Where to start with 3D printing....today.

Prusa is the king of "I3" style printers. They're very nice, but if you are willing to tinker/maintain/put up with the slightest bit of fuss then you can save $500 by getting basically anything else. His printers though really are 9/10 for dumb reliability.

I like my two Artillery X1 printers. They have their little quirks, but they're extremely sturdy platforms with some great design features. For $50 you can add auto bed leveling, which is something that I won't live without now that I have it. I picked them mainly because they were relatively well received by all the online reviewers (some early versions had some flaws which were pointed out and fixed by Artillery) and were widely regarded as a great bang for the buck large format (300 x 300 x 400mm) printer. They even come with a volcano style hotend for large nozzle/big prints. Get it on Amazon for $400~ give or take. Great thing about buying via amazon is if something *does* go wrong in the first 30~ days you can just solve it via amazon.

 

Banggood has these for $400 from their U.S. warehouse. Amazon is also currently running a sale on these for 5% off, coming to $417 before tax. Here's a website discussing various upgrades for it including the above-mentioned auto bed leveling: https://3dprintbeginner.com/sidewinder-x1-upgrades/

 

Well I scored for my recent B-Day....DW got me an Ender 3 2V printer!! WooHOOO!! Sort of my present for both my B-Day and surviving Covid, (I caught the Omicron version, despite all my precautions, vaccinations and a damn booster) so far so good and no long hauler symptoms.....yet. Have been learning the system and printing out stuff with PLA. Seems easy enough if I make sure there's plenty of bridging support on certain horizontal areas. Just got some PETG filament, but can't seem to get the settings just right. Need to play with it some more.

Printed out some parts for a Capitani Romani cruiser in PLA that seem to come out very nice. So far just the turrets. Going to give the superstructures a go today.

Have been looking for 1/144 bits and pieces. Looking for various detail parts: anti-aircraft guns, secondary batteries, hatches, direction finders and so on.

I have a frame already built for a RN Roma battleship and would love to locate STL images for the primary and secondary gun turrets and superstructure as well as small detail parts.

 

I print almost exclusively with PETG on an Ender3-Pro. What issues are you having?

 

I think the nozzle is too close or too far from the platform, generally making a mess. I set it up exactly as the manual says. It's either smashing the print or too high and just squiggling everything into a "bird's nest". I've upped the nozzle temp for PETG: (230-250C suggested, set at 240C) and bed temp (60-80C suggested, set at 70C ) as directed on the spool label. Should I go hotter? Or am I too hot? My PLA prints are great, no problem at 200C nozzle and 60C bed temp.

 

Personal appearances don't generally affect print quality. Lol

 

I run PETG at 240/90 on a Gizmodorks PEI sheet. PETG wants less squish than PLA. I use a BLTouch but my offset is 2.9mm for PLA and 2.6 for PETG. So about ¼mm further away. If you are still leveling with the paper method, use two sheets to get a better spacing.

 

Two sheets! Ahhhh that might do it. THANKS! I'll give that a try. Looks like I might need to up my bed temp a bit also. Have to give that a try as well.

 

DO NOT RUN PETG ON GLASS. Unless you like ripping chunks of glass out or having glass shards stuck to your print... I have the Creality coated glass right now and have been running PETG on it since my PEI sheet is currently not usable and even with hairspray it has pulled up some small slivers of glass. I started with the faux-buildtac Ender3 surface and it worked well enough when I initially started printing with it.

 

No worries darkapollo, my Ender 3 2V came with a PC coated Spring Steel sheet that you print on directly and sits snugly on the magnetic base plate.....no glass. FWIW I clean the PC coated sheet with alcohol after each print to insure I don't leave any finger print oils on the surface. Seems to be working. The couple of times I didn't clean it stuff came loose.