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3DPrinting @lemmy.world
sweetgemberry @lemmy.blahaj.zone

How do I make this work? Or should I give up?

I bought one on a whim about 6 years ago. I printed my first print shortly after setting it up and.. the print failed. Plastic spewed from the nozzle and made a tangled mess. I looked into it some more, continued to try to get it to work. Next the plastic doesn't sit on the bed. Once more plastic spewing from the nozzle and a tangled mess.

I kept trying over the years, bed levelling, nozzle cleaning, third party software patching, purchasing a level measuring device, new spools, higher quality spools, new bed covers. Over and over the prints failed and I ended up, every time, the owner of a freshly produced, still warm plastic spider web. Once or twice I managed to get a print that looked at least somewhat like what I was trying to print. But it'd still be marked by poor layer distancing, bumps, fucked up layers where it didn't adhere properly, and just generally a poor, unsatisfactory quality.

Please understand that I've owned a 3D printer for 6 years and don't know the first thing about them. I must admit I didn't realise how much learning I'd have to do when I purchased one and I'm not the brightest when it comes to this kind of thing. I also have a learning disability that makes it hard for me to pick new things up.

I merely assumed I'd be able to print small items I needed or wanted for various purposes and pick up a part time hobby along the way. But my experience has just been miserable. I don't have the money to purchase a better printer, more up to date one, or to really fix any major issues that might plague my current one. And it's made me want to give up the idea of 3D printing altogether.

The printer I have is a monoprice maker select. It uses PLA. I'm not able to check right now but I'm pretty sure the temps I use are ~200 / ~60. The bed is absolutely destroyed by failing to use glue as an adhesive and the bed level being so off that the printer drove it's nozel into it and leaving a permanent dent deep into the bed.

It's in a pretty poor condition but theres not a lot I can do about it unless the solution is extremely cheap or free. This is kind of a last ditch effort to figure out how to use the thing before I either give it away or throw it out. I'm pretty disappointed by the whole affair to be honest. I really liked the idea of 3D printing.

So, I'm here to ask, how do I even begin to make this thing work? Or should I just give up?

15 comments

  • What firmware and version are you running? Marlin? Have you ever reflashed your firmware? Typically you need to tweak the settings in your firmware to turn some features on. For me I had to edit the firmware out of the box to enable mesh bed leveling logic and to add the BL touch adapter. BL touch is used by the printer to measure the distance from the print head to the plate and it auto adjusts the Z-stop.... You absolutely need a solid mount for it because it needs to take as accurate a reading as possible......

  • Unfortunately, with the factors you mentioned, you might want to cut your losses because I'm guessing you'll just become more frustrated if you try to get more out of it. There is a learning curve for 3D printing, especially with older models like the one you have. The quality of printers has vastly improved for beginners in the last six years. Without the ability/funds to upgrade to a newer printer, what you have may be more trouble than it's worth because it would likely take a lot of effort and learning to get it working decently. You might also need new filament since anything old is likely brittle after absorbing moisture over the years.

    That said, I wouldn't give up on 3D printing entirely. It can be a great experience. Maybe find a local makerspace that can help you or that has 3D printers of their own to learn on.

    • Thank you for responding. I had a feeling that would be the case.

      Can I ask what it is about the older models that make them so difficult for beginners compared to new models?

      • Bed adhesion is usually the biggest issue, often attributable to the z height being off, and a lot of older printers didn't have z-axis sensors or the software to accommodate for the variances, so it involved the old paper test. Depending on the printer, it might shake itself out of its z height setting while printing. A lot of people ended up spending as much as the cost of their printer upgrading with after market parts to try to resolve some of these issues.

        I haven't used the Monoprice before, but my research says that Monoprice doesn't make their own printers. They just rebrand someone else's. So the Monoprice Maker Select appears to be a rebranded Wanhao Duplicator i3, which looks like it came out sometime in 2016. So while you might have bought it six years ago, the actual printer design is much older and missing out on possibly 9 years worth of innovations.

        If you can eventually afford to replace it with something else, there are some sub-$400 printers out now that might give you a much nicer experience. I started with an Ender 3 v2, which was a pain, similar to what you experienced. I upgraded to a Sovol SV06, which was great (and recommended to me by a professional with a print farm and wide variety of printers). Now I'm on a Prusa CORE One, but I don't recommend spending big until you know you're really into 3D printing. If you do consider buying a newer printer at some point, I'd recommend seeing if you can see someone else's in action so you can experience the difference. Makerspaces might be a good resource for this.

  • Oh man... Sounds like when I dipped into the hobby..... I quickly learned that there's different aspects to it. If you just want to print stuff you need to sink money into a decent printer like a flash forge adventurer 5m. Set n forget.... It'll print you want you want with little fuss. If you get in on the cheap then the machine itself is a whole other aspect that you need to learn and tune.....and with tolerances being so tight in 3d printing .... It's hard!!! The number 1 thing that fails prints 98% of the time is first layer adhesion.
    This can be corrected if you can enable mesh bed leveling.... No print surface is perfectly flat. Mesh bed leveling measured 9-12 different points on the bed surface and adjusts for the non-flatness as it prints. The BL touch adapter makes that process easy- but not cheap. As for your print surface get a glass sheet to print on like a borosilicate glass plate from Geeetech. Make sure you adjust your Z-stop!! The other aspect that messed with me and really through me for loop was the feeder motors and if they're feeding enough material. Others mentions step calibration.... definitely do this. For me, the arm within the motor that presses the filament against the wheel had a hailline crack that I couldn't see.... It wasn't applying enough pressure and the printer kept under extruding even though it calibrated right. I swapped those arms out for metal ones and never looked back..... But that cracked arm really left me frustrated for weeks until I just unassembled the motor to discover the crack. It's only a machine.... You can win! Get a few good prints, don't be too ambitious yet, and get your confidence up.... It's a good fun hobby!

