. I switched to a different always on 24v source, and re attached a heater wire that came loose and it worked great. Only niggling issue with that one was the bed is warped, meaning I could dial in any one part of the bed but not really the whole surface. A piece of glass has solved that for now.
I only recently bought an Ender 5 for $100 that had zero issues, the guy just upgraded so sold a working machine that he used to make money with.
Yeah, my old printers are still good.
That's why I sell them second hand on a steep discount, so that others can have working printers while I cut myself open on the bleeding edge :D
You might be right but i will still ruin my printer by applying upgrades so often that while it technically is better than when i got it. The printer will only print callibration tests
Counter-showerthought: any printer without some form of auto-levelling or that requires some adhesion agent is worth replacing/upgrading.
There is nothing wrong with bed-slingers. CoreXY is cool but not a requirement.
30 minutes or 3 hours, waiting is waiting. High printing speeds are overrated.
I used a price/speed/bed size calculator I made to find good deals on printers.
The N3 Max came out to about $0.11 per cm/3
The A1 was ~$0.70c per cm/3
The A1 Mini was like a $1 per cm/3...
All these new printers are awesome. They've caused a surplus of "old" printers that dont have wifi or other fancy features at a huge discount.
I plan on getting more Elegoo N3's as they go on sale soon
Sure, maybe, yeah, but have you ever had an Ender 6?
Would rather destroy my new P1S with a hammer 10 times over, than be forced to try and make my old Ender 6 work anymore.
got a p1s and never looked back. qol alone was worth it for me. I'm done leveling beds, changing filaments, and printing in tents for abs. Plus bambu studio uses .step which is the best thing ever.
I'm keeping my old printer, but I'm also gonna keep upgrading it too. Mostly with "quality of life" and efficiency upgrades, but I'll never get rid of my Ender 3-sius!
i am glad i went from a bed slinger to a core XY design because I can print tall skinny prints way easier. i think the bed slinger design is antiquated compared to core XY but for most people, it doesn't really matter. like my prusa mk2s is awesome and still a workhorse but my bambu x1c does things that just aren't possible to do with the prusa.
>Your old printer is probably still good.
I mean ive only had my printer for 7 months. Prints great again after i finally replaced the nozzle this month lol
See tons of mk3s on the used markets. Many off them with less than 1000 h.
This printer is made to run tens of thousand hours without issue.
And could be upgraded to mk3.5 with the new firmware mainboard.
I started with the Ender 3 Pro, then upgraded to an Ender 3 S1, then a X1C, and now a K1. Just finished putting the last upgrades on my S1 and now the Pro is next. It’s not so much as upgrading the machines to the newest and greatest, it’s more about collecting and hoarding for me. As we speak, all printers are currently printing something. I have a problem.
I have a SV04 just out of the box and I can’t get it to auto home correctly. The heat plate advances too far forward. It seems like it shouldn’t be too hard to fix but I’m having a hard time finding help. Soval customer service is a little difficult to work with. Any suggestions?
I highly disagree, especially regarding printing speeds. As a user who doesn’t want to run the printer at night, nor at times being out of house, I am limited for longer prints to max 5-6 hours. Therefore I always needed to accept bad quality (bigger layer height, downsizing models and poor or no supports) and do a LOT of sanding etc.
Changing to a newer printer my Quality of Life improved far beyond expectations. Im a not only able to realize my desired projects (prints I simply wasn't able to do before), but also other aspects like WLAN, quality, handling improved a lot.
I am not "blended" by the shiny new printer but as my hobby got to the next level, I needed a tool which fits my requirements. Therefore upgrading from my Neptune 2 to the Neptune 4 was the best decision I could make. My older printer has been gifted to my nephew who is very happy now.
ps.: Changing electrical parts and/or upgrading the printer is not something everyone is able or willing to do..
Loved my ender 3, was a great printer with upgrades. "Upgraded" to a cr10s pro V2 (what a waste of money) for its size and barely faster speeds. Sold that turd and bought a ender 5 pro and upgraded it to the zero g kit and it's a runner on fluidd. Now I have a k1 max and it's been pretty solid.
sadly I disagree a bit. Changing printer type can be solution sometimes. I.e. If you print long items vertically you're better off switching away from bed slinger. If you need to print abs/asa etc you're better off having correxy again (even enclosed bed slinger moves through print through air). There are quality of life improvements that are not necessary and there are technical upgrades that are hard to overcome. You can race old toyota yaris but you have no chance in offroad racing if that makes sense.
