Unboxing
First remove all of the pieces from the packaging, you will probably have the following. (ender 3 and clones)
1 The assembled printer base
2 1 right z axis upright profile
3 1 left z axis upright profile (this may have the z endstop switch attached)
4 The assembled gantry
5 1 gantry profile
6 Various bags of bolts, parts and the tools to assemble
7 The spool holder
8 The z axis leadscrew and motor
Square the frame
First clear yourself a workspace and sort the various components into some sort of order, the user manual will lay out the order of operation.
Take the assembled base and lay it on its side so you can access the screw holes that you will attach the upright profiles to, Be careful of the heat bed as it will move and possibly jam your fingers, Next take the first z axis upright profile and place it into position as indicated by the manual. Add the 2 screws and tighten to hold the upright profile but don’t over tighten at this stage, Proceed to add the second upright profile the same way, now take the assembled gantry and slide it over the 2 upright profiles followed by the top gantry profile. Remember not to fully tighten screws at this stage.
Grab a set square of some description maybe from you child’s school bag if you don’t have a metal one in the garage. Set the square on the base extrusion and square the z axis profile to it and tighten the 2 screw from below, it may help to slide to base over the edge of your workspace to gain access. Repeat with the other side profile.
Next take your square and place it against the z axis profile and the top gantry profile once square tighten those 2 screws and repeat with the other side, now your frame should be square. Double check the previously assembled parts and if happy fully tighten the screws. Now follow the manual and complete the build of your printer the important part is done.
Very Important
Before you plug the printer into the mains power check that the power supply is set to the voltage of your country.
Once you are happy that the voltage is correct plug the printer in and turn it on, From the screen check that all fans work and the printer moves in the expected directions, Next heat the bed you don’t have to set it on full, 50 degrees will be enough, you are looking for the temperature to change on the screen. Next heat the nozzle, Once the heating completes set to zero to cool down if everything works as expected – Happy Days!
Reference Video by Bryan Vines
Level the Bed
In order to get your prints to stick to the build plate it needs to be level, This does not mean level with the floor or the desk that the printer is sitting on, when people mention level the bed they mean so the nozzle is the same distance from the build plate in all 4 corners, this is technically called tramming the bed. To level the bed get yourself a piece of paper I found that an old till receipt works best as its thinner than copier paper.
First tighten down the 4 wheels on the heat bed so they are reasonably compressed but still allow you to compress them further should the need arise. Next heat the bed to 60 degrees and home the printer, you want the nozzle to be just above the heat bed should you find that you have a large gap between the nozzle and heat bed or if the nozzle collides with the heat bed you need to adjust your z end stop by loosening the screws with an Allen key and move the end stop either up or down, if the nozzle collides with the bed you need to move the end stop up, if there is a large gap you need to move the end stop down. Once you are happy with the gap you can move on. From your printer screen select home all, once homing is complete select control, move and 1mm then turn the knob until you reach zero be very careful as the nozzle approaches the bed if it looks like is going to collide with the bed go back to the previous menu and select 0.01mm.
As the nozzle approaches the bed slide your paper in the gap between the build plate and the nozzle, continue bringing the nozzle down towards zero while moving the paper back and forth, you are looking for the nozzle to bite the paper. If you reach zero and the nozzle did not bite the paper, adjust the wheels and bring the heat bed up to the nozzle, if the nozzle bites the paper before you reach zero tighten the wheels to move the heat bed away from the nozzle.
You are looking for enough tension so that you can pull the receipt but not push it, (Note: I use a pei textured build plate if you don’t you wont need as much bite on the paper) once you are happy go back to your screen and disable the stepper motors this will allow you to move the x carriage with your hand.
Move the x carriage to the front left corner insert the paper and adjust the wheel below till you get a bite on the paper that you are happy with, next move to the right corner. Be careful while moving the x carriage to the next corner as it could start to scratch your build plate, if this is the case tighten the wheel at the corner you are moving towards, once at the next corner tighten or loosen the wheel until you get the right amount of tension on the paper then continue with the remaining corners. Once you have adjusted all 4 corners go around again, as when you adjust one of the wheels it usually adjusts the geometry of the bed in the opposite corner, there is no prescribed amount of times you need to go around the bed. You just continue until you are happy that all 4 corners have the same tension on the paper.