    • Thanks for replying. It gives me hope that I might be able to make something of this.

      I have a bl auto leveller attachment. It didn't work because I couldn't attach it when the bracket it came with didn't fit my printer. So I was reliant on printing one with a printer that didn't work. I kinda just ended up zip tying it to the printer head and hoping for the best but to be honest I don't understand how it works or how to use it.

      I do really need to replace the bed on it. It's in poor condition and it's still the same bed that it came with 6 years ago. I've heard glass is great and adhesion definitely is an issue I keep having.

      As for that last one I don't know how I'd check the extrusion rate. I know it isn't physically broken because I've pulled it apart several times and nothing looks cracked or broken internally.

      • Second on the glass print bed. You can put it right on top of the existing bed and fasten it with binder clips. If it's thick enough it will span any flaws in the existing bed and be nearly perfectly flat so you have a consistent platform to level instead of dips and waves.

        Just adjust the z stop, and then print single layer leveling prints and adjust the bed slowly while it prints. The biggest things to watch for are where it prints too thin, it will look squeezed out, and where it isn't close enough it won't stick. It seems like a lot of work but after a few runs it starts to look better. Doing other simpler leveling test prints are frustrating because all you see is the end result.

        Another thing that I've run into that resulted in leveling issues is if your z heights are different from one side to the other. It's not obvious, but if the z screw of the left is different than the right, you can level all day but it will still try lifting on one side. Run the zaxis up to about 20mm on the left and then move the head to the right and check the height there. A hiccup or crash in the past could have gotten this out of line, but you can manually bring them back to square by manually turning the screw and get things back parallel.

        Last thing that really messes with things when you're troubleshooting and then abandoning the printer for awhile is filament getting wet. You can get things dead on, but if the filament has been unprotected for a few days, the slight swelling will fight you when you're already frustrated.

        Then, the last thing is measuring extrusion. Raise the head up like 100 mm, Mark the filament 70mm above the head, and use the controls and tell it to extrude 10mm at a time. Do this 3 times and then measure how far away your mark is. By the math, it should be 40mm away from the head. If you're more than 1mm either way, you're probably going to consistently see the issues your mentioning and no amount of need leveling is going to solve it. Technically a simple fix, but there is some math and code to send to the printer and someone here can easily help along the way.

  • I don't think I have the necessary experience required to properly diagnose your issue(s), but I troubleshoot hardware and void warranties for a living, so hopefully my general advice can be useful:

    The obvious part is to start troubleshooting from one end. And when "nothing" works and it never has, the correct end to start from is the end with the fewest variables, so we're talking very basics here. And from that you can tackle each problem as you properly confirm them.

    So the first thing I'd do is to check that your temp settings are good for your filament. And can you verify that the temp shown is in fact the actual temp? Could be a busted thermistor. All checks out? Well, your hot end is probably fine.

    Next up, are you able to confirm that the extruded amount of plastic matches what should be extruded? I had a recent issue of overextruding myself, and if this isn't dialed in correctly it can get really messy, especially with PETG.

    Are the steppers moving the correct amount of degrees? A stepper should move only a fixed amount of degrees per step. If it is unable to do so for a full rotation, it's a bad stepper.

    Any chance the nozzle is damaged? If it's out of shape in the literal sense, it will be unable to lay down plastic in a precise manner.

    And then there's the part I always hated: Heatbed leveling. First, your heatbed needs to be level relative to your X and Y. The tiniest inaccuracy will make the whole project a nightmare. Precision calipers are your friend here.

    Now, heatbed temperature, check the same stuff as you did with the nozzle. Correct temp set for the material? And is this the actual temp?

    Now it's time to ensure the Z offset of your nozzle is correct. Too high and it'll just string instead of what it's supposed to do. Too low and you end up with what I call nozzlesnot which can cause symptoms similar to a damaged nozzle, which might also have stringing as an end result.

    If you made it this far, your printer is probably mechanically fine, so it might be environmental factors such as ambient temperatures. Also, I remember back in the day that some had issues with various filament manufacturers being really sloppy when making filament, resulting in varying diameter.

    I don't do PLA myself, so I won't comment on print surface or your temperature choices. I think glass was popular back in the day, at least.

    Anyway, I hope this helps. Either way, I hope you get to the bottom of it.

    Oh, last addition: Sunk cost fallacy is a bitch. You've kept at it for six years, so I guess you really want to make printing work for you, but you might want to consider whether you should go for a different printer if you're not getting anywhere. Prusa Core One was really fun (and easy!) to build if you want my personal recommendation, and it took away a lot of the calibration drudgery that made me temporarily step away from the hobby in 2012.

15 comments