Advice for a newbie

Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Maerman@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨3dprinting@lemmy.world⁩

Hi, all. So my first ever 3D printer is on its way to me. I went with an Elegoo Centauri Carbon, partially for the option of using OpenCentauri firmware. I have been looking at various models on printables.com and Thingiverse, getting excited for the possibilities. I would just like to ask if there are any big pitfalls I should look out for as I’m starting my 3D printing adventure. What mistakes did you make when you were just starting out? What resources do you wish you were aware of earlier? What general advice can you give me?

Thanks in advance, and have a lovely day.

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Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works ⁨57⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
I thought I would introduce the lowest amount of water to my setup and get the very best bed cleaning and bought electronics grade pure isopropyl and diligently wiped my bed after every print. I had all kinds of issues with bed adhesion for months and finally figured out that some of the electronics grade stuff has some sort of additive that was lubricating my plate. It’s all 91% generic from the local drugstore now and much better results.

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PattyMcB@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I found YouTube a very useful source for tutorials, etc.

Check out CNCKitchen and MakersMuse. Someone else already suggested Zach at VoidStar Labs. He’s really fun and has a great sense of humor.

I love my Centauri carbon (I started on an Ender3 v3 and moved to a Bambu A1, and now I have the Carbon). I don’t like where the poop comes out, and I despise that it levels the whole bed every time instead of just the actual print area, so I only do that once in a while if it seems off

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- Maerman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Okay, great. Thanks for the Youtube recommendations. I’ll make some time to watch those channels, for sure.
  
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  - PattyMcB@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Oh, and there are a lot of creators in the space angry with Bambu about open source violations while still picking on “the little guy”
    
    If you’re not interested in that, just skip those videos. Stefan (CNCKitchen) acknowledged the controversy, but he doesn’t talk about it beyond that. The other two I mentioned haven’t even brought it up as far as I know
    
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c10l@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
3D printing is generally pretty easy these days. Most of the difficult things from the early days have been largely automated through the use of numerous sensors and firmware improvements, as well as better engineering and materials being used to make the printers.

That said, some things are paramount.

Most filaments absorb water (hygroscopic), and need to be properly dried before use. A quick search should make a lot of resources come up.

The printing surface should be kept clean at all times. Keep a spray bottle of isopropanol and a cloth handy. Wipe the bed after each print.

Calibrate your filaments. Grab Orca Slicer and go through the calibration procedures. Save the profile with the brand and material in the name. Some filaments will diverge depending on colour as well, so if you start seeing different results it’s worth it re-calibrating for the new colour - save it as a new profile.

Most of all, have fun! Experiment, ask as many questions as you have. Don’t be shy. Sometimes what may seem like a stupid one is actually very important and non-obvious.

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- Maerman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thanks for the thorough comment. I’m looking at filament dryers now, and I’ll definitely get some cleaning stuff as well.
  
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  - PlasticExistence@lemmy.world ⁨52⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    A basic food dehydrator does a good job with drying filament rolls (and most can dry more than one at once).
    
    The issue with most of the dedicated filament dryers is one of airflow. They get the filament rolls hot but don’t push the humid air out of the dryer. That’s not to say that they don’t work, but mostly they will work more slowly than a food dehydrator.
    
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tenacious_mucus@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Not to scare you here, but just being real. There’s so many new people in the hobby these days with printer prices getting so low, and so many get easily frustrated so easily and just blame the machine without learning the hobby….

This hobby takes a LOT of patience. Things are going to go wrong, prints are going to fail. You will have to try over and over again with different methods and tweaks. While specific printers will have their quirks, most print issues are not printer specific, so any guide to “fixing your prints” will be a good starting point. The most common reply you’ll see to an issue is “user error”- which usually is the case.

Calibrate your filaments and keep them dry. There is no “best settings for X”- they will be a good starting point, some might actually work for you without tweaks, but there is literally thousands of combinations of print material, printers and print environments…so, what works amazing for you might just be a pile of spaghetti for me! Learn the slicer software- they are super powerful now. All the settings can be overwhelming, but you’ll get there in time! Printer mfgs love to brag about print speeds, but fast almost never equals clean. In most cases just slowing down your print speeds can significantly clean things up, or even prevent failure.

If you are pulling .3mf files from any of the sites, be aware that they will have the creator’s full print settings in the file when you load it in the slicer, a lot of which probably wont work for you or might even throw errors in your slicer (bambu labs files are bad about this in non-bambu slicers)- so you’ll need to go through and check everything that changed. Some might be on purpose because of the design (top/bottom layer patterns, fuzzy skin, painted supports, etc)

This hobby is super rewarding and it’s really fun to watch things come to life, but you gotta have the patience to work and grow with a very complex machine!

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- Maerman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Not scary at all. Thank you for the thoughtful reply. It’s good to try and be realistic in my expectations. I’m excited to learn new stuff and see myself improve.
  
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LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Pick a (small, simple) project you think will be fun, and design a solution yourself.

The more projects you can design, the more useful your 3d printer will be. Yes, downloading and using models online can help solve some problems, but the real magic of 3d printing is creating a completely custom solution that only you need. Most of the time, even when I download a model someone else made, I use it as a starting point to design one myself that meets my specific needs.

Check out Zack Freedman. He is amazing at 3d printing solutions, and he genuinely wants to make you amazing as well. This is a great tutorial about how to THINK about designing prints, and then how to make it happen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcMvTfUfNXo

FreeCAD is great, but has a big learning curve. OnShape is browser based and I find it works best for me. Tinkercad is a great starting off point.

But play around and figure out what works best for you.

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- Maerman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Awesome, thanks for the advice. I’ll definitely check out his channel. Designing stuff myself still intimidates me a little, but I suppose the best way to get over that is to just do it.
  
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  - LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    youtu.be/d3qGQ2utl2A
    
    This is a great series of videos. It’s for Fusion 360, which is also free, but the lessons work for most software. It starts off easy and works up to more complex stuff.
    
    youtu.be/E14m5hf6Pvo
    
    This is a great tutorial for FreeCAD, but it starts out kinda complex already, so I would recommend this after you start to figure out a little bit first.
    
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neidu3@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Calibrations are important, but some of the defaults work well out of the box. Don’t expect perfection from the start, aim for “good enough” and improve over time.

Bed leveling (tramming) is mostly automated these days, since it’s such a vital step

Extrusion multiplier (a.k.a. flow rate) needs to be done on a per filament basis, but it’ll probably work fine with defaults. Dialing this in is useful, but not super critical in the beginning.

Pressure advance… eh, no comment, as I haven’t mastered this yet. Suffice to say my petg prints could be better, and this is the likely reason

Beyond that, filaments vary in quality. Try to stick to one brand and type that works well for you and your needs and once you’ve mastered that, try others.

And learn blender (or anything else that can export to .stl or other supported formats). It turns your printer into a proper household tool you wouldn’t be able to live without. My house has so many functional prints that I wouldn’t be able to go back to not being able to print whatever doodad I need.
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- Maerman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thank you, that’s all good to know. I’m looking at filament dryers now, and the prices don’t seem too outlandish.
  
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fork@feddit.online ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Are you me? I also just ordered my first printer which is a Centauri Carbon, lol. Should hopefully be coming in today.

I’ve just been looking up guides on youtube. This one seemed pretty informative.

I’ve also been reading about filaments and properly storing them, which might help you to look into.

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- Maerman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That’s a funny coincidence. Happy printing! Let me know how it goes. But yeah, some other commenters suggested I get a filament dryer, which is probably a good idea.
  
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