Some upgrades to an Ender 3

[m_c]

I've had a second Creality Ender 3 Pro kicking around for a while, that I bought of a mate, as he realised 3D printing wasn't for him.
I will say, that for anybody considering buying a 3D printer, at the budget end of machines, you have to accept that there are going to be compromises, and a certain amount of fettling is required to produce good quality prints.

Here's the collection of parts I've bought for this machine-


BigTreeTech SKR Mini E3 V3.0
MicroSwiss Direct Drive extruder
E3D Revo CR hotend
Raspberry Pi 4
Touchscreen for the Pi
And not shown is a BTT TFT35 E2 screen, and a BL Touch.

First one to be fitted is the SKR Mini E3.

A big complaint with the original Ender control boards, was they didn't have silent drivers. So whenever the printer was moving, it made lots of humming noises.
The BTT SKR Mini E3 boards, are pretty much direct drop in replacements for the original control board. I installed a V2 board into my other Ender 3, and it really was just plug and play.
This is the latest version, which comes with a nice custom heatsink.

4 screws remove the cover for the control board -



Then it's just a case of unplug all the connectors, swap them to the new board, and swap the boards in the housing -

The only issue is the main hotend cooling fan either needs a connector fitted, or wired into a permanent feed.
On the original board, it's wired into a dedicated screw terminal, but the SKR mini E3 V3 sacrificed the space for additional plug-in headers.
I've just wired it in with the main 24V power cables for now, as I don't have any of the correct connectors.

At the same time as installing the SKR board, I also put the wiring in for the new touchscreen display.
And prior to fitting the new board into the housing, I powered it up, to make sure it works -


The main reason for the new display, is it's touchscreen, so it makes usage a lot easier.
It's also the exact same size as the original screen, and is a direct drop in replacement. If wanted, you can fit this screen to the original control board, it's not dependant on installing a new control board.

Once everything is fitted in place, and the covers back on, check it all still powers up, and things can be activated/moved-


It is coming up with a bed levelling error, which I'm guessing is to do with the default settings in the SKR board, but the hotend works, bed heater works, all axes move, and the extruder works, so the core functionality is working how it should.

 

[m_c]

And for today's upgrades, we have the MicroSwiss Direct Drive extruder, and E3D Revo CR hotend.

As standard Ender 3's come with a bowden setup, where the extruder motor is mounted on the frame, and the filament passes through some tubing to the hotend/extruder. This actually works pretty well for PLA, and I did produce some excellent prints with the stock setup, before I swapped to the MicroSwiss DD setup. However, I now mostly use PETG, which is very prone to stringing, which results in prints that look like they're covered in hair.
Direct Drive moves the extruder motor/gears to as close to the hotend as practically possible.
The benefit is it gives far more accurate control over how much filament is extruded/retracted, which helps reduce stringing, but the downside it does mean there is far more weight being moved, so you can't run the printer quite as fast. For an Ender, that's not really a problem, as you don't really run them that fast anyway.

As for why MicroSwiss. When I first looked at the direct drive options, there were lots of options.
There are some impressive options from China, but they always seem to be updating designs, which always leaves the question over will I be able to get parts in the future?
MicroSwiss is certainly not cheap, but they don't continually update things. They do have a newer DD setup, that puts the extruder gears even closer to the hotend, but they still sell this style, and I can buy any spare for it.

So off with these bits -


Take these bits -


And install them -


I've not bothered with any pics of the installation, because if anybody is really interested, the installation guide can be found on the MicroSwiss website product page - https://store.micro-swiss.com/collections/extruders/products/micro-swiss-direct-drive-extruder

I will say, that although the main carriage looks nicely machined, and the critical bits are good fits, the general standard of machining isn't great. It's certainly not a great advert for Made in USA.

