RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Hi Guys
So i have a Creality Ender3 which is my first 3D printer and i love it to bits.
I am getting some really great results from it, although i only noticed just how much i am using it when i got the electricity bill this month! Oops!

Anyway i have seen some upgrades which look interesting and wondered if anyone had any advice.

- Glass bed already purchased so that is a good cheap upgrade £18.99

- Aluminium Extrusion upgrade???
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Creality-3D- ... 0168.m2941

- All metal hot end?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Creality3D-C ... Swn6RboAC2

-Ultimate Hot end?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Creality-Ult ... Sw4QdbnNGB

Question is should i, why and what improvement will i really see from such an upgrade?

Hi Will,
The first one is a no brainer, if you look around you can get them for about £7. Due to the filament angle of entry it actually cut a groove in mine.
As for the other two, I’d say, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!!
Cheers
Wayne


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As above, the standard hotends work perfectly well, and replacement nozzles are cheap.

Things that I would buy, and have done myself, is a supply of nozzles and 0.4mm drills. It allows you to be back up and running in 30 minutes when you get a blocked nozzle rather than waiting days. Blocked nozzles can be unblocked with a blowtorch (even a cookery one will do), and a quick run through with a drill makes them like new again.

As for the glass bed, I go down to Ikea and get mirror tiles. Of course, I do have a 12-inch by 12-inch bed on the cr10. But I imagine you could cut one down to fit the Ender with a simple glass cutter and a straightedge. I got 6 mirror tiles for $10 USD.

As for the rest, I agree with Wayne, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I followed Wibb's philosophy and laid in the supply of extra .4 mm nozzles, and I also picked up a couple of other sizes just to experiment with. So far I found that the .6 millimeter nozzle seems to work a lot better for the composite wood filament.

Double post. However, this does raise the age-old question, if this is supposed to be a "smart" phone, how come I'm constantly saying, "Stupid phone!"?

Wow, all the bling looks good!
I think titanium for what you're doing doesn't warrant the expense, it would literally be for the kudos.
Where I work, we are designing upgrades for the creality, I'll check if we have an upgrade for it. I know we have the volcano hotend but that's for bigger, faster prints that extrude and lay massive amounts of filament. We have three at work, I'll let you know. Materials apart from nozzles are usually not required if you're only printing abs/pla, you'll need hardened steel nozzles for carbon fibre etc but brass will last you if you're not using abrasives, brass fill etc.

Most important thing on the CR10 is to make sure the ptfe tube is seated properly in the print head, and the tube doesn't back out - those retainers they come aren't great at gripping the ptfe tube, and you might do well to find a better one on amazon or ebay - they are standard size compressed air quick connects, readily available. If you can fix this, the expensive hot ends won't be much of an upgrade unless you want to print exotic stuff.
I've also seen ptfe spray suggested, but if you stick with the standard PTFE throat that shoudn't be needed.
I've seen a lot of US reviews rave about Capricorn bowden tube having a tighter bore and a more slippery surface finish, but that stuff seems quite expensive over here? It might help with feeding TPU filament if you want to print your own tyres, tho possibly you might need a better extruder that constrains the filament closer to the extruder gear than the stock ones do.

Damn, I'm just gonna 'fess up,
If it's a problem admin feel free to remove this post but I work for e3d online based here in Oxfordshire, England and we sell a lot of this stuff. Capricorn PTFE is deffo premium but for a hobby printer not much more use than standard. We have a Bowden and collet clip to stop PTFE tube slippage that I use on all my printers in the print farm. Basically, if you guys need any advice, if I can help I will and if not I have an army of engineers and designers at work that I can ask, so feel free.
I am not promoting the company I work for, hope this is o.k.

Interesting stuff guys. I Will look up the tube clips and will purchase some nozzles.
Fancy trying finer nozzles for high detail work anyway.

I will eventually play with more abrasive filaments e.g. wood etc for sure, so may invest in upgrade nozzles for.those respects.

Question, the nozzles on a Creality CR10 & CR10s will they fit a Ender 3? Probably a good question for you Wayne haha