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I'm looking to pick up a beginner printer $300 or cheaper with the intention of printing minis and parts for gunpla (armor pieces, weapons, terrain). It seems like the general recommendations for my budget are the Monoprice Select Mini V2, MP Select Plus, or the Ender 3. A big plus would be minimal modifications required out of the box. Any advice on where to start?
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Jun 3, 2018 16:52
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 01:55 |
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I ended up picking up a MP Mini Select and have been trying to improve the quality of my prints. I added the Z-axis coupler and rail stabilizers and got some improvement on some awful z banding I was getting. I was hoping to get a little bit of feedback on my latest Benchy print (50% scale) in figuring out which settings I should be looking at tweaking for improvements. Based on what I've seen online I should continue to look at retraction settings to get rid of the zits? I also have a chaos orb from Path Of Exile I printed and painted today with still a bit of banding I'd like to improve if possible. Am I expecting too much from a $200 printer?  
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Jun 12, 2018 03:33
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Spent a bit of time doing a bit more modifications and calibrations to my MP Mini Select. I added new belt tensioners, rewired the bed, and calibrated the extrusion. Turns out I was underextruding by quite a bit which was unexpected since I'm getting a lot of z banding still. I need to do a little bit more testing on the extrusion multiplier (flow) and temperature, are there any recommended good and quick tests for those? Here's my current progress of a full scale Benchy if anyone would like to provide any feedback:  
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Jun 16, 2018 23:23
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Thanks! I'll look at doing some retraction tests. Today I'm having a problem getting my first layer down properly and I can't seem to figure it out. It's having issues printing the first layer and will just leave a little bit of PLA residue on the bed and the extruder will make clicking sounds as if it can't push any more filament. It works fine on upper layers though. The hot end doesn't seem clogged, the bed is leveled fine, and I haven't changed any of my slicer settings. Manually extruding at the home position works totally fine. I left a rather long print run overnight last night for context. Anyone have any ideas? 
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Jun 17, 2018 17:55
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I checked all around the extruder with a flashlight and I can't seem to see anything like a crack, extruder arm seems fine and not any different from before today. I'll try printing a replacement and maybe buy a metal one if that's the issue. Beforehand I had heard that 3D printing was a lot of calibrating and fixing issues but I didn't quite anticipate this much.
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Jun 17, 2018 18:22
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Ah you're totally right, the bed was too close. I feel dumb now. Thank you for the help!
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Jun 17, 2018 18:58
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The Bowden connector on the extruder side broke so I have to wait until the replacements get here. Given the amount of trouble I'm having getting stuff calibrated and the number of mods I've installed, I kind of wish I had picked up the Ender 3 over the Mini Select given its the same price and appears to be quite a bit better in a bunch of ways. 3D printing is pretty dang cool but man it's a timesink to get it all working.
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Jun 19, 2018 02:34
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Your problem is you dove straight into modding without understanding what you are really doing. You're probably right, I should have spent more time playing with settings before doing any modding but I kind of went whole hog. So far I've only done the rewiring of the bed as a preventative measure, Z-axis coupler and stabilizers, and belt tensioners. The Z-axis mods actually helped a fair bit but the tensioners could go back to the stock ones. I'll take a look at those clips to help with the Bowden connectors when I get them.
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Jun 20, 2018 00:47
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So I'm having an interesting time trying to figure out how to get the z dimension of my printer dialed in. Calibration cubes and some prints will print too short like a 20mm high cube is ~16mm. I spent a lot of time looking online how to get it properly fixed, it seems that calibrating based on a print isn't an accurate way to fix it. The proper way seems to use a calculator with the z stepper motor specs. In this case though I'm using the original stepper motor from the MP Mini Select V2 so the default value should work right? Are there any other things I should look at for why the height of my prints are being funky?
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Jul 5, 2018 01:19
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Is there much of a difference between printing PLA and PET beside the higher hotend temperature? I'm printing stuff that needs a bit of finishing so a material that sands better sounds appealing.
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Jul 11, 2018 18:37
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For adding a glass bed do you need to remove the original buildtak or can you just slap it on top with binder clips? Any good ways to clean up the adhesive if the former?
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Jul 17, 2018 04:13
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Depends on your definition of gaming level minis. You can totally print minis and terrain but you'll have to a good amount of tinkering settings and sanding/filling to get minis looking decent. E: This guy has been doing a bunch of videos on printing minis on the Ender 3 and should give you an example of what you can get with some work: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr_uz-iWzyR1VJNlN-E1y7w That Gobbo fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 15:59
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From what I understand most of the programs mentioned are for creating functional pieces right? I've seen Blender for 3D modeling and Sculptris for organic sculpting as free software recommendations.
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Jul 19, 2018 21:34
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I started with a Monoprice Select Mini and very quickly got an Ender 3 and wish I had just gone for the Ender 3 at the start honestly. It's a little more assembly and tinkering out of the box but I was able to get higher quality prints than the Select Mini really quickly. Are there any extra fire prevention steps I can take with an Ender 3? I picked up a fire extinguisher and only print when I'm home as I just don't feel comfortable leaving it running while I'm not there to deal a potential fire. I doubt I'll ever actually leave it running while I'm out but I was just curious if there was anything else I should do.
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Aug 14, 2018 23:06
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 01:55 |
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Any recommendations for guides or tutorials on calibrating for FDM parts fitting? I have to chop off or sand a lot of edges to ever have a chance of making a peg fit into a hole.
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Oct 24, 2018 04:20
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