One of the reasons why the Ender3 is so cheap is because there are things that it should really come with but it does not... luckily you can print what you need.
- Print some filament guides
- Print some of the noise dampening feet. Seriosly, it cuts the noise by about 50%
- Check the angle of your z axis screw. If you see any binding, elephant foot, or prints that are a little shorter than they should be, print out the Z axis stepper motor mount shims
- print out a knob for the extruder stepper. I never actually use it as a knob, but being able to see visually the behavior of your extruder is key for diagnosing many issues.
- Consider upgrading your bed leveling springs to the stiffer yellow ones. I went from having to bedlevel every day to having to bed level every week or two.
Are you well versed with cad? I'm not a slouch when it comes to learning new software and I've dipped by toes into blender but when it comes to cad, I'm a complete newb and will be starting from scratch with freecad. Unless there's a better solution out there. I've seen tinker but I like my data and really don't want to hand over my personal usage and work to autodesk.
Freecad is a bitch to learn... it has many quirks. But once you get over the learning curve it is very capable. TInkercad is super easy to learn, but yeah... autodesk owns you. You can export your designs in several formats though. Tinkercad is great for getting going.
Good call on the springs. I'll pick some up. I'm already planning the other upgrades, have a top filament guide already but need to do the one by the z screw. I also need to pull out some calipers and check the z screw measurements to make sure its good. So far there's no signs of binding.
Mine did not start z axis binding until about 1000 print hours. Watch for it. E3Pros are notorious for it.
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