Newbie successful experience and learnings

3d Printing / Slicers / Setup / Problems
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↵For others that are brand new to printing, I thought I would share my experience and a few things I learned on my first assembly and attempt with an Ender 3 V2. After taking it really slow, my first calibration cube print came out perfectly. Here are some things I learned and found helpful. I hope it helps others taking the plunge.

  • I bought the printer at my local Microcenter from a sales guy that had extensive printing experience. He was a good listener, guided my purchase of the printer and filament, plus recommended one simple upgrade and a replacement part kit. The upgrade was the bed springs - super simple and $3. He recommended an aluminum extruder drive feed since in his experience it was the most likely first thing to break. For $11 it was cheap insurance even if I never need it.
  • The instructions are not that great, so videos are mandatory to watch before starting. I looked at several and picked up different tips from each. Here were the most useful. [LIST]
  • Dr. Vax assembly video. Great overview and gave me initial confidence.
  • Just Vlad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gokN9xNG94U&list=PLpOlkqVluSBLBaZwqcSj _zHuC9j68NUat&index=2&t=2092s which is on the Creality website. The early tips on checking the base assembly was really important and I found problems that were easily corrected before starting the z frame assembly
  • CHEP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6cqQZTc-4Q&list=PLpOlkqVluSBLBaZwqcSj_zHuC9j68NUat&amp ;index=14 had a few good tips on assembling the z axis frame
  • I had to adjust the X and Y axis rollers significantly - they were incredibly tight
  • Some of the base bolts were loose out of box and needed adjustment (Just Vlad tip)
  • Getting the x axis at 90 degrees to the z took a lot of fiddling, but is important (CHEP tip)
  • There are a bunch of bed leveling videos, but found Dr. Vax's clear and it worked. I did 8-9 round trips before i stopped and gave the first prints a whirl.
  • Many thanks to Ender5 and Giet for answering my questions early on. It helped me stay on track and forging ahead [/LIST] I was concerned about all the tuning and fiddling required on and Ender 3. I took a really long time with this and stopped any time I got frustrated. It really was pretty straight forward as long as I took my time assembling. I probably spent 4 hours total and some of that time was caused but being an idiot and not following the instructions on the video or manual.

    I hope this might help others.

    • 2

    Thanks for posting your experiences. I’m sure it will help others. (& thanks for the shoutout)