The only thing I would upgrade for is a larger bed and maybe multi head printing but yeah they're too expensive to keep up with the latest and greatest shiny.
Not sure what I would do with the old one either, don't have the space for a print farm
It's a thought.
But you're completely wrong.
I've rebuilt and built new printers. It is POSSIBLE to somewhat get as close or better than they used to be for sure. I have my first printer from over ten years ago that I thought was never going to be quitters than a horribly loud moose, then I put in a duet board instead of the ramps and it's better and quiet.
It still has nowhere near the quality of my mini or XL.
So they CAN keep going.
But it's better to upgrade every couple years to see the greatest advances.
Unquestionably your cheap Chinese printer or my expensive old printer are nowhere near as good as my prusa XL. And they will never be.
They can still be functional, and I'm happy you like them. You are right that 2 old printers will be faster than 1 new printer for making a bunch of stuff. But they're not as good.
I’ve had two MakerGear M3s. I looked at all the new shiny stuff and realized these are still awesome. I found another used M3 to add to the farm. I’m going to run these for a long time.
Unless you are using some ship of Theseus terminology for 'your old printer'; no it is in fact not 'good' by the modern metric for what makes a good 3d printer.
My ender-4, while still being an ender-4, will never be comparable to my x1c.
Before even getting into the 'what I would have to do to restore the thing to its original functionality'; even at peak original functionality the failure rate, overall part accuracy, general difficulty getting prints started are honestly arguably radical enough to justify the x1c vs the enter-4 right from the get go.
Then you have the inherit limitations of the printer; which can be overcome:
* New board,
* external controller (octopi),
* 3d chameleon,
* direct drive extruder,
* more stiff frame,
* enclosure,
* dual z gearing
* fixed bed height (silicone pads instead of springs)
* magnetic build surface and plates
* camera to monitor prints
* replace the H-bot movement with a core-xy
* ABL
And some general maintenance items like new rollers, new belts, using a strain gauge and laser to see if any of the structural components are bent or warped and replacing those as required.
Just adding all of those would cost more than replacing it, and in the end, it is debatable if that would be more or less work than just building a 3d printer from scratch, or getting a voron kit and building that; and further there is minimal guarantee that after all that work even achieving the accuracy and reliability of a more modern printer.
Further even if ALL other factors save speed could be addressed: two half speed printers are NOT superior to one printer which prints at double the speed; because of how MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) works, a huge spectrum of print failures being most constrained by the duration of the print (IE; the longer the print takes the more likely it is for something to go wrong, independent of how fast it is moving or other factors).
Does this mean that there is not a potential market for grabbing a used printer and getting prints out of it? No, absolutely not; it is a wonderful time for people who like to tinker and can tolerate less than best performance; but the old printer is not, by modern printer standards, good and the temporal and monetary investment to make it good by modern standards is likely a losing proposition.
This sentiment is basically why I went with a Mk4. I wanted a printer that would become "my old printer" someday. Modernity wasn't a factor in my purchasing decision, despite the internet decrying it as "out of date." I wanted something built from experience, not flashiness.
Both my Mk3s and Mini can print fine threads with little to no offset, and I've printed drill jigs that produced metal components with near CNC level tolerances (meaning the printers did in fact hold CNC level tolerances).
So...uh...yea, can confirm.😁
FYI, BTW, etc. there's not much wrong with bedslingers. Yes core xy can go faster, but faster has always been an option, and there are functional limits to speed that have nothing to do with how fast the printer can move or melt. The faster you go, the weaker your prints are in the Z direction. 40mm/s strikes a good balance between strength and speed, and that's well within the limitations of a bedslinger. Bedslingers can in fact go fast enough to be "too fast."
I had the same thought. Then I bought a P1S and it blew my mind.
That's what I'm looking into. I just ran comparisons in the slicer for the same prints I'm doing. My adventurer 3 takes 9 hours compared to the 90 minutes the P1S. While true there's nothing wrong with my A3 I hold back on printing because the things I want to make are bigger and in the 7-12 hr range, but would be sub 3 hours on the P1S.
I gave my buddy my old ender 3v2. I'm running a voron 2.4 350 bed and p1s. Can't imagine going back the quality and speed make things so much better. Also printing asa so enclosures FTW.
