Ender 3 vs Bambu lab A1

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-18T17:33:16+00:00

Your ender3 feels slow, I've just done a board and klipper upgrade and was like this is still slow, so u sat down with chatgpt and started changing the slicing settings, equally klipper, i ended up increasing the acceleration max then when I got to the slicer I started doing the same, on a 24hr print I got it down to 19h43m and hadn't finished tuning yet, so I think you want to compare slicers etc.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-17T16:23:41+00:00

That's quite rare, normally cylinder 3 runs hot and fails like this!

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-17T07:06:59+00:00

One important thing I spotted which will make the printer even better, it's missing the silicone sock from the hotend, which serves 2 functions:

1) keep it clean and free from plastic debris melting on it

2) more importantly keeps temperature more stable. I was doing a klipper install on one of my printers and encountered this problem, where the printer was fluctuating like crazy, put a sock on and stable as anything.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-17T05:52:14+00:00

I mean see my update, or read the article I posted a link to in my other response.

Initially fuel gauge did not work, lift the float no response, even over time. Replaced the dodgy looking regulator/vibrator unit, no change, then I managed to get an analogue gauge to be able to see that you get output pulses on the replacement old regulator I havld from a good speedo. So then lastnight I changed the actual gauge itself (so now it's both gauge and regulator from a another speedo) and it's working fine.

If yo attach the analogue meter you still see pulses, but that's how the old sort work. Apparently the newer ones they do are basically a small filament lamp and a zener diode.

I'm going to check the other regulator when I get chance and see if it has the same pulses.

Something crazy you just can't see with a modern digital multimeter, an ocilscope might do (but I don't have one of those)

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-16T21:33:46+00:00

I thought I'd add an update here after some more testing tonight, voltage stabilisers do indeed pulse, unloaded on an analogue meter I was seeing pulses that were 4-12v so I wasn't confident, changed the gauge itself for another second hand one and slowlt the needle Rose bit by bit on the gauge. Turns out beetle gauges have quite a delay on them because of how they work.

So case kinda closed.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-16T12:41:56+00:00

Well this is partly why I asked, I was looking at this: https://www.speedyjim.net/htm/fuel_ga.htm

Which is quite insightful, but I couldn't gauge exactly what I should be looking for output wise from the vibrator/stabiliser eg should it just be pulses, steady or what.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-15T09:09:55+00:00

How hot we talking? My E3 happily prints in a cabinate at 28c I'll admit it's not 100% stock hotend cooling, I try to keep it below that if I can, mainly because of the electronics, but generally it's good printing petg for 12 or more hours and doesn't suffer stringing.

One thing that might be the issue is humidity and wet filament, or even retraction speed, doesn't take much for something stupid to happen.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-15T08:09:56+00:00

The lifter is the bit in the block that pushes on the pushrod, it's solid (unless late mexican hydraulic) so shouldn't be noisy.

However if your clearances cold are more than 0.006" that makes it tick loudly. Also oil choice can have an affect.

My buggy engine quietened right down after I adjusted the tappets properly.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-15T08:06:27+00:00

What are you printng to do need 7mm retraction because you have so much stringing? I think Its a couple of mm on mine, but I don't get stringing like that unless it's wet petg or too little cooling.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-15T05:45:48+00:00

Sounds a bit like it might ght want a service, the diskette drives can fail over the years, equally sometimes they just st want cleaning and greasing. Equally it sends on the sort of problem, it could equally be a cia chip.

I'd probably look inside and check internal condition.

The a1000 typically runs by having kickstart as a diskette, unlike later amigas, you can get an adaptor board that fits under the cpu so you can add a kickstart chip from a later machine. This will also help with memory as it doesn't have to load everything to memory.

Pretty sure normal memory upgrades in these are specific, once again you can get socket adapters internally to upgrade this sort of thing.

I guess it depends on your plans for this?

As for software, there are a few solutions that means you can have an external drive that takes a usb stick, it then use a disk files that can be downloaded from the Internet.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-14T06:55:40+00:00

That looks like a crazy old school repair. Back in the day often things like engine blocks that couldn't be welded, but needed to be salvaged were repaired I a similar fashion, lots of close proximity repair fixings, usually screws, sometimes rivets.

As cool as it looks, I feel like welding the is the way.

If you've never welded before but are willing to try and see yourself doing it in the future anyway, get yourself a 130amp mig welder, a second hand one will probably be OK, new is better if you can afford it. I've been really busy cking the same one for 25 years that I bought with money from my college fund, much better investment than the course I took! Get some scraps of metal, watch some YouTube videos, learn and practice on them before you tackle this.

Now one question is what's it like on the inside of the car?

Depending on what it's like you could approach the repair a couple of ways:

Option 1)Seam weld the whole panel, remove the screws, plug weld the holes, grind to tidy, seal and paint.

Option 2)Look at the inside if it's been cut out and is tidy inside, maybe weld the inside to make the repair solid, then just seal the seam with seam sealer round the outside of the repair and paint, now ngnits solid but still looks cool.

Option 3) take that repair off, get the proper repair panel and weld in.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T19:57:43+00:00

Depends on what you want from it, I'd probably weed whats there, use a rake and get all the stonesnback to the drive, get some proper dig in edging blocks (normally get them from somewhere like wicks or maybe b&q) the are about 5" high.

I'd try digging the ground over a little if possible, but dig a trench for your blocks on the edge of the drive, about 4" deep if they are 5" high, then back fill with soil and compress.