Reference Video by tr3nD maker
Load the filament
By this point you should have your filament spool holder mounted to your printer. Open the filament box and remove the plastic bag containing the roll of filament, Cut open the plastic bag and remove the roll of filament from the bag, you will notice that the end of the filament is tucked into the holes at the edge of the spool, pull the filament from the hole and be very careful not to let go of the filament once it leaves the holes. If you let go of the filament it will unwind from the spool and could cause a tangle. Next place the roll of filament onto the spool holder keeping hold of the loose end. With a set of filament cutters cut a few inches off the filament in your hand, aim to cut at a 45 degree angle as this will help you while you feed the filament into the extruder. Squeeze the arm on the extruder and insert the filament into the hole this maybe tricky. You could be lucky and feed the filament straight through the extruder into the ptfe tube but most of the time you will have to give the filament a little twist to line it up with the ptfe tube. Once you have the filament entered into the tube go to your screen select temperature > hotend then turn the knob until you hit 220 degrees and push the knob. After a few minutes your nozzle will be at temperature, go back to the extruder squeeze the lever and push the filament until you see it coming from the nozzle. At this point you are ready to print, now you need to heat the bed to 60 degrees. It is probable that you received an sd card with the printer this card usually contains sliced file that are ready to print for you to test. Insert the sd card into the printer, the slot could be on the back of the screen or it could be on the electronics enclosure check the manual, Once the card is inserted go to the screen push the knob and scroll until you find sd card or something similar, push the knob to enter the folder where you will see the pre-sliced files. Select a file you would like to print and hit print. Assuming all goes well you can sit back and watch within an hour or so you should have your very first print sitting on the build plate. Congratulations
Now What
Well you can print the files on the sd card but you will soon run out of files to print. So where do I get files to print? There are several sites on the internet that are repositories for people to place their creations so other people can print their work.
Thingiverse.com was very popular website at one time but they ran into problems, the website would crash regularly and became very slow so people moved away to other sites. Don’t get me wrong people still use it today but not as much as days gone by. Thingiverse is operated by ultimaker who also developed the slicer Ultimaker Cura : http://www.thingiverse.com
Printables.com is a website that is operated by Prusa Research, Prusa Research was founded as a one-man startup in 2012 by Josef Prusa, a Czech hobbyist, maker and inventor – and now one of the most famous names in the 3D printing industry. He developed the prusa 3d printers and the famous slicer, Prusaslicer : http://www.printables.com
Makerworld.com is a website operated by bambu labs the developers of bambu lab printers and the slicer bamboo studio it is quite new and does not contain as many files as the others however that is changing day by day, You don’t need a bambu lab printer to use the website as you can download the stl files on your computer and slice using the slicer of your choice, there is nothing stopping you from downloading bambu studio and adding your printer profile into bamboo studio that way you can sent the files direct to the slicer. : http://www.makerworld.com
Crealitycloud.com operated by creality, Creality Cloud is the world’s first all-in-one 3D printing platform that offers 3D model trading, cloud slicing, remote control printers and many more features to make 3D printing easier and smarter for over a million makers. Personally I found this website a bit short on models but that will change with time. : http://www.crealitycloud.com
Cults3d.com Cults is a 1st independent marketplace that connects designers and people who want to make some real objects with 3D printing, CNC machining and laser cutting technologies. You can find free models to download however quite a lot are paid Cults also have a design on demand service so you can have a model designed for a price. I have not used the design service so can’t vouch for it. : https://cults3d.com
Yeggi.com is an stl search engine that indexes other websites and displays the results on their website, Rather than searching every website individually search yeggi select the model you like and yeggi will transfer you to that website for you to download the model. : http://www.yeggi.com
This is just a small selection of the main repositories there are countless others out there that are not as well known just search stl files in google
I have the stl file that I want to print now what do I do?
First thing you need to do is download and install a slicer program on your computer, there are several available for you to choose from and it’s a matter of personal choice which you use, as a matter of fact most people have several installed as some offer better features than others.
Ultimaker cura : https://ultimaker.com/software/ultimaker-cura/
UltiMaker Cura is free, easy-to-use 3D printing software trusted by millions of users. Fine-tune your 3D model with 400+ settings for the best slicing and printing results.
Prusa slicer : https://www.prusa3d.com/en/page/prusaslicer_424/
PrusaSlicer includes community profiles for 3rd party printers. BUT only with Original Prusa printers you will get 180+ tested and auto-updated profiles for the most popular filaments and resins.
Orca Slicer : https://github.com/SoftFever/OrcaSlicer/releases
OrcaSlicer is originaly forked from Bambu Studio, it was previously known as BambuStudio-SoftFever.
Bambu Studio is forked from PrusaSlicer by Prusa Research, which is from Slic3r by Alessandro Ranellucci and the RepRap community. Orca Slicer incorporates a lot of features from SuperSlicer by @supermerill
Bambu Studio : https://bambulab.com/en/download/studio
Bambu Studio is an open-source, cutting-edge, feature-rich slicing software. It contains project-based workflows, systematically optimized slicing algorithms, and an easy-to-use graphical interface, bringing users an incredibly smooth printing experience.
I keep hearing the word slicer what is it and what does it do?
Basically a slicer takes your stl file and slices it into single two dimensional lines, it then turns those lines into gcode which is understood by your 3d printer. Gcode is essentially the instructions for your 3d printer to recreate the model.