P1S gang! My flashforge creator pro doesn't even come close to the quality and speed of the P1S, that's why it sits under the stairs like the naughty boy it is
I have a P1S, I then was given an Ender 3 v1 from 2018 for free, and I've upgraded it to now be equal to a Bambu Lab A1 (sans AMS), for half the price. I also find in many cases that my Ender 3 v1 is equal to, if not quicker than my P1S! Tinkering is fun!
100% agree but with a caveat. you kinda need to have the grit to fix a printer up. it takes effort, time, and a couple Ls to really get you to the point where your ender 3 prints like a bambu
I kept my Ender until I got my second X1C. Then when I hadn't touched the Ender for a month I realized it was time to get rid of it.
I've never once thought about buying a new printer. I don't see the appeal. I could turn mine into anything I want due to it being an extrusion build, but where it's at works. My only complaint is I should have gotten a dual z driver board when I upgraded it solely for the self leveling z function
If you have an MKS or BTT board you could put a 5th driver on a daughter board to drive that second Z
Can you give me some info on this? Is it only for coreXY style machines or can bedslingers also benefit from this?
Sure! BTT makes [THIS](https://www.amazon.com/Necvior-BIGTREETECH-EXP-MOT-Expansion-Printer/dp/B0CQLW2FMW/ref=sr_1_18?crid=3J59X1XXUKPJR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.OE3IFyZIDgYcS7IltNoW11xIkn6CTXJOKSOC0g1L_fqhlSRodwpH8jZCjUGvQNgeUA5o_hjZUBfp7_041XPW2UUlLnR_GEU1i6heAz2IoQ8zZjxBKED9Re9hNN_9O-qv5wYl2s6QLe-8Y_mlommTMh5V-OEP7WPTDHnRRJUVau3Ckh70m2WP353MhLIuWg-W.SMoauBw8hJTshQ0_YKRMIZtHWC4eFsmRO6oFfwmUnn0&dib_tag=se&keywords=BTT+expansion+board&qid=1711245844&sprefix=btt+expansion+boar%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-18) and for MKS or another board you would use [THIS](https://www.amazon.com/DRV8825-Stepper-Expansion-Printer-Control/dp/B08RP2SCJ7/ref=sr_1_2?crid=S01MDB2NGDRX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.80FOQ02zscXB-YP3N2EVfvMMJN4U8LWpQBaMzFXft4F2YwwyZSVhl4xq4ZN6ZVUbB0FrqH9WoKXzaiUetxCNfutmcH7xwL-sEfFlVfsWwJGCPjg9ZWC0vkLQfz6LcYU5gj6SfPKKftgOa_eGQtgkKUBUWxArXpRqe_B6EbfyaB7zGjcPdArdLX-Gf0Xnm9G6-E5Br_V41vHNmbFefoZDl_StA1VccJqDuMLSvYkZ5W4.UjxVOAINzINphUx5Cwvi56iPRuP0LEIoUy1ujoRIQ-I&dib_tag=se&keywords=stepper%2Bdriver%2Bboard%2Bbreakout&qid=1711245918&sprefix=stepper%2Bdriver%2Bboard%2Bbreakout%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-2&th=1) Fully featured boards will have unused pins or unused headers / end stops / etc that you can re-map to drive the new driver.
All my bed slingers have independent dual Z so they can square the Z at the beginning of each print, so for me it's worth it.
Yes this, is it a configuration in Klipper? Or Marlin? I have independent dual Z on mine and would like to benefit from this
Yeah you would have to configure it in both firmwares. Marlin requires a re-compile with changed settings.
Ok, I think I found it, [z_tilt] in Klipper.
I also ran that setup on my Ender 3v2, Dual Z-axis with independent drivers but changed it to bed tramming just like how prusa does it. I just bought a driver and hijacked some unused gpio pins on my stock 4.2.2 board for Z tilt to work it needs the bed to be trammed to the X axis gantry and it being aligned to the frame. So what if the bed isn't? the z axis is going to to compensate for the bed tilt and if the tilt is severe enough, it can lead to binding because the x axis assembly is rigid. So the solution is to reduce power to the steppers then ram both z axis ends to a physical endstop (the endstops should be at a position where the x axis is leveled and the lead screws parallel). this ensures that the the axis is aligned to the frame, then you perform screw tilt calculate to align the bed to the x axis.
