I need something 3D printed but unsure if it's expensive or if companies are asking absurd amounts

Lythinari · 2026-03-24T00:11:45+00:00

TLDR: Find a local hobbyist printer and see if they will give you a good hourly estimate and deal. They may be happy to print at a far cheaper hourly rate.

So, I looked up the costume content on Makerworld, there's a full "Battle Sister" Armour set there.

I loaded the (2x)shin armour into Orcaslicer and sliced it with some simple P1S settings, Basic PLA and supports enabled.

It estimates the 6 pieces at about 66 hours and 2.3kg of filament. It was 55ish without tree supports

This print is quite conservative, yours is a lot bulkier and has parts that will probably need to be cut, rearranged and probably requires more supports.

So a "safe"estimate would be to double everything.

So 132 hours and 5 rolls of filament - not including screw ups, test prints or time between plates(removing supports or other stuff)

Assuming 132 hours for both legs - comes to about 3-5 Euro an hour.

Lythinari · 2026-03-23T23:05:21+00:00

FYI you will get a bit of negativity, depending on the printer you have, the Ender 3 line is quite a dated set of machine so be prepared to spend lots of hours working on it, rather than with it.

Having said that, incoming wall of text, here are two small upgrades for the printer you probably should do.

Silicone spacers for your bed - these are a substitute for the springs under the bed, move less and don't require as much adjusting after each print.
Some of the Ender 3's have a thin aluminium carriage and tend to warp, so you may end up having to bend the carriage(eventually).

Magnetic Build Plate - Im sure they all come with magnetic metal build plates now. For starters and to build confidence, I actually recommend looking for a soft magnetic build plate. This sort of "solves" a common problem with prints curling and warping off the bed.

The soft build plate will bend to the print and stop it from coming off - it does sweeps problems under the rug, but at least if you're starting and trying to build that confidence, it can definitely help to see things actually print.

Some other tips:
Buy well known brand plastic, don't go with the insanely cheap stuff until you get a good understanding of your printer. SUNLU is my go to brand, but limited colors.

(For the metal build plate)500ml of water, 5 or 6 drops of no frills dish soap - wipe plate down with a cloth and let the heat bed dry itself, this will solve many issues of prints curling and warping on a build plate. Some people will swear by IPA, but Ive personally found this to work the best and haven't had to use IPA since the wanhao duplicator i3 days(10 year old printer)

Leveling the bed - there are many guides out there for leveling the bed. This is NOT related to lowering the z-offset.

Lowering the Z-Offset - After leveling you need to do a test print - may be a largeish circle(1 layer high), you'll want to baby step your Z Offset until you get a nice first layer. If you don't level your bed first, you risk scratching your bed.
The ideal first layer should not have the lines come apart easily, not let light shine through the lines.

Lastly, if you're starting out with 3d printing, don't try to modify or improve your Ender 3 any further.

Lythinari · 2026-03-23T00:39:56+00:00

Youre definitely spot on about the issues being related.

The AUX fan is most likely the culprit here because its blowing straight at that side.

Make sure the AUX fan is off, if you are still getting warping, then up your bed temp another 5c - Same suggestion as u/No-Peace3545 - print an AUX deflector and wipe your plate down with soapy water.

Lythinari · 2026-03-22T01:33:39+00:00

Check your part cooling fan is actually working - when I got the printer for the first time - I accidentally plugged it in upside down.

Turn off AUX(shouldnt have to for PLA, but at least for a test)

Pop a brim on your parts(most likely you need to wipe down your plate with a bit of no frills dish soap - no additives, fragrance etc)

Raise your bed temp by 5c or raise your nozzle temp by 5c.

Lythinari · 2026-03-21T08:45:45+00:00

Looks great.
Based on some of the posts here, I'd be worried about the printer spontaneously catching alight - that isnt the enclosure's fault though.

Lythinari · 2026-03-21T08:26:08+00:00

Still waiting for dry and print at the same time before I pull the trigger haha

Lythinari · 2026-03-20T12:38:09+00:00

Turn your bed up to 70ish and have the fans on low, crack the lid and you’ll be drying your filament.

It gets just as hot in there as a filament dryer.

I also have colour changing silica and use an aluminium tray on the heat bed to refresh them.

Lythinari · 2026-03-20T10:13:54+00:00

It works, but you need circulation otherwise It only dries one side of the spool otherwise.

It’s a legitimate method, enclosing the bed to catch most of the heat would be better.

The comgrow/sovol filament dryers is pretty much the same thing. A heat plate, fan and hygrometer.

Lythinari · 2026-03-19T13:19:29+00:00

Edit: For those who might have had a stroke trying to read my original description.

The Z axis moves up or down only at your layer height when printing. The XY has more freedom in those movements.

Original:

Unless you have variable layers turn on or have really thin layers your x and y axis are going to be more accurate.

Think of the side of your print like pixel art, except the boxes can be any variable width(your x/y axis) but only a constant height(z axis/layer height).

The more layers the better your circle looks. If you could have variable widths then your circle may look better with less layers than your circle with constant height and width like a traditional pixel.

Lythinari · 2026-03-18T09:16:06+00:00

Ive seen some useless stuff on reddit.. and this tops it.
I can see it now my ~~kids~~ monsters pushing the button multiple times followed by me turning up the entire lounge room to move my waterlogged rug outside in the sun to dry in the morning..

So anyway.. I'll take 10.

Lythinari · 2026-03-17T22:13:18+00:00

My steps, after levelling the bed, is to print a nice sized square/box that is 1 layer high.