Now the big flaw I regularly experience with the MicroSwiss setup, is their all metal hotend gradually slackens off, and leaks filament. Which in the case of PETG, with the continual heat, it degrades into a black gloop, that slowly builds/creeps down around the hotend and nozzle, until it gets dragged into the print -

For those unfamiliar with 3D printers, this is the complete hotend.
The block at the very bottom, is the hot bit. It holds the heater coil, with a thermistor screwed on to measure the temp.
The top finned aluminium block is the heat sink.
The two are connected by a Titanium heatbreak. The heatbreak's purpose is to limit as much heat as possible from reaching the cooling block, so filament melts in quite a controlled area (you don't want filament to melt that high up, or it's very likely to block)

The heatbreak screws into the hotend, but is then held into the cooling block by that single little grubscrew.
This means any movement of the hotend, usually results in things spinning. The original Creality hotend uses two additional vertical screws, so once the heatbreak is tightened in the hotend, it's supported and protected from being rotated.
With the MicroSwiss, you need regularly take the fan shroud off and retighten things.

I had been looking at other options, when I discovered E3D, have just released a direct drop in replacement for the Creality hotend.

E3D Revo CR on the left, with the original Creality on the right (note the two extra vertical screws).

The Revo uses a completely new type of nozzle -

Being a single unit (it's really 3 pieces pressed together), it eliminates all the issues with leakage.
The nozzles are a lot more expensive, but I don't really go through many, so I'm not too concerned about that.
Plus everything is designed and made in the UK.

So hotend on -


Shroud on, and wiring 'connected' -


E3D supply extension cables, and fancy scotchlock butt connectors.
It's not what I'd personally use, but for your typical Ender owner, it is probably a good choice. No special tools required, and they are pretty reliable. Removes the likelihood of people who don't know better from trying to badly crimp/solder/tape things, and causing themselves problems.
I have ordered some Molex Micro-fit 3.0 housings/terminals so I can do things better, but the connectors will work for testing things this weekend.

 

[choco]

Have the SKR mini V3 in my cr10. Very happy with it.

 

[m_c]

Have the SKR mini V3 in my cr10. Very happy with it.

They are good boards. I just wish support for them was a bit better, without having to recompile firmware.

 

[Screwdriver]

I use PETG exclusively on my bog stock Ender 3, I dial out stringing with careful setup. No trouble with the Bowden assembly after replacing the last 15mm with high temperature Teflon tube.

The weight disadvantage with a direct drive puts me off because the regular Ender drive belts really aren’t up to the job so it can cause excessive ringing. The big advantage with DD is you can use TPU but I have no problem printing flexible filament even with the Bowden setup

My biggest issue with substantial upgrades which I have said before is that while the Ender is very good right out of the box, every component is right on the edge. Improve one part of the system and it exposes a weakness in another. You end up chasing your tail until you end up replacing everything…

I will follow this thread with interest though, would be nice to see what improvements have been made and at what cost.

 

[m_c]

On to the BL Touch, which is a very popular retractable touch probe.

As standard these printers use a basic microswitch on the Z-axis to home the printer, and you then need to manually adjust things to ensure the nozzle is the correct height and the bed is level.
Manual levelling isn't that much of an issue once you've done it a few times and learn what's needed, and as my other printer only ever has a glass bed fixed to it, it's something I rarely need to do. However I'd like to use various different print beds on this printer, so that would mean having to continually adjust the homing offsets, and manually setting the height.
By using a touch probe, it eliminates having to that.

It also has the benefit where you can map the bed for height variations.
Most of these thin beds tend to have some degree of warpage (big reason why glass beds are quite popular, as glass doesn't really warp), as they are typically 3mm aluminium sheet (the Voron I'm building uses 8mm cast plate, to minimise warpage), which means getting a consistent first layer thickness can be very problematic. The first layer is critical to getting reliable bed adhesion for prints.
By mapping the height variations, the controller can then compensate for variations for the first x number of layers, so you get good bed adhesion, then 'Fade' to a uniform layer height.

So first up, you need a mount -

Only reason it's translucent magenta, is that's what happened to be loaded. Took 35 minutes to print, then a couple minutes to melt in two M3 heatserts with the soldering iron.

And bolt it on-


One benefit of the BTT board, is it has a dedicated BL Touch connector. So with the correct extension cable, it plugs straight in. Off course, the supplier I used didn't have the correct cable, so I had to opt for one with a wrong connector, and fit a suitable one.

Now I would love to say, getting it to work was a simple thing, but it wasn't.
I have spent a lot of time today learning how to compile Marlin firmware.
BTT do supply pre-compiled firmware (the default non-BL Touch firmware works without issue), but I couldn't get the BL Touch firmware to work, however after copying all of BTT's provided Marlin configuration file settings to the latest file version, and building it, everything worked as expected
Doing a custom build, also let me re-configure a few other things, like controller cooling fan only coming on when the stepper drivers are enabled, and the hotend cooling fan only being enabled when the hotend is above 50degC.