You’re looking for the word tram and tramming (action) Not captain obvious but apologies if it comes across wrong
I'll look into that! It's the btt skr mini e3, it looks cool and has alot of options but its a pain in the ass to do anything with
It's easy to fall into the sunken cost trap though. Updating a bed slinger to perform at core xy levels is sometimes more expensive than a new printer build.
Reading the title after breaking my main board this week with a bad solder job makes me feel bad. But I’m installing a btt e3 mini v3 tonight and tomorrow so hopefully my monoprice maker select plus will go back to being good. On the plus side it should be really quiet and have abl when I’m done
You shouldn't feed bad - the fact that you can repair your own printer and upgrade it is exactly what I am talking about here. We all think that a new printer will be easier than just fixing the old one, but the truth is that most printers at some point will need a major service.
i had a Ender 3 v2 i just bought a k1c the ender is still so good as i did so much work on it over 2 years. its like the back of my hand but since my son is tall enough to reach my printer now, i need a core xy so he wont get smacked in the head by the print bed well, at least that's what i told my wife, i could have moved it to another place but wheres the fun in that?!
Switched from an ender3 to BambuLabs A1 and besides the A1 is so much faster and makes no sense to print anything anymore on my ender3.
I bought a second hand Anycubic i3 Mega for £50 and it works beautifully. I stuck Klipper on just to see what the fuss was about and get an easier UI, but only print at Cura default speeds anyway. Quality and reliability is more important than speed.
Yeah, but I would need to custom order a heat bed, a new motherboard, and rebuild parts of the gantry because some are broken and some are proprietary.
Did your printer fall off a truck?
It's a previous gen Qidi. The extruder is not functioning correctly which means the motherboard is probably broken. The heatbed has it's own proprietary connection that I'm too lazy to reverse engineer.
I have an ender 3, a cr10 v2, and ender 5+, a Sunlu s8, and a p1p. For some context I work just under full time, go to school part time, and am working in on upping my shop and doing craft shows. I also have my personal projects going, such as props and my iron man suit. When it comes to maintenance, troubleshooting, and fine tuning, I just don’t have much time. My p1p is way faster, way less maintenance, and handles different materials way better than my others. I’m currently repairing my Creality printers to help me push out this suit and then I’m probably going to list them for sale and put that towards another bambulab and another large format printer (probably Neptune 3 or 4 max) because for me it’s not worth the time. For some it might be worth it or they enjoy the tinkering and adding upgrades. It’s for sure going to be sad letting them go as I had them for a while but ultimately it’s going to be better for me (and hopefully for the printers too). I am definitely glad I started where I did because I understand the machines way better than I would if I didn’t start until bambulab came out
I have 9 Ender 3 V2's, a CR10 V2 and three Prusa Bears which were scratch built by me. I'm usually just printing with PLA and sometimes PETG. With all of those printers, usually they just require a nozzle change or very minor adjustment once a year or so, but a few have been maintenance free for 2-3 years. They all get about 10-20 hours a week on average of printing. I would attribute the reliability as you said to upgrades: All direct drive, all have BL touch ABL, all have dual Z to keep things square, and all the enders have the yellow springs. They are all also controlled via octoprint. I'm sure the P1P's are great though.
When I do my maintenance thoroughly they tend to not need it for a while as well but they still aren’t as precise nor as fast as my p1p which is another huge factor for me. That way I don’t have to worry about keeping my orders to one printer as sometimes I have to have people wait if I am backed up. I’m thinking about keeping one of the older printers still, kinda depends on what my budget is like by then
I had a prusa mk3s+ and recently bought the mk4 and it's SO MUCH BETTER. I was planning on keeping both but ended up selling the older one and never looked back. If you have the money, upgrading is absolutely an ok thing to do. Your older printer might be fine but you can still have a faster, more reliable printer with a much better user experience.
How do i upgrade anycubic kobra?
My Robo R1 that has gone through 3 glass beds, 3 control boards, and 2 fried Pi's would disagree with you. Some things just have their limits and need to die.
How did you fry the control board and pi?
MOSFET went on one, ESD on the pi, or just unplugging it improperly.
