After seeing the price tag on these babies and the trouble you are having I am not inclined to buy one soon.
I got mine (extruder, mounting plate, and all-metal hotend for less than $100). And, Micro Swiss is very highly regarded in the industry.
I am wondering if expensive hot ends like the Micro Swiss are worth the price.
I bought my Ender 3 pro for about double that including shipping. It was $274 can. in 2019.
I honestly don’t consider an extruder + all-metal hotend + installation kit for $100 to be expensive. The default Creality hotend is $30, but it’s not all-metal and doesn’t include an extruder. A dual gear extruder would be another $30. That may, or may not, have mounting hardware. In any case, it’s $60, which isn’t that much less than what I paid. And, I got a better overall configuration.
You can’t compare 2018 pre-pandemic prices to 2022 pandemic prices.
I’m just showing what a cheap-skate I am. Actually since I put in the new fan and changed a faulty thermistor my old printer is running better than it ever did. I really am thinking of a 32 bit board though.
A 32-bit board is a good, relatively inexpensive upgrade. Now, if you are prepared to go the Klipper route (which requires a Raspberry Pi, which are expensive right now, and scarce) then you very likely can keep using the 8-bit board.
In full disclosure I probably have enough parts to start building another one. I’m on my second board, my third extruder and my third hot end.
Are you suggesting that I get a raspberry pi and forgo the 32 bit board? I see they really run the gamut in price according to their features. What would I need and could it do the illusive M600 command in Prusa?
I’m not suggesting anything. I’m merely pointing out options. I have gone the Klipper route, but only you can decide if that’s the right path for you. My understanding is that Klipper doesn’t natively support M600 but, much like OctoPrint, it supports plug-in macros and that there is at least 1 for M600. I can’t answer questions about PrusaSlicer. I haven’t used it in almost 2 years.
If I decided to try this route which pi would be adequate? This is Canadian amazon https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=raspberry+pi&crid=3TKQNDQL7UBBI&sprefix=raspberry+pi%2Caps%2C85&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
I would recommend a Pi 3B+ or Pi 4.
I bought my Pi Zero 2 W from here Raspberry Pi Kits | vilros.com | Free Shipping – Vilros.com when shipping was added to the cost this was the cheapest I found that had stock.
Nero 3D favors lower end Pi’s. The 1 thing he cautions in particular is to not expect to run a camera if using a Pi Zero.
The don’t recommend running Octoprint on a Pi Zero but I have the new Pi Zero 2 which just came out recently. I’m running a Pi camera on it without any issues. Kind of wished I would have bought a Pi 3B or Pi 4 as the Zero only has to type C USB ports and one is for the power supply. Oh well lesson learned.
I really don’t understand what the pi board does and doesn’t do as far as working on an Ender 3 pro.
With an 8 bit processor.
@Gramps is correct that OctoPrint won’t run well on a Pi Zero, but Klipper will if you use it with fluidPi or Mailsail.
The way Klipper works is it relieves the printer’s control board (MCU) from the burden of interpreting the gcode. Klipper moves that job to the Raspberry Pi, which is much more powerful than virtually any printer control board. Even a Pi Zero is more powerful. FluiddPi and MailSail are 2 web interface options that allow you control Klipper.
So, Klipper is used to create a very, very basic firmware that’s loaded onto the printer’s control board. That firmware is only capable of talking to Klipper on the Pi and sending commands to the printer’s hardware. It can easily run on an 8-bit control board.
Klipper, running on the Pi, reads and interprets the gcode file, then sends the interpreted commands to the firmware on the control board, when then runs the printer.
FluiddPi or Mainsail allow the user to talk to Klipper, telling it which gcode files to load, which ones to print, etc. It lets the user monitor print jobs, cancel jobs, and other tasks. The trick is that fluiddpi and MainSail are very lightweight interfaces, so they can run on a Pi Zero, whereas a Zero would struggle to run OctoPrint.