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  • Author Author: ntewinkel
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Learning to 3D Print

ntewinkel

I've had my 3D printer, a Creality Ender 3-Pro (from element14/Newark here), for a while, and I've printed random things like project cases, coins, and fun things with it.

The prints usually came out alright. especially when printing with the Creality PLA for which the Creality slicer has its own special settings.

When I first got the printer, I also picked up some ABS filament locally, second hand but still in air-tight wrap, but I was never able to get great prints with them. Usually they were ok, but never great. The Creality slicer has a "Generic ABS" setting I was using for it.
Fun side note: the ABS settings are hot enough to melt the magnetic mat that comes with the Ender 3-Pro! Let it cool down before trying to remove the print. So I have a new mat now Smile oops.

Then recently I was able to add a few extra colours to my filament collection, through a shopping cart prize here at element14. Those are all Multicomp brand PLA.

However; when I went to print with them I was unable to get anything even close to decent on my printer! That's when I realized that, even though they are all PLA, the temperature ratings are very different than the Creality version. Where my Creality filament is rated for 180-215, the Multicomp black is rated for 205-225 degrees C. No wonder it didn't work well!

So I realized that I need to take a step back and figure out what settings will work for me for each of these new filaments, before I try to print anything else with them. I watched a lot of videos on the subject too, and it seems that this is a highly recommended step anytime we get a new roll of filament, regardless of experience! Good to know.

Last night I posted a question in the 3D printing section (thank you for the help!).   and  shared some excellent knowledge and gave me some extra pointers on how to proceed.

I decided to blog my ongoing experimenting here, in case my journey might be helpful for others in the future. And also maybe something I might need to refer back to Slight smile

Re-Starting my 3D Printing Journey

I thought I'd start with the very first step again: printing the lucky cat that came pre-installed (in g-code format) on the SD card that came with the printer. When I first got the printer, I recall that cat printed out amazingly well - very clean, very detailed.

I printed it with the white Creality PLA (Print temp is marked as 180-215).
During printing the display says it's printing at 200 degrees, with bed at 45 degrees C, and FR (feed rate, I assume?) at 100%.

Ender 3Pro display for cat print

Room temperature by the printer is about 20 degrees.

And the print came out perfect! All the fine details too.
I don't know what kind of magic they are using, but I've never had any of my prints come out like that, even with the same material while specifically choosing "Creality PLA" on the Creality Slicer.

Creality Ender 3 Pro Lucky Cat 3D print

It did take almost 6 hours to print, and it's only 7cm tall.

ps, that PLA has always just been stored in a drawer - not in any airtight bag with desiccant. The art studio does tend to have generally nice dry humidity levels though.

Next Steps...

I'll try printing some little calibration cubes next, to see how that goes. Starting with Creality white as above, and then I'll try the new Multicomp black PLA.

Edit: turns out my problems were due to a cracked plastic extruder lever on my Creality Ender 3 Pro.

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  • in reply to rsjawale24

    I'll give the Ultimaker one a try, thanks for the suggestion Slight smile
    It looks like the MacOS Creality Slicer is Cura based (the old Windows one is very different) for the UI and g-code generator, but hopefully the Ultimaker one is easier to figure out.
    I thought using the slicer from Creality would make things easier Shrug Thinking that may have been too optimistic 

    The sides look great, but for top and bottom It looks like it's under-extruding, so I have tweaking to do. However, the Creality white PLA is also under-extruding, even though I used the supplied Creality PLA settings for that. Even the sides on the white one are showing gaps.
    They only take about 15 minutes to print, so that should help me run through the tests a bit quicker.

    3d printed test cubes3d printed test cube with light through

    I think I'll try using the older Windows Creality slicer as a next try for the white box, as in theory that is already tuned to work. In theory. Maybe.

    ps, that box came from Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2064

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    The top and bottom problem could be due to unlevelled bed. I faced similar issue when some part of my print was sticking to the bed but some was slightly lifting up from the bed. You will have to experiment a bit for that. 

    Also, the settings in the printer are not always correct. It's always a better practice to experiment with the temperature setting for your filament whenever you get a new brand/new filament. I print temperature towers like this one because it gives prints at different temperatures. Each horizontal slab is printed at a temp difference of 5 deg C. Notice the stringing (bottom layers) at higher temperatures and at very low temperature (the top) causes bad prints. However, in the middle part the prints are perfect.

    image

  • in reply to rsjawale24

    The Ultimaker Cura slicer does seem much nicer, thanks for the suggestion.

    Do you recommend printing the temperature tower first, and dealing with extrusion second? I'm assuming too low a temperature might look like under-extrusion too.