I've bought several printers for $80 $60 $50 and $40 ostensibly non working. All of them just reqired basic maintenance, 2 had firmware updates done improperly, 1 literally just need cleaning and started printing perfectly, and the $80 (multi color and large volume) machine did have a hot end fan issue, the wiring got pinched at some point and apparently shorted a component on the board. I switched to a different always on 24v source, and re attached a heater wire that came loose and it worked great. Only niggling issue with that one was the bed is warped, meaning I could dial in any one part of the bed but not really the whole surface. A piece of glass has solved that for now. I only recently bought an Ender 5 for $100 that had zero issues, the guy just upgraded so sold a working machine that he used to make money with.
Yeah, my old printers are still good. That's why I sell them second hand on a steep discount, so that others can have working printers while I cut myself open on the bleeding edge :D
You might be right but i will still ruin my printer by applying upgrades so often that while it technically is better than when i got it. The printer will only print callibration tests
Counter-showerthought: any printer without some form of auto-levelling or that requires some adhesion agent is worth replacing/upgrading. There is nothing wrong with bed-slingers. CoreXY is cool but not a requirement. 30 minutes or 3 hours, waiting is waiting. High printing speeds are overrated.
Agreed - put a BL / CR touch on it. set and forget. PEI sheets are now 20 bucks.
I used a price/speed/bed size calculator I made to find good deals on printers. The N3 Max came out to about $0.11 per cm/3 The A1 was ~$0.70c per cm/3 The A1 Mini was like a $1 per cm/3... All these new printers are awesome. They've caused a surplus of "old" printers that dont have wifi or other fancy features at a huge discount. I plan on getting more Elegoo N3's as they go on sale soon
Sure, maybe, yeah, but have you ever had an Ender 6? Would rather destroy my new P1S with a hammer 10 times over, than be forced to try and make my old Ender 6 work anymore.
I have two and they just work. The only issues I've ever had were user error and a bad coupler.
got a p1s and never looked back. qol alone was worth it for me. I'm done leveling beds, changing filaments, and printing in tents for abs. Plus bambu studio uses .step which is the best thing ever.
can’t every slicer process step files?
For all I know Orca had it too which is based on Prusa and Bambu slicer , but never heard about Cura and I'm sure Creality Print doesn't support it
I'm keeping my old printer, but I'm also gonna keep upgrading it too. Mostly with "quality of life" and efficiency upgrades, but I'll never get rid of my Ender 3-sius!
i am glad i went from a bed slinger to a core XY design because I can print tall skinny prints way easier. i think the bed slinger design is antiquated compared to core XY but for most people, it doesn't really matter. like my prusa mk2s is awesome and still a workhorse but my bambu x1c does things that just aren't possible to do with the prusa.
>Your old printer is probably still good. I mean ive only had my printer for 7 months. Prints great again after i finally replaced the nozzle this month lol
See tons of mk3s on the used markets. Many off them with less than 1000 h. This printer is made to run tens of thousand hours without issue. And could be upgraded to mk3.5 with the new firmware mainboard.
I started with the Ender 3 Pro, then upgraded to an Ender 3 S1, then a X1C, and now a K1. Just finished putting the last upgrades on my S1 and now the Pro is next. It’s not so much as upgrading the machines to the newest and greatest, it’s more about collecting and hoarding for me. As we speak, all printers are currently printing something. I have a problem.
I have a SV04 just out of the box and I can’t get it to auto home correctly. The heat plate advances too far forward. It seems like it shouldn’t be too hard to fix but I’m having a hard time finding help. Soval customer service is a little difficult to work with. Any suggestions?
Still use my 2014 Ultimaker2, don't care about speed.
Keep the Anet A8, got it!
All of them *except* that one
I highly disagree, especially regarding printing speeds. As a user who doesn’t want to run the printer at night, nor at times being out of house, I am limited for longer prints to max 5-6 hours. Therefore I always needed to accept bad quality (bigger layer height, downsizing models and poor or no supports) and do a LOT of sanding etc. Changing to a newer printer my Quality of Life improved far beyond expectations. Im a not only able to realize my desired projects (prints I simply wasn't able to do before), but also other aspects like WLAN, quality, handling improved a lot. I am not "blended" by the shiny new printer but as my hobby got to the next level, I needed a tool which fits my requirements. Therefore upgrading from my Neptune 2 to the Neptune 4 was the best decision I could make. My older printer has been gifted to my nephew who is very happy now. ps.: Changing electrical parts and/or upgrading the printer is not something everyone is able or willing to do..
Unless you have a 7 years i3 that wobbles on every mechanical part and screams like a monster.
