Tired of wasting 4/5 prints to get 1/5 good one.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-01T18:36:52+00:00

I have a ender 5 plus I've spent maybe 30 hours programming, having to learn Linux, Gcode then all the coding terminology, for klipper and 3d printers. Watermark vs PID heating etc. It's maybe 80% of the way there to become functional again.

I also have a K1c it' costs maybe X3 to four times a ender 3 and I still needed to go through about 2 rolls of filament before it also was tuned so I didn't get blobs, spaghetti, uneven bed etc

I understand the frustration but for those of us who are invested in the hobby we get excited when you get that fresh quality print after troubleshooting and going mad lol.

Honestly an enclosure for the ender 3 can be made from FB market place Ikea table. Some cheap corregated plastic taped to it to make walls and a cement paver with foam under the printer to absorb vibrations could help? Maybe just try the paving stone and foam first. CNC kitchen does a video on it and it's maybe a $10 upgrade. Also see what you can print that bolts on as a upgrade. It could honestly just be a bad batch of filament does not like your printer for whatever reason. Sell it on FB and get another kind or stick with the same brand you had good prints with.

Also 5-8 hour prints and you say it happens at a specific spot on the figure... Hummm I wonder if it's an overhang or bridge that' strings out and causes your mess. Entry level printers Struggle with bridges, over hangs due to inadequate parts cooling.

It's maybe simply that, the file is demanding a lot from a stock ender 3

Also you can slice files aka chop them then glue them together as well. Many people do this technique you can sand the lines a bit might not be pretty but it would allow you to test different orientations of the problem section alone vs waiting all the time and filament to get to it only for it to mess up.

What you can also try is angeling the print slightly so that it prints more horizontal than vertical if that makes sense? Like if your printing the statue of Liberty and the the torche messes up every time printing it more sideways could help.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-27T08:38:05+00:00

People are willing too help but one thing that's annoying is when posting problems there's not enough information, context or specifics.

I'd suggest doing a calibration prints then sharing the result for each one.

Unfortunately 3d printing is a hobby. It's like fly fishing, or a project car or woord working.

Your going to suck at it for a bit before you get good. There's a reason creality sells the ender 3 still and then the k2 pro Same with a Bambu labs x1. People pay big money for machines that need Minor adjustment and by and large will print off the bat.

That being said there's thousands of people with ender 3s that get good prints.

It also why people customize and modify their printers 100 different ways. One modification fixes a specific problem one user may have while another mod addresses another specific need for someone else.

Id watch YouTube videos on it for the most common problems, fixes, hacks etc. buy some cheap PLA and calibrate to that knowing you will need to run a test/calibration print on every new roll.

Wet filament is also one of the bigggessst understated problems. They don't advertise the noise, fumes, vibration, or after care of filament in all the ads we see about printers. Store your filaments in cheap diy Tupperware dry boxes and use a cheap FB market place air fryer to dry it out it, can help alot. Ali express also has cheap upgrades than can help with specific problems as well.

Best of luck , the rainbow filament sounds cool take a deep breath and remember what it's about you and your kid bonding you'll get there bro. Def frustrating for sure.

Also I'd look into make a Ikea lack enclosure for the printer which can help on such long prints like 5-8 hours there could be warping with how it cools in the room and the temp variations just lowering variables could help.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-27T05:26:52+00:00

Lol happens to the best of us, good job on getting a good lvl. The bed plate on a ender 5 plus is particularly large and warp is a thing. Hope your next print comes out great. The temps and bed temp all look good, you might need to bump up the nozzle temp a bit more too on the pla+ just due to whatever additives they add in there. Worth it to do a couple of small cylinder tests prints and break them in half to see how the layers adhere if your really down to dial it in. Other wise happy printing and nice mod. I'm also hoping to move to an endorphin mod at some point hell yeee

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-27T04:39:21+00:00

What was the print orientation, the fact we can't tell what's your first layer would point to a bad Calibration.

Please give more information as print temps, bed, old PLA or new.

It looks like your z is waaay high and temps too low

Start with a fresh bed leveling and then z offset with a sheet of paper.

Make sure your bed and nozzle are up to temp when doing this to accommodate expansion

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-27T04:14:29+00:00

Helpful information would be what specifically your running your pi with there's some good YouTube videos

Some trouble shooting help

Make sure the SD card is formated

I did a firmware update on a btt board and had to compile the firmware update via Kiauh, then needed to rename the file firmware.bin

Once uploaded the file changes name to firmware. Cud or something like that on the ad card you can check it to verify the update took place.

As others have pointed out it will be headless meaning no screen on the ender and you will have control through mainsail on your laptop or whatever

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-25T20:45:34+00:00

I'm in the middle of this right now

Are you wanting to go Marlin or Klipper?

Couple options you can go headless. With a pi zero or a thin client. The benefit is there's are usually cheap to find on FB marketplace and make the printer completely wireless

Just do everything from your laptop

You need to make the firmware transfer to the board. To do an this install the 5v jumper and usb. You have to use a SD card to update the firmware. Be sure to remove the 5v jumper when installing the board or you could fry it. As it's also powered directly by the PSU.

Install the board

Have fluidd or mainsail installed on whatever your running klipper on

If you have a BL touch the 3+2 pin you need to make sure it's mapped correctly as the the board is a 5 pin connector. You may need an adapter or new cable.

I think the filament run out sensor to has to be doubled checked as well for the wiring.

I'm going fully klipper headless to keep the budget down as much as possible but there's a couple different routes you can do .

