I’ve had an Ender 3 S1 Pro for a couple of years now and I’ve mostly printed little things the size of a benchy. Things like keychain ghosts for Halloween, ikea car to duplo adapter for Arlo, calibration pieces, and some mock ups for a small quadcopter. They didn’t need supports and could be completed in an hour or two in the afternoon. Also, it seemed like the majority of the time was spent leveling the bed.
The other day Arlo and I ran across this youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@professorboots and really liked the projects he had. They seemed like fun to make and a way for me to get to use the 3d printer. Also, I’d end up with something that Arlo and I could do together 🙂 So, We (Arlo) decided we should try to build the forklift:
It looks like a lot of fun to play with and a good way to get back into electronics and learning more about 3d printing.
The 3d models are available to print here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6829080 but the info on the electronics and how to put it all together is pay walled for like $10. So, the plan is lets get this thing 3d printed and then subscribe to get the PCB design and other things that come with the paywall.
So, I started with printing the first set of components. They are two large main body components. Once I got the settings and the supports figured out I was able to print them. Though I did end up having to print the smaller one individually because it failed alongside the larger one. It took me multiple weeks working after the kids got to bed to get this right.
So, on to the second set of components. There are like 21 individual components in this single stl file and they hardly fit on my print bed. I tried anyway to print them all at once. I immediately ran into problems.
I was having issues a lot with leveling. I even got a feeler gauge to verify what was happening! I would level/tram the bed to a distance of .2mm and run the ABL. I’d then verify the distance was .2mm with the guage. Then I’d run a print and then when I went to print the distance between the bed and the nozzle was ~.4mm. So, I tried adjusting the start gcode so that it would do a ABL run each time before printing. This didn’t fix the issue. It was still too far ~.4mm. So, I adjusted the z height in the middle of the print until it was .2mm closer to the bed (going from -3mm to -3.2mm). Then i started it again using the -3.2mm z height. Will this work??? Sort of. It seems like there are some uneven bits where it didn’t seem to work. So, I adjusted with the knobs this time while I ran the test print. This didn’t help as I ended up still getting one of the first layer parts delaminating.
So, I did some research again and now found a different article suggesting I should try and level the bed by using as small of a gap between the nozzle and the bed as possible. So, I use the .04 mm gauge and tried manual leveling again. Well, it did better. I didn’t have to bring the nozzle closer to the bed to get it to adhere. The issue was that it was too close and the lines were not good. So, I figure it was probably me being a first time leveling at .04mm and trying again.
https://www.3dnatives.com/en/an-introduction-to-bed-leveling-in-3d-printing-070820234 is the site that suggested the smaller width for leveling.
So, I kept trying. I got it mostly level. Main issue is that there are so so so many tiny parts that I would have the majority of the bed leveled but there would be just one component that would delaminate and kill the entire job. So, after like 4 days of trying to get this bed leveled to print all of them at once. I’ve opted for the cheat. I’m splitting the single stl which has 21 objects that are being printed into 21 stls that I can pick and choose where on the bed to put them and how many to print at once and in what orientation. I’m tired of essentially getting a near perfect but considering it a fail because in order for the print to succeed all must survive.
I was actually considering getting a Bambu labs P1S because I see everyone has these now and they are getting perfect prints and not spending any time leveling their beds. Maybe in the future I will, but for now I’m going to survive on splitting the prints into smaller batches and be satisfied with the prints I can achieve and the learning I did to get to the point I am at now.
So, 21 parts. Lets see how many I can make on the first try this time 🙂
So, I took parts 0, 2, 5, 9, and 20 and slapped them in cura, moved them to the back left, sliced them, and started the print with that. I didn’t do any new manual bed leveling. I just left it do its ABL routine that I have now that it does at the start of every job. It is supposed to take about 17 minutes to make these 5 parts! That was fast! So, all 5 printed successfully!!! FIRST TIME!
I am now able to see that I would have ended up with a part where I can’t get the support off!!! LOL
So, instead of having a 15hr+ build and then finding out that even though all the parts had printed successfully I can’t get the support off I can adjust the supports for that one and reprint! WOOOHOOO
Lesson learned. Unless you are confident that the supports and everything can come off it might not even be worth printing a large batch the first go around. Also, it would be nice if you could specify different type of support for different components. Will have to look into this.
Also, component 0 was the one with the supports lol
I’m going to see if that piece even actually needs supports at all or if it will print fine without any. I can do that now that I have each component isolated.
I didn’t need any support.
Would be nice to have tracking software to keep track of all of the prints I’ve done etc. Would get some interesting statistics.
will come back and update. I think i’m going to set up octoprint so that I don’t have to keep getting the sd card out. I’m on a roll. Not a single failed print yet!!! WOOHOOO!!!
| part id | support | done | comment |
| 0 | no | yes | |
| 1 | yes | yes | there is a single line of filament for a connector… not sure if this should be modified. |
| 2 | no | yes | |
| 3 | no | yes | first one I’ve printed with astroprint |
| 4 | yes (tree) | yes | |
| 5 | no | yes | |
| 6 | yes (tree) | yes | |
| 7 | no | yes | |
| 8 | |||
| 9 | no | yes | |
| 10 | no | yes | |
| 11 | no | yes | |
| 12 | no | yes | |
| 13 | |||
| 14 | yes | in progress | failed with tree support and fell over without a brim. going to use brim with normal support |
| 15 | |||
| 16 | yes (tree) | yes | |
| 17 | no | yes | |
| 18 | no | yes | |
| 19 | yes (tree) | yes | |
| 20 | no | yes |
So, during this process I setup octoprint on an old android phone. But the issue I had there was that it was not charging through the usb c port on the printer so it would die after a day. So, I ended up using a raspberry pi 3 b+ with a pi cam to install astroprint instead. Astro print can do all the things octoprint can and more. For example, I’m able to slice the stl into gcode and send directly to the printer all within the same app. I’m even able to add custom start and end gcode! Really cool thing is that it uses Cura engine for doing the slicing so I was able to take the settings I already had figured out and just make a slicer profile with those. So, I’m concerned that I can’t add particular supports like tree supports. I’ve found that regular supports sometimes are not a good option.
So, I took 4 days of persistently trying to do something that it turns out was probably a not a good idea to do in the first place. I really don’t think it is a good idea to print all of those parts at once. Mainly because if one of them fails you end up killing all of them. I also learned how to level the bed really quickly and pretty decently. I’ve tried a variety of software for making getting gcode going on the printer faster and I believe I’ve ended up going back to octoprint because it is much more user friendly and I can use all the nice Cura settings. It really does seem like if astroprint is going to really succeed they need to keep up with all the Cura versions and enable import of Cura profiles. As of now I see very few people talking about this or using this.
Though I might end up with astroprint. I do like the organization that it has. I can have an stl and attach different gcodes. Then if it seems like I can use their slicer I have the option and if I need to have supports I can use cura and load in the stl and gcode. So, for now I’ll keep astroprint for a bit before I make a final call.
I like that I can easily slice a few stls ahead of time so that as soon as one comes off I can just clean up and hit print on the next one. Also, it keeps a pretty nice timeline of all the prints I have along with visuals of what they are.
Some good insight into bridging: https://community.ultimaker.com/topic/44977-enable-bridge-settings/