A howdy shout from southern Sweden

[3Dfps240]

50 years old infinately curious multifixer and problem solver behind this keyboard. Day job as an IT Infrastructure Architect with 30+ years of server admin on my back, UNIX, Linux and some Microsoft stuff.

Got interested in 3D printing and 3D printers about 1,5 years ago when thinking about renovating an old Jeep Cherokee XJ 6,0L 2000, which are very rare over here in Sweden, hence makes parts for it expensive. All the rubber/polymer bushings have to be replaced and they cost half a fortune in total here in Sweden. My 3D printing and printers hobby started with "what if I can 3D print molds and make them myself?"

As an early Christmas 2024 present I got myself a Creality Ender 3 V3 KE, which was my start of the learning curve. I quickly realized that the Ender 3 V3 KE was not a very good 3D printer. A friend of mine had bought a Bambu Lab A1 and comparing the results between those two 3D printers were just a downer, so I started to look for ways to improve my Ender 3 V3 KE. Bunch of mods and tinkering later, it did get a bit better, but still not what I was looking for. I didn't start with PLA, I went directly for PETG due to it being a more robust and challenging filament... probably making my journey harder on myself. 

Early 2025 my friend got tired of 3D printing, so I got me self a fairly cheap Bambu Lab A1, sure they create good looking results but there isn't that much that can be improved on these 3D printers. Printed some usability and quality of life improvements for it, got an AMS Lite added to it and it does pretty good PETG and PLA prints. I still wasn't satisfied and wanted more and better.

Couple of months later, early summer 2025 the Formbots Voron 2.4 R2 kit was bougth and built over the summer. Probably took me around 110-120 hours to build it, being thorough doing it. The Formbots kit Phateus Dragon HF hotend and Clockworks 2 extruder had quite a lot of heat creep and extruder issues, which I struggled quite a lot with when trying to print ABS, PETG no problem and very good looking prints, but ABS was just a no go. I just could not accept not being able to print ABS so it drove me to replace the Stealthburner toolhead with an A4T toolhead equipped with Phaetus Rapid 2 Plus HF hotend, Galileo 2 WristWatch extruder, BTT EBB36 toolhead board and the Cartographer probe. That made a complete difference and ABS prints where now just as easy as PETG.

Another friend of mine replaced his old almost stock Creality Ender 3 V2 with an Elegoo and there I was with yet another not so well performing bed slinger  But it does have a more sturdy and stiff build than the Ender 3 V3 KE does, so I thought "why not strip and combine stuff", so I now have my custom Ender 3 based the V2 chassis, dual steppers on all axes (AWD?), belted Z, V3 KE direct drive extruder, V3 KE hotend, X-axis MGN12 linear rail from the V3 KE, lightened bed carriage, BTT SFS 2.0 filament sensor and a shiny new BTT SKR Mini E3 V3.0 controller board. But still not satisfied enough with it. Future improvement possibilities: Y-axis dual MGN linear rails, Z-axis dual MGN rails, Phaetus Rapido hotend, Galileo 2 extruder, an Octopus Pro controller, who knows?

A couple of weeks ago I was stupid and didn't clean the bed plate properly after lubricating the Voron, started a print, went to watch a movie and there you go, the BLOB of death. Entire hotend covered with PETG, it was a lost cause... That got me thinking of what my next move with the Voron should be, why just buy a new hotend when it can become better?

Currently the Voron is being "re-modded" with quite a lot of improvements... it will take some time, but they who waits...

Ah, almost forgot the Elegoo Centauri Carbon that I also have, it has also been improved with a bunch of mods, so now it actually prints ABS quite reliably and not too shabby looking results, for what it costs

 

That was quite a lot, but it somewhat covers my 3D printing learning curve so far.

/Frank

 

 

 

[mvdveer]

Welcome aboard Frank. The journey to Voron sounds so familiar. But as you have found out, the tinkering just won't stop

[NikosSprocket]

Welcome to the forum!

Sounds similar to my journey; SunOS, Solaris, AIX, HPUX, UNICOS?

Anyway, the heat creep affect was the reason I am designing my own head as I do like the combination of Bondtech LGX Lite and compact Mosquito hotend. Unfortunately, the Stealthburner mod. case for this extruder and hotend had bad ventilation for the hotend and the part fan nozzles did not perform well. At this point the project "Rabbit Hole" started, and many parts are completed and available.

 

Cheers!

Nikos

Edited March 15 by NikosSprocket

[PFarm]

Welcome to the forum, glad to have you on board!

[Titus A Duxass]

Welcome