Preface: I’m on my third cheap printer in the past ten years. I bought an Anycubic kobra neo a few years ago. I told myself I wouldn’t mess with doing anything to it, but I was running into issues because of low quality control. I put it away due to frustration for the past year and now needed to print something and just figuring out all the issues. Right now I’m looking into upgrading the part cooling fan as I cannot get rid of stringing even on low temps with PLA. I should just buy a good printer but I just don’t feel like I can justify it.
Define “modify”
Anything other than how the printer came out of the box.
There’s always a modification then: the nozzle wears out, you have to replace it at one point.
if replacing the nozzle with an idnentical one, that is a repair not a modification.
That’s still “how it came out of the box” though as long as you use the same nozzle or one reccomended by the company. Just like replacing your brake pads with factory brake pads and not upgrading them to something better.
Okay, but changing the nozzle still is a normal modification that is required to do if you want to print abrasive filaments for example or thinner or bigger nozzle diameters. It’s very easy to change the nozzle because of that, manufacturers expect you to change it.
How about add-ons, not modifications? Do you count that as modifying if you add a raspberry pi or a camera, but you can still just remove them and have the printer just like it came ootb?
Do you count that as modifying if you add a raspberry pi or a camera, but you can still just remove them and have the printer just like it came ootb?
These are definitely things that come with better printers these days. I only use octoprint with my cheap printer. It gives better results because a rpi is miles better at keeping up than the cheap board they put in there, it also didn’t come with Wi-Fi or a camera which are things that come out of the box on other printers. Of course in the past printers didn’t come with those things. I would consider them accessories because they added the USB port to the printer for you to send commands to, which is what you’re doing.However, If the printer were “better” then you wouldn’t have to use those things since it would already have Wi-Fi, better board, and a camera built in.
I am afraid to tell you there is no way not to modify a printer then.
Parts will wear out at some point on any mechanical machine, certain plates make you save money and give you better results (ex: cool PIE supertack), if your printer drops off residue you might need something to catch it, if you wantnfime details at the cost of print speed you will need to replace the nozzle by something etc…
Maybe look at resin printers ? They hold on for way longer but are wayyy more messy to operate, also resin emits more dangerous fumes than most usual plastic used in FDM 3D printing
OP didn’t specifically say “only use the parts that came out of the box”. It’s still ambiguous. Are official mods, like PRUSA MMU modifying? How about after market parts?
Let me propose a modification tier list:
- M1 replace a part with a functionally identical one, e.g. replace worn nozzle.
- M2 upgrade using an official kit provided by the manufacturer to a new, fully versioned design, e.g. Mk3 to Mk3S
- M3 replace or add a part with an after market part to achieve improved or different performance, e.g. replace brass nozzle with hardened steel nozzle sold by third party
- M4 replace a part designed by the community
- M5 design and replace a part yourself for your own custom needs.
I’ve personally done all 5. I can’t imagine everyone has done all tiers of modifications.
My MK3s only has a light, a camera and a raspberry Pi running octopi added to it, so I only added add-ons, but no modifications
Bambu p1s. The printer stops being the hobby and designing and printing things starts being the hobby.
I’ve done a couple things with it, but nothing that is mandatory at all. Little things like a place to store the pei sheet, moving the external spool holder to the side of the unit, etc. Nothing to improve performance.
It isn’t cheap but man its an excellent printer
@PriorityMotif With my Prusa machines, I only modified them to upgrade to the next versions. Prusa has a really nice set up so that when a new version comes out, you can purchase an upgrade kit to bring it up to parity with the latest version using mostly printed parts, or parts from the machine.
My Artillery X2 I had to modify day 1 to make it functional.
The Sovol Zero also needed mods to make it more usable, but they were mostly convenience upgrades for a better spool holder placement.
I’ve had two printers: a monoprice branded wanhao i3 plus and a Voron 2.4. The wanhao was pretty heavily modified. I guess any Voron winds up being somewhat modified, but the mods I’ve installed on it have all been quality of life related.