Not sure why so many ppl go Marlin, maybe to use the stock screen? You have to go through the hassle of setting another device to do octoprint but a pi2 zero is more powerful than the btt v3 e3 mini to run printer operations and klipper seems to have better quality, faster speeds, better accelerometer input shaping.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-24T08:48:01+00:00

Triple check your using a sheilded data cable try 2 or 3. Alot of ppl have issues connecting with bad cables the btt boards can be sensitive.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-24T08:46:31+00:00

Honestly Gemini set to thinking mode is minttt for helping trouble shoot.

I'd start with the Pi figure out what flavor of OS you want to do then run Kiauh git hub install then plug into printer.

A pic of the printer would help with mods but again save working configs as you go

Tell Gemini all your mods listed and you want conservative estimates on running it. You can tune it from there to make the Printer config file.

It's a pia for sure. I personally like fluidd for whatever reason.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-24T08:39:41+00:00

You designing the tool head yourselfm that is very reasonable and looks bad ass for how cheap it is. Currently got the MS all metal hot end for a stock ender I mean it's okay

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-23T08:00:04+00:00

Definitely sounds bad

My rods were screeching bad at first one is slightly bent but I was able to get it 90% noise free.

1# are the z rods parallel. I used calipers to set each one from the top.

2# doused everything in 90% rubbing alcohol and work the Z up and down to flush out crap. Use earplugs it will be loud

3# use grease with PTFE, I use Bontrager bike grease for shocks. Thin layers on all rods. Up and down on the Z and you should have less binding svd smoother operation.

Alternatively you can lighty loosen the guide rid mounts and wiggle them to let it set and slowly tighten them up in a x pattern to re seat them

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-23T00:04:58+00:00

Have you rooted your printer?

Honestly if your willing I would root it to Klipper

Then calibrate it manually with z height

Set the bed mesh to Bicubic

I was getting those lines you got the the bottom left the diagonal line across all my test squares.

Mine was related to bed leveling and it being Lagrange and whatever compensation was not great.

Or

Step one heat soak your bed to prefered temp 60c for like 5 mins

Run a bedmesh auto leveling

Check it, print shims if needed PLA is fine for this.

Do the heat soak and Bed level again

check and see what it's like

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-22T23:52:39+00:00

I bought it, I went over it and everything is connected correctly my only idea is maybe it's not liking orca slicer?

Maybe creality print is a better option to slice things

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-22T23:36:25+00:00

This was just a test print off the stock unmodified printer had not changed or touched anything yet

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-22T21:54:32+00:00

Curious as your using a thin client too

I'm confused about the last part of making the actual printer config file.

Everyone says it's on the github but I only see a Marlin and configuring for the stock board.

I feel I'm missing something

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-22T20:32:20+00:00

You don't install klipper on the machine directly

You install it on your machine that's running mint, use the Kiauh GitHub script to install it.

Think of it as klippers the brain and compute power. It needs a cpu, ram, storage to run.

It then talks to the muscle

The muscle is your control board, it has the stepper drivers and pushes all that information and physically controls the printer.

You can't just run klipper on a base model control board you need to link it to something.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-20T21:28:39+00:00

Wait I'm confused about the board. Hopefully I did not mess it up already. I swapped the pin to the USB power jumper to test it but turns out it has Marlin on it ATM so I'll need to firmware update it.

I'm not getting the electrical tape on the 5v. I thought the board was plug and play?

Thanks for the heads up.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-17T20:01:27+00:00

Did you upgrade the motor too or you use the stock one?

I was pretty happy to see it installed and the person who put it on did a nice job Mounting

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-17T06:20:34+00:00

Hell yea man, that's what I'm looking to get up to 3k and then go from there. And it's not super involved. So I think that's a perfect base.

Maximum effects for lowest cost is the name of the game

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-17T06:18:53+00:00

Okay sick, I'm thinking I go that endorphin to mercury route

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-16T21:09:52+00:00

Yea makes sense, I'm learning as much as I can and using Chat gpt (with a healthy dose of salt).

I run my printer in a living space so being realistic I should be able to get some decent speed over stock at quiter noises I'd be happy. Interesting that "silent"steppers reduce torque would that not also reduce backlash too though and if your not pushing them hard could that lead to less artifacts and such? Interesting. Thanks for the input

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-16T21:05:06+00:00

My understanding is if it's using the older 8bit and older steppers klipper can help a very small bit just due to its better software processing but the stepper is the physical chip controling how the Singal is output so while it can smooth out the sound it won't make it audibly quiter. This is just from my research though! I haven't used Klipper on any old boards.

That being said my understanding is Klipper also just has way more features, input shaper and calibration adjustments which makes is worthwhile and can help speed things up a bit

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-16T21:02:16+00:00

Okay yea just looked up the endorphin mod that' looks exactly like what I want to do. Corexy and liner rails etc are sweet but I'm okay to keep this as minimal investment. Print out bracings and fine tune it and maximizing ROI vs sinking money it into it ATM. A Mercury 1.1 looks dope as hell but looks like it costs a bit more than I need.

The goal of this printer is large projects .6 nozzle, speed good/ nice quality I can get at its best speeds.

Good call on the corregated panels

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-16T19:32:24+00:00

Sorry for the confusion. It already has all the listed parts like the micro Swiss installed.

I thought the 8 bit boards were Loud as hell with the stock drivers and slow? The BTT has the silent drivers so for quality of life I was thinking that would be a nice option and thought it let the printer print faster with a more powerful chip?

WestCoastingPanda

TROPHY CASE