My girlfriend actually wanted to get me the LEGO NASA Space Shuttle Discovery for Christmas. But when it was time to order the set, it was either sold out or ridiculously expensive. Instead, she spotted another item on my wishlist and ordered it: the Creality Ender 3 V2 Neo 3D printer.
It had been on the list for a while, and neither she nor I were entirely sure if we needed a 3D printer. But since the price had dropped below €200, the device seemed like a good candidate for my first foray into 3D printing. According to the description, it’s a beginner-friendly entry-level printer that you can’t go wrong with. Is that really the case? Let’s find out.
The printer arrives well-packaged and in just a few parts. You have to screw on the frame for the vertical axis, including the actual print head, attach the display, and plug in a few connectors. And that’s it for assembly. All the necessary tools are included, which is very nice. The setup is also done in just a few steps, and Creality even provides a video on YouTube for it. The main task is to level the print bed as best as possible and set the correct distance for the print nozzle. Since you adjust the four corners up or down with screws, the leveling is never perfect. That’s why the 3D printer ultimately measures the surface at several points, stores the unevenness internally, and compensates for it during printing.
Once that’s done, the first print can actually begin. Creality conveniently includes a small boat and a rabbit on the memory card. I chose the boat and was very satisfied with the print result. Apart from the unavoidable layer lines, the model was printed absolutely cleanly. But as nice as the boat is, that wasn’t the reason we got a 3D printer.
Creality Ender 3 V2 Neo
But how do you actually get a model to print? First, you have to install the software that generates the necessary instructions for the printer from digital models. Creality offers its own in-house slicer where you can load your 3D models. You either create them yourself or find them on the internet. Since I have no clue about 3D modeling so far, I looked around a database on the internet. I started with simple and quick models. In our case, various bookmarks.
And even those are only relatively quick. Simple bookmarks, just a few millimeters thick and at most ten centimeters long, still take over 20 minutes to print. I was aware of this beforehand, but I only truly realized it now. Just like the fact that the slicer software can’t be used without thinking. When scaling a bookmark, it became so thin that it was unusable in the end. But over the next few days, we printed various bookmarks, a playing card box, and a caliper, all without any problems and just as we wanted.
However, since the printer emits a constant hum from its fans during operation, the idea was to move the 3D printer to a separate room. For this, I bought a new, supposedly better print bed. So, I moved the printer, swapped the print bed, and adjusted the print height. That’s when the problems started. The filament wouldn’t stick to the print bed anymore, and when it did, the filament would string. No matter which print bed I used, even the one that came with it suddenly had issues. Every print was a gamble. For days, I tinkered with all sorts of temperature and speed settings, but it didn’t get significantly better. Plus, printing at 30% speed just didn’t feel right.
In my desperation, I brought the printer back into the living room. The other room is unheated and has two exterior walls. Maybe the temperature was the problem. I also moved the device from the floor onto a small IKEA Lack table. It didn’t really get better, but the move back also required readjusting the height. Being on the table gave me a chance to get a proper look at the printer’s nozzle, and I realized: it was too far from the print bed. I adjusted it, and lo and behold, the printer was printing perfectly again. During the first move, I must have misremembered the initial adjustment and set the distance too high. What an idiot. I probably wasted 300 grams of filament because of that. But oh well, learning the hard way.
By now, I’ve reset most of the settings, except for a few to prevent stringing. For a device that’s supposed to make my life easier, the 3D printer has cost me a lot of nerves these past few days. I spent hours trying out prints with different settings and temperatures, searching for the problem. The problem that, in the end, was me. At least now I don’t have to shuttle a memory card back and forth between the computer and the printer anymore. My Raspberry Pi 3B+ now has the job of acting as a 3D print server, in addition to filtering ads with Pi-hole. Soon, it will also have a webcam for cool time-lapse videos and print monitoring.
Despite all the trouble, I’m very happy with the Creality Ender 3 V2 Neo so far. It’s now printing as it should, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I think I’ll be writing more posts about 3D printing in the future, going into more detail and troubleshooting. You have something to look forward to.