Running a bed mesh/map, produced this -


I will do a better manual bed level, but this at least shows it works how it should, and I might even get to try printing something tomorrow.

 

[m_c]

I use PETG exclusively on my bog stock Ender 3, I dial out stringing with careful setup. No trouble with the Bowden assembly after replacing the last 15mm with high temperature Teflon tube.

The weight disadvantage with a direct drive puts me off because the regular Ender drive belts really aren’t up to the job so it can cause excessive ringing. The big advantage with DD is you can use TPU but I have no problem printing flexible filament even with the Bowden setup

My biggest issue with substantial upgrades which I have said before is that while the Ender is very good right out of the box, every component is right on the edge. Improve one part of the system and it exposes a weakness in another. You end up chasing your tail until you end up replacing everything…

I will follow this thread with interest though, would be nice to see what improvements have been made and at what cost.

Main thing with PETG, is actually making sure it's dry, which is why I have a filament drier, and it all gets stored in sealed containers with silica.

However, I use various different brands (can't always get the same brand for all the colours), and direct drive removes a good amount of the trial and error to avoid stringing.

Unless you're running things at stupid speed, the weight penalty doesn't make much difference.
The Voron uses a far longer length of the same width and pitch belt, and although the Voron direct drive printhead is lighter, it can run at far higher accelerations/speeds than an ender is likely to ever manage, without any major ringing issues.
Ringing is just as likely to be an issue with a light printhead, as you have less mass to dampen any ringing.
With more weight, over/undershoot on sharp corners is the bigger concern.

 

[indy4x]

@m_c

Enjoying reading this thread, keep it coming

I have an Ender 5 Plus and love the BL touch system

No mods on mine apart from a Creality silent main board

I did do a bit of searching in the E3D Revo CR and CNC Kitchen have dome a review, was contemplating swapping out the stock E5 hotend as I'm rapidly losing patience with it. After 2 years of pretty much zero print failures I now have problems and have had 5 failed prints in a row. It's filament jams but despite several tear downs and replacement parts it's still not working

 

[choco]

The BLtouch was one of the best upgrades iv done. I also have direct drive on the cr10. No ringing. Just don't go mental with the speed. I find it easier to dial in different filament with the direct drive.

 

[m_c]

Tested it today.
Loaded up the classic 3D printer stress test, that is a Benchy.
For those wondering why the Benchy is such a popular test piece, it's because it pretty much covers all the points a 3D printer is likely to fail on.
Relatively small base area, so your first layers/bed adhesion have to be good.
Long flowing curved areas that'll show up any issues with non-smooth travel.
Bridge and overhang sections that'll test your part cooling.

First layers were a thing of beauty-


To ensure consistency, I used the original G-code file that I used to test my original Ender 3, which I'd forgotten had been set to print the part on a raft, which is why that first layer isn't 100% coverage. Only issue with the file, was it used different code for activating the part cooling fan, so I had to manually enable it for the duration of the print.

This was the final result-


A few minor defects in it, but I'm surprised. It was an old roll of PLA+ I used, which hasn't been touched for at least a year and has just been stored in an unsealed bag.
The blobs you see, are either slight over-extrusion (I've not calibrated the extrusion distance yet), and/or moisture in the filament causing filament to blown out the nozzle uncontrolled due to steam.

Main thing to show a benefit of going to 32bit with silent steppers, is there's no stepping artefacts in the curves -


It's all just nice smooth curves.
I should have taken a photo off it, but the original Benchy I printed on my first Ender 3, you can see the curves aren't continuously smooth, where the limit of the 8bit processor and older stepper drivers result in curves being a compromise of arcs, compounded by the basic stepper drivers.

 

[indy4x]

@m_c was that with the new E3D Revo?

 

[m_c]

@m_c was that with the new E3D Revo?

Yes.
First ever print I've done with one, and it worked flawlessly, but then it was only PLA so not really that much of a test.

