I intend for this post to have a list of printers and other hardware I have to be able to reference easily.
3d Printers
Anycubic Photon MonoX 6K – This is my resin printer that I got with an Anycubic curing station. I have added a magnetic build plate which required printing a z-stop adjustment. This is the only modification I have done to this print. This is a workhorse that I have had to do very little to. Just one FEP change required in 2 years. I’m not printing daily but have printed a fair amount. I have it inside of a cabinet in the basement with a simple desktop heating fan hooked up to an Inkbird Temperature Switch to keep the temp around 27C while printing. I also have a small set of flexible ducting with a computer fan to vent to the nearby window.
I have a love/hate relationship with the resin printing as I hate the cleanup process. But man do they make some beautiful prints. Fortunately, I also do not seem to have a sensitivity to the resin. I wear gloves, goggles and a respirator but sometimes stuff still gets on my skin.
Creality Ender 3 Max – This is my main workhorse printer and it has been heavily modified. I bought this in spring of 2021 to replace my Monoprice Mini Delta. I wanted to be able to print entire buckets (helmets) in one go. This can JUST do that. Not that I print that many helmets.
Modifications I have made to this printer in chronological order:
- BLTouch – I had to recompile the Marlin firmware to get this to work fully. I did not enjoy having to do that, but I did get it done.
- Second Z-Axis screw – This is just added with a splitter cable so the firmware isn’t actually controlling two screws. This was a NECESSARY upgrade because the gantry was too long for a single screw.
- Anti-backlash nuts – This was added with the second Z-Axis screw and made the printer actually usable.
- Magnetic build plate – I just used Creality’s textured magnetic build plate that I picked up at MicroCenter, less thermal mass than the glass but huge upgrade for me when dealing with printing PETG.
- Quieter fans – I think the brand was Orion, quality of life, no impact to printing.
- Klipper – I have klipper running on a pi attached to the printer and the quality of life of my printing is way higher than with the stock firmware.
- BigTreeTech SKR Mini E3 v3 – I wanted to get the motors quieter as this printer is in my office and down the hall from our bedroom. When I swapped the board out I jumped straight into using klipper and added the external screen.
- BigTreeTech PiTFT 50 v2.1 – This small touch screen in a custom made housing for control at the printer.
- Microswiss Direct Drive NG M3201 – It took me a minute to confirm that this would work with the Ender Max 3. The NEO had come out before I got this upgrade so searching was impossible. I ended up picking this up at RMRRF 2024 after talking to the people from Microswiss. I kind of hate the BLTouch placement. There’s basically zero room for any print failure and I have broken the bracket (that you have to print) twice from the BLTouch hitting plastic. I think there is some limiting factors because of this specific printer. I lost the filament runout sensor capability with this upgrade until I figure out relocating the sensor, but the increase in capability with this upgrade is well worth it.
- Replaced the thermistor (things break sometimes)
Monoprice Mini Delta – This printer was the first printer I got in early 2016. It was an absolute steal for $160. I mean it kind of was hot garbage as it came but I entered the hobby ready to tinker and this was a necessity. There was a very active community on Facebook that worked VERY hard to fix a lot that was wrong with the printer. I got that thing to print beautifully in PLA but it had a small build plate and I had to constantly fight entropy with the printer. Only had one thermal runaway with it that thankfully I was sitting next to it at the time. I did grow to love it quite a bit and after I got the Ender 3 Max I gave it to one of my friends kids after giving him a rundown of it and how to print.