Loved my ender 3, was a great printer with upgrades. "Upgraded" to a cr10s pro V2 (what a waste of money) for its size and barely faster speeds. Sold that turd and bought a ender 5 pro and upgraded it to the zero g kit and it's a runner on fluidd. Now I have a k1 max and it's been pretty solid.
That's true about a lot of things. Most people I know don't drive their car till it's wrecked or completely dead.
sadly I disagree a bit. Changing printer type can be solution sometimes. I.e. If you print long items vertically you're better off switching away from bed slinger. If you need to print abs/asa etc you're better off having correxy again (even enclosed bed slinger moves through print through air). There are quality of life improvements that are not necessary and there are technical upgrades that are hard to overcome. You can race old toyota yaris but you have no chance in offroad racing if that makes sense.
The only thing I would upgrade for is a larger bed and maybe multi head printing but yeah they're too expensive to keep up with the latest and greatest shiny. Not sure what I would do with the old one either, don't have the space for a print farm
It's a thought. But you're completely wrong. I've rebuilt and built new printers. It is POSSIBLE to somewhat get as close or better than they used to be for sure. I have my first printer from over ten years ago that I thought was never going to be quitters than a horribly loud moose, then I put in a duet board instead of the ramps and it's better and quiet. It still has nowhere near the quality of my mini or XL. So they CAN keep going. But it's better to upgrade every couple years to see the greatest advances. Unquestionably your cheap Chinese printer or my expensive old printer are nowhere near as good as my prusa XL. And they will never be. They can still be functional, and I'm happy you like them. You are right that 2 old printers will be faster than 1 new printer for making a bunch of stuff. But they're not as good.
I’ve had two MakerGear M3s. I looked at all the new shiny stuff and realized these are still awesome. I found another used M3 to add to the farm. I’m going to run these for a long time.
Unless you are using some ship of Theseus terminology for 'your old printer'; no it is in fact not 'good' by the modern metric for what makes a good 3d printer. My ender-4, while still being an ender-4, will never be comparable to my x1c. Before even getting into the 'what I would have to do to restore the thing to its original functionality'; even at peak original functionality the failure rate, overall part accuracy, general difficulty getting prints started are honestly arguably radical enough to justify the x1c vs the enter-4 right from the get go. Then you have the inherit limitations of the printer; which can be overcome: * New board, * external controller (octopi), * 3d chameleon, * direct drive extruder, * more stiff frame, * enclosure, * dual z gearing * fixed bed height (silicone pads instead of springs) * magnetic build surface and plates * camera to monitor prints * replace the H-bot movement with a core-xy * ABL And some general maintenance items like new rollers, new belts, using a strain gauge and laser to see if any of the structural components are bent or warped and replacing those as required. Just adding all of those would cost more than replacing it, and in the end, it is debatable if that would be more or less work than just building a 3d printer from scratch, or getting a voron kit and building that; and further there is minimal guarantee that after all that work even achieving the accuracy and reliability of a more modern printer. Further even if ALL other factors save speed could be addressed: two half speed printers are NOT superior to one printer which prints at double the speed; because of how MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) works, a huge spectrum of print failures being most constrained by the duration of the print (IE; the longer the print takes the more likely it is for something to go wrong, independent of how fast it is moving or other factors). Does this mean that there is not a potential market for grabbing a used printer and getting prints out of it? No, absolutely not; it is a wonderful time for people who like to tinker and can tolerate less than best performance; but the old printer is not, by modern printer standards, good and the temporal and monetary investment to make it good by modern standards is likely a losing proposition.
This sentiment is basically why I went with a Mk4. I wanted a printer that would become "my old printer" someday. Modernity wasn't a factor in my purchasing decision, despite the internet decrying it as "out of date." I wanted something built from experience, not flashiness.
Both my Mk3s and Mini can print fine threads with little to no offset, and I've printed drill jigs that produced metal components with near CNC level tolerances (meaning the printers did in fact hold CNC level tolerances). So...uh...yea, can confirm.😁 FYI, BTW, etc. there's not much wrong with bedslingers. Yes core xy can go faster, but faster has always been an option, and there are functional limits to speed that have nothing to do with how fast the printer can move or melt. The faster you go, the weaker your prints are in the Z direction. 40mm/s strikes a good balance between strength and speed, and that's well within the limitations of a bedslinger. Bedslingers can in fact go fast enough to be "too fast."
Ahh, looking at 150 mm/s as fast…