 

[m_c]

Since the Molex MicroFit 3.0 connectors turned up today, figured I may as well tidy up the wiring before getting too involved with the Voron again -


And we have before -

And After -


I could tidy it up more by running the BLTouch wiring through the sleeve as well, but I hate fighting getting stuff through that sleeving, especially when there's nearly a meter of it to fight with.

 

[m_c]

This collection turned up today -


Stick on magnetic sheet, and two sprung steel sheets. One is double sided textured, and the other smooth with PEI on one side.

Before fitting, I thought I'd have a look at the bed meshes, just to see how level/flat or not, things are.
This was with the Glass still on, and having levelled the bed as best I was willing to using the manual adjusters.-

The good thing about the BTT TFT, is you can access a corner measuring routine, whereby it'll only measure the four corners, so you can adjust the basic bed level, rather than having to do a full bed mesh.

Next up was with the glass removed-


Then heated to 65degC-


Then cooled down, magnetic sheet stuck on, and the smooth steel on -


You can see there is a bit of bow across the bed, which considering it's just a bit 4mm aluminium, is probably pretty good.


Next job for this is to get the Raspberry Pi added, so I can control it remotely, but I need to print the mount first, which will probably be a weekend job.

 

[Hog-Rider]

Nearly 2 years ago I bought the Ender 3 V2 I have only made a few mods number one was a bearing block fixture on top of the threaded Z bar. Next was a Filament guide from the roll of Filament. The third was a set yellow springs that once I had made the bed level , It has only needed a very slight adjustment on the bed in about A YEAR. I dont find the need for any of that fancy electronic levelling stuff.I am amazed how well it has been printing for me.I think they are great printers. However I do enjoy reading about mods that others have made to there machines.

 

[m_c]

Started on the bits for mounting the Pi and it's touchscreen today -


I do like a good textured finish

Nearly 2 years ago I bought the Ender 3 V2 I have only made a few mods number one was a bearing block fixture on top of the threaded Z bar. Next was a Filament guide from the roll of Filament. The third was a set yellow springs that once I had made the bed level , It has only needed a very slight adjustment on the bed in about A YEAR. I dont find the need for any of that fancy electronic levelling stuff.I am amazed how well it has been printing for me.I think they are great printers. However I do enjoy reading about mods that others have made to there machines.

My original Ender doesn't have any bed levelling, is still on the original springs, and it rarely needs adjusting.
They are capable printers as standard.

Main reason for the self-levelling is so I can swap print beds, and have the height adjust itself automatically.
I can fit the smooth PEI sheet, textured PEI, or glass bed, hit print, and if needed give it a tweak using the baby-stepping menu.

 

[m_c]

After some thinking about what I actually use the Pi Touchscreen on my original Ender3 for, I've come to the conclusion I actually rarely use it. The most use is for shutting the Pi down if I forget to do it from a computer, which I could do via my phone if needed.
So I've decided not to bother with a touchscreen on this printer, which means a change of plan for mounting the Pi.

Some will be wondering why I even have Pi's connected to printers.
I use them to run Octoprint, which provides remote access and control of the printer via any web browser, that is able to access the local network.
I also have a PiCam mounted on my original Ender3, so I can also see what it's doing. If I wanted to get even more advanced, I could also run something like Spaghetti Detective, which uses machine learning to detect if the print has failed.

This means the printed mount in the last post is now destined for the bin, in place of this one ( https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4607848 ) -



However, after printing it, I realised it covers the USB and SD card slots on the BIg Tree Tech TFT touchscreen -


So model imported in F360, some measuring and reworking done has resulted in this model -

I'll set it printing tomorrow, and hopefully the new holes line up where they should...

 

[m_c]

Sometimes, just sometimes, I actually manage to draw things in the correct place -

Although I have noticed another slight flaw with the design. This design uses M3 bolts to mount the cooling fan, and sandwich the Pi between the cooling fan mount, and the housing.
The mounting holes in the Pi are smaller than M3. I can drill out the holes easy enough, but I'd rather not have to, so I'll need to measure up the cooling fan mount, and see if a slight redesign is possible.

 

[m_c]

Progress on the final bits of this printer are on pause due to being silly season for events (got two more weekends to go before I get another day off :-/ ) , but as there are a few Ender users on here, are any of them interested in a brand new unused BigTreeTech SKR-Mini E3 V2.0 ?

If they are, I'm open to offers.