The first few days and weeks were tough, as described in my first impressions post, A 3D Printer Has Moved In. On one hand, I had chosen a relatively inexpensive model; on the other, I knew nothing about the subject. Supposedly, more expensive models from BambuLab or Prusa are much more beginner-friendly and require less maintenance. Then again, if I had gone that route, I wouldn’t have learned so much about linear motion, the properties of plastics, thermodynamics, and much more over the past year. My girlfriend jokes that I’ve spent more time tuning and optimizing the printer than actually printing with it. And yes, a lot of hours have gone into this printer. Initially, it was mostly accompanied by frustration, but in the end, always with joy and pride when something worked again or worked better.
The beginning was clearly marked by the challenge of just getting the thing to run reliably. The first prints almost always had issues because something wasn’t quite right. Temperatures, calibration, ventilation, or simply the print file—there was always something. But every time, I went and looked at the result and thought about how I could solve the problems. Step by step, mediocre prints turned into good prints, and now into the very good prints whose quality surprises many people.
As a nerd, copying the print file to an SD card quickly became too tedious for me. After just a few weeks, OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi saved me from swapping cards and running back and forth. With a small webcam, I could monitor the prints at any time and react quickly to problems. That was a huge step forward and sped up the optimization process. At some point, however, I reached the limits of what could be optimized through the modeling program and the slicer. The speed was hardly scalable, especially not with high-quality standards. This is where the price, and thus the cheap hardware, showed its limitations. The Creality Ender-3 V2 Neo is equipped with simple technology, and the mainboard with its weak processor is the limiting factor here. The print commands simply can’t be processed as quickly as necessary for faster prints with good quality.
But there’s a solution for that too: The Creality firmware was replaced with Klipper. The Klipper firmware itself can’t do much; the trick is to offload the actual calculations from the printer to a more powerful device. Initially, I used a Raspberry Pi 3B+, which didn’t handle sudden power loss from the smart home plug well and is now unfortunately broken. But what kind of nerd would I be if I didn’t have a solution (ready)? My old laptop handles power loss just fine and has plenty of power. So now I print faster, not with the same quality, but with better quality. Klipper also brings other exciting features. The two most important are Pressure Advance and Resonance Compensation. The first checks the pressure and adjusts the material flow to prevent too much or too little plastic from being extruded from the nozzle. The second function deals with the natural vibrations of a 3D printer. The print head moves back and forth on a rail, the rail moves up on threaded rods, and the print bed moves. Unsurprisingly, the printer has a certain vibration that becomes more noticeable the higher the print head is. Through a test print, you can determine the frequency of this vibration and enter it into Klipper. Klipper then adjusts the printer’s movements to compensate for these vibrations, essentially counter-vibrating. This almost completely eliminates waves in the prints.
What else? I also got a print enclosure, a cheap fabric one. It shields the printer from the outside world and ensures constant temperatures. Additionally, the built-in ventilation allows for printing more toxic plastics like ABS. I haven’t tried that yet, though. Last week, I made my first attempt with a filament other than PLA+, namely TPU. Well, a new field of optimization has opened up. The prints don’t look good yet. Oh, and a sensor still needs to be installed so that the print automatically stops when the plastic filament runs out. That would save me from having many partially used spools.
But did I only optimize? Of course not. I also printed a lot. A lot of unnecessary things, a few decorative items, and yet also some practical things. A MagSafe desk charger for my iPhone and Apple Watch, a charging dock for my Logitech G Pro Superlight, desk mounts for my joysticks, cable holders, drawer organizers, games, protective cases, laptop stands… The list is much longer. Since I still don’t know any 3D modeling, this is all thanks to other users who post their models online. I stumble upon a problem, I search the internet for a suitable solution, I print it. And it’s cheaper than buying it somewhere. A laptop stand? Under two euros and printed in 15 hours.
To be honest, I didn’t think I would have so much fun with a 3D printer. But I also didn’t realize how useful these things are. However, you have to be aware that you need to engage with the technology, regardless of whether the printer is expensive or cheap. Even with expensive printers, the knowledge is necessary to achieve really good prints. My cheap printer suits me very well. The only reason I would go for a more expensive model would be the ability to print with multiple colors or materials. That’s currently so complicated that I don’t do it.