3D printing tends to involve some level of tinkering, but it was nice to shift from the wanhao to the Voron. The Voron is a start it and forget it printer. Even if I wasn’t replacing parts or modifying the wanhao it took a lot more fiddling for things like bed leveling.
I heavily modified my Ender 3 pro, after breaking it for the last time I said fuck it and I’m getting a printer with all the features I want built in and not fucking with it. I’m perfectly content with my Ender 3 S1 pro. Auto bed leveling and direct drive are pretty much the only things I want, and it’s got them and was cheap.
Now the only thing I modify is my gcode.
Auto bed leveling and direct drive are pretty much the only things I want, and it’s got them and was cheap.
That was my thought process with the Kobra Neo.
The bed was so out of whack that I added adjustment wheels (it had solid spacers) and I upgraded the firmware to a modified one that added a couple of qol features. Now I’m realizing that the part cooling fan is just not big enough to keep up especially with the duct they put on there. If it weren’t for all the stringing then my prints would look good. Then of course there are other common issues people had with these with the bed wires breaking.
All I’ve done to my Prusa MK4 is change the part cooling shroud. Great out of the box. Been bringing on it over a year. Works great right away even after sitting for a month.
IMO, of you felt interested enough to go through 3 cheap printers, you ought to get a decent one. That feels like justification enough to me.
The x1c is pretty straightforward and doesn’t require any mods to just go. Hasn’t stopped me from modding it anyhow.
I got a Prusa Mk4, I bought an enclosure for it and upgraded it to the mk4s but I have not find any other tinkering from that.
I’m usually starting prints remotely from work, on Linux and collect it on the evening. It just print.
After 6 months I already had around 1500 hours of printing on it.
What’s þe state of modeling and control software on Linux? I’ve seen þat þere are solutions, but is it still in þat “labor of love, compile your own kernel” phase, or has it progressed to “Grandma’s been running Linux Mint for 3 years wiþ no tech support from me” phase.
Incidentally, I þink þat’s a good relative maturity metric, like bananas are for length:
0: Linux From Scratch 1: Gobo Linux 3: Gentoo 4: Apline 5: Void 6: Arch 8: (bare) Debian 10: Linux Mint
It’s easy, and universally understood! (/s)
Control software is not really used for any modern 3d printer, the printers provide their own web interface for you to control them.
Slicers just work out of the box for Prusaslicer, Orcaslicer and Cura. There’s nothing close to “compile your own kernel” in pretty much any linux thing anymore if you don’t want to do specifically this.
Great to hear, þanks!
Orca slicer just works on Ubuntu, but I had to use the appimage and not the normal install. I’m using octoprint on an old thin client which runs Debian and has been rock solid for many years.
Þis is low-key þe reason I haven’t bought a printer yet. It’s probably survivor bias, but it seems most of þe chatter around printers is more about how to work arounds issues - temperature control, quantity, calibration… I just want to print þings, I don’t want to spend hours fussing wiþ þe printer.
I’m envious of folks who can solve problems wiþ in-home printers, but not so envious þat I want to spend þat much time messing wiþ it. I know very well my patience limitations.
When I hear about a printer þat doesn’t require me to get a minor in materials science, I’m on board. Until þen, it’s just not how I want to spend my time.
Had I not worked in the plastics industry for many years and been a hobbyist tinkerer I would have never bought a printer. Unfortunately I never got around to actually learning cad because there is usually an stl already available for what i want to do. I started messing with freecad so maybe I’ll learn how to make parts and then I can probably justify a just works printer or just have parts printed by someone else.
Oh, yeah, cad. Þat’s anoþer reason: I don’t find cad fun. Even 2D floorplans for my house were too tedious to get beyond þe first floor, and it looked horrible. I’d never try to design someþing to print, but I’ve always imagined þat STL libraries would provide anyþing I needed.
