3D Printer Review - Ender 3D Pro, despite the poor directions this thing rocks

[MarkVIIIMarc]

There are probably other printers out there which do just as well so maybe try them, but this is the one I got so I'm telling you all, don't replace your functional cell phone this year, go get a $220 3D printer and have another toy/hobby/more functionality in your life!

Third party printing services gave me the impression 3D printing is costly due to physical items. It isn't. I'm two D&D mini's, a 1:1800 battleship, a few tests and a waste of time into the trial filament which came with it and maybe its halfway done. Time is the cost. Our mini's and the battleship take an hour and a half to two hours to print.

Now the directions for assembly and the seemingly company sponsored video were the worst directions I ever used. They turned what should have been 30 minutes of hex key tightening into 2 hours of thinking about it. Then the directions for using the thing are equally poor. Essentially you have to level the bed, download a slicing program (think I choose Cura because I was mad at Ender over the instructions) and go for it. If your mini has arms held out at 90 degrees or something similar w/o a base you need to let the slicing program add a support (but not a reinforced one, oops).

Maybe some are faster but this 3D printer shouldn't be used to print refrigerator doors or anything football sized.

I've tinkered with a 3D drawing program called Sketchup before and had Shapeways make me HO scale well cars. One of my friends is actually good at it and can design War At Sea quality mini's. I know I'm going to get sucked in so I can design more of my own stuff. Its something to do and learn though and a way to spend time besides financing another car which does exactly what your old one did or make monthly payments on the I-Phone E72 which is .001% faster than the I-Phone D71 you already own.

[Imbalance]

Can it use .dwg or .dxf?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I don't think so. Wonder if there is a slicer program which converts the 3d files as handily as GIMP converts whatever oddities I can ever find to .jpgs lol.

[Telok]

Time and fiddly bits are the real cost of 3d printing at the hobbyist level.

I'm using Blender and Cura for my modeling and slicing. On my system I find that Cura underestimates printing time by about 1/3rd. I haven't tried the file formats you mentioned but I'll check when I get home. I know the 3d printing addon and imports for blender support 6 or 8 types, but I'm usually just working with stl and blender files.

Edit: .dxf files are a go with Blender. Not sure about the other, I'd have to wade through fifteen or so sets of documentation for the various import options or turn them all on all try them.

[snowblizz]

I find it both much easier than expected and then much much more involved than one could think.

It's a deep rabbithole once you start digging under the surface.


At least it sounds like you got options. We got a Flashforge Finder at work which is aimed at consumers and eventually I always hit on the fact that I'm limited by stuff having been made "too simples". And that it is running on effectively proprietary Makerbot software.



And if you want to do miniatures you don't want a FDM but one of the new ones doing resin. Though the latter seems like a super messy process still.


Oh, and it's not just the cost of the machine, but also all those failed projects...

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Agreed. Its a fun "waste of time" like many hobbies or projects.

Under time constraints I would not want to design something new or print something different than I did before.

Tonight I have the machine doing a seven hour print with tons of support I set to more hollow than usual. We'll see how it goes. Filament is cheap. This electricity and checking on the thing takes time.

FWIW D&D mini's are on the smaller end of its detail ability but right in its range. Automating the support settings for these things is the difficult part for me. I am thinning them out so they're removable. These strong default support settings must be for larger projects. We'll see.