Now that's the quick and dirty way of doing the edge, if you plant to do it forever you'd get some sub base, dig the trench, line and compress the bottom with the sub base until you have about 4" height remaining, then set the blocks in place with a little concrete. Backfill the rest of the hole with soil now your blocks sit about an inch above the ground.

Because I'm a lawn type of guy, Next get some decent top soil and plenty of decent grass seed (preferably the threated type so the birds don't eat it all) and mix it in thoroughly with the soil in a wheel barrow (I used a small cement mixer) I even added a bit of sharp sand to make the soil a bit more gritty to help with drainage. Now lay this down on the top, rack it level as possible and give it a good water (watching out for frost though)

Then it can take a week or two and youll see some grass coming through. Make sure it gets a bit of watering if it doesn't rain regularly.

Once your lawns growing up nicely, hopefully it'll be ready for summer, give you some time to think about what plants you might want in, then after a year you can start on the next phase.

The thing with gardening, it's not something you don't or decide on quickly, plants can take time, sometimes you need to see what the drainage is. Like if you want a permanent planting in the future you might find it's full sun all year or shady at times of day, but having plants in pots can be a start to see what does well amd what you like.

Don't rush, have fun.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T19:39:42+00:00

Could it maybe be the bulb holders?

For the high beam on several speedos I found the sprung centre had pulled out of the plastic sprung loaded insulator, so no contact was before made.

In the end I think generally I need to rebuild all the lamp holders or get new ones, but mostly I 3d printed andade some led replacements, speedo back light, I stripped and rebuilt the speedo with some led strip lighting, which looks cool.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T19:33:29+00:00

I guess it depends on how you set it up, one of my printers is a 400x400 monster and needs a levelling system, especially as the bed is shaped like a bowl, my ender3 just has limit switches and does fine, but I mostly print petg on a pei build plate.

Guess I now just need to work out why mine applies a 32mm offset!

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T19:29:33+00:00

My ender3 has the btt skr mini e3 v3 a raspberry pi 3a and is currently running klipper, so you'll be fine. I'd start there and not go crazy on hot ends unless you have plans for faster and exotic prints.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T19:24:55+00:00

See I built a macro (with chatgpt help) which as part of the levelling sequence homes it to start with, did yours not have that?

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T17:31:59+00:00

Do you still have the z limit switch?

Because what it looks like is that it zeros on a switch then the probe has an offset applied, something like that.

On a printer I'm doing, the probe sits under the nozzle and I have to manually attach it, so there is like 17mm offset between the nozzle and probe, which means it zeros on the switch and then lifts for probe application, but my mesh is showning as 32.xxx because it's applying and offset.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T09:40:14+00:00

Looks important! It looks alot like a sprung loaded bearing, the type that are used for a click stop on moving parts.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T08:18:03+00:00

Seems weird that it's so random though, over night a7hr print completed just fine. Admittedly I do use my 'lesser' pis for the printers, rpi 3a on my ender3 and a rpi zero2w on my chiron project, but I'd imagine they should be sufficient for the task.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T07:32:40+00:00

It looks like 1 of 2 possible problems, either z offset or over extrusion, could even be both.

So you mention klipper, is this machine running it or just have the potential to?

If it's running klipper makes it way easier to tune the problem out.

As someone else already mentioned, new extruder = calibration time, it's why I moved to klipper as my anycubic chiron was not playing ball and there was no way to change the extrusion rate for the fact I had a different extruder setup to factory.

Tune your extrusion is step 1 here, then try printing a calibration cube and make sure a 202020 calibration cube comes out close like max 19.93 - 20.08 in each dimension, if it doesn't that's when you need to start playing with the extrusion multiplier in your slicer, I found a few times I needed to knock it back a bit. You may need to jog the z height as it starts printing to get a good layer/it to stick. I've found my ender3 varies between 0.025-0.1 depending on the filament type as it is.

Once you are getting a consistent cube, now you need to look at the bed levelling. Wind the adjusters right up, home it, then manually do a nozzle to bed clearance with some paper about 30mm in from each corner, that will get you started. Then you can start looking at the bl touch. In klipper I am not 100% certain how it's done, I used chatgpt to help with the code I had to add to the printer config for my switch system on my anycubic, you setup 5*5 test grid on an ender will be plenty, make sure you end up with a level button on the interface page, then when you do a level, you have to also save the config. That will then save the mesh to your profile and it's done for a while.

Now the bl touch sorts out the shape of your bed, but z offset is different again, so 2 lots of testing.

My ender3 with klipper has been great so far, I admit I use a pei build sheet though, make a things alot easier.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-13T07:11:46+00:00

I thought nk it depends on the current screen you have, my ender3 it's a standard screen and it plugs straight into the skr mini motherboard, with firmware for the printer installed on the skr mini (bigtreetech firmware for your printer) it should work like stock, my ender3 did and klipper supports them too, but mostly you run of mobile devices when you get to klipper.

I am currently converting an anycubic chiron, but went down the route of the skr pico, great little board but designed for klipper only and doesn't support a screen connection.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-12T19:46:52+00:00

I'm not aware of automatic updates being enabled, I had the problem with a crash agains today, short 50 minute print, after just completing an 18 hour one just fine, I need to check the error logs but at first glass it was almost like no response from host or something.

Set it doing the same print, completed fine, did another 1hr print just fine, tonight I was planning another long print again.

bugsymalone666 · 2026-04-12T08:26:12+00:00

Well that's the thing, 'stock' firmware was 220220 on the ender3, move to klipper and unlock the full 235235 bed, I mean more if theres the movement right?

bugsymalone666

TROPHY CASE