Question for 3D printing Maslovians

@ShadyG: Thanks for that link! I actually just ordered one myself, since I’ve been looking to upgrade from my DaVinci 1.0 for quite some time now. I’ll probably be upgrading it over time, but I’m mostly looking to print PLA parts with it anyways. One of the first real things I print (aside from benchies) may be another set of parts for my Z-Axis! :smiley:

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I have my Ender up and running and wanted to give the low-down for those who are curious about it.

My first impressions are very good. For a $200 printer, this thing is printing better than I expected it to. I’ve run it about 8 hours so far with no problems. The thing that I am blown away with is how easy it’s been to getting it printing. I spent countless hours fussing my my old DaVinci and still getting parts that weren’t even that great. That and not dealing with filament cartridges is a huge step up.

On Reddit, people were recommending watching the YouTube channel Tomb of 3D Printed Horrors. He’s made a build video which helps greatly with the assembly, as well as some videos on recommended upgrades.

The kit is relatively straight forward to assemble, it took me one night (2-3 hrs) to go from a pile of parts to an operational printer. Bed leveling took me less than an hour.

Pile o’ Parts:


Functional Printer:


Benchy Comparisons (DaVinci 1.0 on left, Ender 3 on right):


I printed the Benchy with basically the stock settings in Cura, which came with the printer. The DaVinci one was sliced at 0.3mm layer height and the Ender at 0.2mm, so some of the resolution differences are due to that. But overall print quality is significantly better.

Also, the smaller footprint is really nice. The old DaVinci took up a lot of room on the computer bench next to the Maslow. Meanwhile, the Ender fits in the same space with more room for the computer’s keyboard and mouse. I will probably build some kinda enclosure for the it to keep dust out and help with ABS and other plastics.



First (real) print off the Ender. I loaded up some of Proto-Pasta’s High-Five metallic blue HTPLA and sliced it with almost the same settings as the Benchy. I just increased the extruder temp to 225* C for HTPLA. Over yesterday, I also printed new landing gear for my quadcopter and some upgrades for the Ender.


I would definitely recommend this printer. It’s great if you’re just getting into 3D printing. The hardest part would a beginner would be bed leveling, but if you follow the instructions in the from the YouTube channel I posted up above it should be relatively easy.

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Is that the version with the bendy bed? How well does their textured bed stick; do you need to glue stick/hairspray/floorpolish/etc it? The Printrbot+ (currently in the inaccessible north) currently has pei on glass but even that likes a little glue stick help. Way back when I did a comparison study of several sticker helpers (somewhere on printrbottalk.com) and ended up sticking with glue stick.

An Ender-3 Pro is on my shortlist for the southern Mooseshop but we need to digest the new Sainsmart CNC 3018 Pro (not a Maslow but fits on a card table and looks like it can do guilloche engraving) and Jet 1221SP (needs a walker compatible bench, 2x4s in the Subie) before getting another toy^^^shop essential past Mrs Moose.

Any comments/reviews of the E3 would be greatly appreciated

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Yes, it is! Parts stick to it really well without any aid. Sometimes it sticks a little too well with flatish parts. It hasn’t been a problem, though. I just pull off the top plate, bend it a little and the parts pop right off. It’s not as flexible as I thought it was going to be, but it bends enough to get the parts off.

My DaVinci has a glass bed and the thing is such a pain. I have had a lot of trouble with bed adhesion with it. I would always have to put down blue painter’s tape on the bed to help, and usually would have to raft as well. I have yet to need to raft with the Ender.

I was looking at one of those CNC’s when I was researching SainSmart for this particular purchase. Looks like a good little machine. If I had a need for a small engraver, I would consider that. Currently, though, my Maslow does all that I would need a CNC router to do.

Gotta love the utility of their cars. I love that I can fit an 8 footer in my car with the back seats down. Quite a bit off topic, but this reminds me of needing to haul some 4x8 sheets of CDX home on my Impreza. So glad I have roof racks, and the lumber yard is within a few scant miles of my home:

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After awhile I started having problems with adhesion on the bendy bed, I have worked around it by using a small raft instead of the other options.

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Gluestick!

Thank you

Can’t beat gluestick, but you can just wash it off after you build up many layers. I had a stack of double strength glass pieces that I’d swap every now and then and run the built up ones through the dishwasher after the usual rinse It’s safe for kids so any non-rinsed residue must be safe for adults (no guarantees and hair around my antlers are getting a little thin)

Also handy if you have kids, washes off tables and hands, and with the rise of 3D printing it’s become super cheap

Elmer’s All Purpose School Glue Sticks, Washable, 60 Pack, 0.24-ounce sticks

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008XDXU44

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The moose theme is very entertaining. Thank you and bravo.

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I found another solution on thingiverse today, slow down the speed of the adhesion printing.

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There’s sugar water, abs juice, hairspray, acrylic floor polish, kapton, pet, bare and sandblasted glass, blue tape, and a raft of other things. Pretty much anything sticky got tried be somebody back when 3D printing was still pretty new. I tried a number of them somewhere around 2013 or so, did a write-up, and stuck with stick.

Couldn’t find the write-up (too many posts, fu not strong today) but here’s an old discussion

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Finally i have bout ALUNAR SLA 3D Printer. after so many searches and reviews finally i was much satisfied with allthat3d reviews.

I will share my usage experience with you guys in few days. Bless you

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PEI on a heated bed works awesomely for me…
Things stick really well, and the bottom finish of the part is near perfect. Easy to remove as well, just need to wait for the bed to cool down and the print pops off with a thin metal spatula.

Ender printers for sale again on Woot, hurry if you want one they will go quick.

https://www.woot.com/plus/sainsmart-ender-3-series-3d-printers

If you need larger parts there is a soft launch over here:

Looks like a good printer to me.

Thank you

Love my Maslow and I needed a bigger 3d printer, so I jumped on it.

got mine today… looks great, could use a little documentation, usb only has 2 test prints and the cura 4.2.1 software.

leveled the bed printed the benchy from the usb card, was pretty good.

but when I saved a cura file to the usb drive, it no longer can read the usb anymore. Tried the SD and has been on and off reading it as well.

printed directly over usb using simplify 3d… once… now the connection over usb is scrambled and can no longer connect.

It’s not going so well for me anymore and I would love to use this guy for a large print I have been needing to run.

anyone else up and running with the mm300?

Working good, now, I had managed to change my baud rate… needs to be 250k. The USB flash is reading better now too, not sure why it was inconsistent for a while.

This thing has a huge print area and very quiet, all you can hear is the power supply fan. Dialing in my settings now!

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Which of the three ports on back of display are you using for the plug from printer? I installed cura but cant find printer

Contacted Maker Made FB page and they said to use “aux” port for display cable and select Creality cr10 as 3d printer until their list updates

MM300 printer is up and running now thanks to this great video:

First project iw:

For those interested in dabbling in 3D printing but who haven’t bought a printer yet, I’ve been experimenting with sending a few simple projects through a 3D printing service. So far the results have been excellent. I’m also waiting on some Aluminum milling for a setup block for the CNC at the makerspace. We just got the first article back the other day so I’ve posted some photos of the quality. I’d be interested to hear from experienced 3D printers how they feel the prints compare to the ones you do at home. The post is here: 3D Prints for those of us without 3D Printers - Xometry Review

-Jeff

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