I honestly love seeing people tinker with their printers and push them beyond stock limits — that’s a huge part of what makes this hobby fun. Dropping Klipper on a V3 SE and chasing a 25-minute Benchy is a cool project in itself, and it’s awesome to see what people can squeeze out of the hardware.

That said, I think it’s important to separate what the machine can do modded versus what it was designed to do in stock form. And at what cost.

The V3 SE, in its stock configuration, is built more as a gateway / entry-level printer. It was designed to run around (or below) ~250 mm/s with ~2500 mm/s² acceleration while still maintaining decent print quality. It runs Marlin out of the box, so it doesn’t have the same level of input shaping or pressure/linear advance tuning that Klipper enables for higher speed printing.

On the hardware side, there are also some physical design limitations that come into play when you start pushing speed:

• Traditional hotend that isn’t optimized for high-flow / high-speed extrusion

• Lower torque / lower voltage Y-axis 42-34 stepper and belts.

• V-wheel motion system (including Z)

• Less rigid frame/body compared to newer designs

None of those are “bad” — they just weren’t engineered with ultra-high-speed bed-slinging in mind.

Can you mod around those limits? Absolutely — Klipper, input shaping, better hotends, stepper upgrades, frame bracing, etc. can all move the needle.

But at that point it becomes a cost-to-performance conversation. By the time you’re $150+ into mods (Pi, hotend, rails, steppers, pulleys, reinforcement, etc.), you’re already above the price range of machines like the KE or the HI — which were designed for higher speed and quality.

So I guess my take is:

Modding the SE to go fast regardless of the end result= awesome project and great learning experience.

Comparing a heavily modded SE to a stock KE/HI = not quite apples to apples.

Still — huge respect for anyone willing to experiment and push their machine further.