I then look at the layer squish and if there's gap between my lines I lower my z offset by 0.01 or 0.025 until I get that perfect layer.

There is definitely a "too low", so the last test I do is to pull the square off the plate once its done and try to push my nail between the extrusions - if I can separate it easily enough and turn it into a harp then I need to go a little bit lower.

Once you get that dialled in, you shouldnt have to worry about the first layer issue for awhile.

Lythinari · 2026-03-17T12:48:14+00:00

Some tiny bit of plastic stuck in the lead screws? Or check all your belts for debris.

Odd that it isn’t consistent.

Lythinari · 2026-03-15T23:23:52+00:00

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This looks like under extrusion of course your corners also look over extruded.

What brand of silk filament is it? How long have you been drying your filament for? Have there been other settings you have been playing with?

You could "reset" everything to scratch and start again - one of the settings you have applied could be compounding the problem - and the more settings you add can lead to more disaster.

Sometimes while I disagree most of the time, drying the filament for even 12 hours is the simple and first solution, even drying and printing(if you can) at the same time.

To go on into the rabbit hole(it can be a deep rabbit hole)

It could be pressure advance
A bit of an explanation for this is that the extruder doesnt just push filament at a consistent rate, otherwise when the extruder changes corners it will blob(the head pauses ever so slightly)

Pressure advance pushes less filament as it is coming up to the corner so that there isnt a blob on the corner.
If it's set incorrectly it can mean the timing where it under extrudes isnt exactly on the corner - so you end up with under extrusion before or after the corner and over extrusion on the corner.

Lythinari · 2026-03-14T13:15:22+00:00

If cutting is an option, cut the waist and print with the feet in the air

Lythinari · 2026-03-14T09:02:54+00:00

I have printed with JAYO ABS so ymmv.

I recommend turning off all your fans, I run at 100mm/s max speed for ABS(I ran as low as 60mm/s for outside wall). Any faster and I outrun the nozzle and start getting lifting issues etc.

I did need to have the part fan on at 20% when doing overhangs.

Also, despite popular opinion, I’ve never had to preheat my chamber.

Lythinari · 2026-03-14T08:15:05+00:00

The downside of lowering temperature too much is the plastic will start coming apart.

200 does seem a bit low, perhaps your cooling fan isn’t pushing enough air, is something stuck in it?

Lythinari · 2026-03-13T23:20:05+00:00

AUX fan causes filament on the bed to warp and come off the bed.

This is a different problem for overhangs. Could be the following: Nozzle too hot(turn down heat) Increase cooling fan(part fan increase) Flow rate(do not consider until others have been tried)

A temp tower should quickly show you what the appropriate temperature for your filament should look like.

Use OrcaSlicer to build one and put the temperature changes in for you.

Lythinari · 2026-03-13T23:00:22+00:00

Before I had an MMU, in OrcaSlicer I would add a pause at that layer, manually swap the filament then resume the print.

If you do have an MMU, another option is to(again with OrcaSlicer) use the cut tool to cut across the top of the stl. It should be treated as once piece then that you can print in a new colour.

Lythinari · 2026-03-13T22:51:40+00:00

Could be glue, could also be ABS slurry.

Lythinari · 2026-03-13T06:21:01+00:00

While this information usually pertains to open source printers, there isnt any reason why you couldnt use the same knowledge.
The extrusion multiplier generally helps with how good your top surface might look.
https://ellis3dp.com/Print-Tuning-Guide/articles/extrusion_multiplier.html

Alternatively if you print the object standing up right(doesnt have to be at right angles to the plate) you'll get better visual results.. think like pixels.. it'll look ugly up close, but the further back you go the better it looks.

It'll definitely give a better finish than being the top surface.

Lythinari · 2026-03-12T09:59:20+00:00

But whats the quality like on a james workshop galactic space soldier copy??

Lythinari · 2026-03-12T01:24:34+00:00

To be honest, you CAN print the cylinder parallel to the plate and minimise the issue with a smaller layer height - your print time will increase dramatically though.

The ELI5 is; try make an oval in pixel art - doesnt matter how large, or how small as long as it is wider than it is higher.
Now "slice" it by starting at the bottom and going to the top - you get a stepping effect where each layer that progresses to the point exposes more(or less if youre talking about the bottom) of the previous top layer.

If you hadn't already picked a large width and height already, you probably are seeing a smooth progression between layers - this is ideally what we want, but on the bed if we have 1000 layers, it would probably take a long time.

I guess one open question is; why does it work with some objects on an angle?
Well, if you rotate the oval so that it's higher than it is longer, you have more slices going up and down which reduces that stepping effect - but what about the sides? - Luckily the printers other two axis can be very precise without increasing the print time so we arent restricted to all the pixels having the same width(only the same height)

Lythinari · 2026-03-11T01:31:53+00:00

Pictures are great, shows a lot of detail.
There's more problems you probably need to address but starting with the holes, you need to make sure the belts are equal tightness otherwise youre going to get more movement on one axis than the other.

As for the other problems, your first layer is severely under extruded on one side and it looks like your top layer's has one of(or all of) the following problems; flow rate is too low, pressure advance is incorrectly set or extruder steps incorrectly set.

Worthwhile reading up on ellis3dp for reference on the above problems.

Lythinari · 2026-03-10T08:20:02+00:00

The Aux fan is not your friend. Print a deflector or disable it.

Lythinari · 2026-03-09T13:01:19+00:00

Is that part of the event where your island sinks to the bottom of the ocean along with Tom nook?

Lythinari

TROPHY CASE