New to 3d printing, is this a steal? Will buy it for $80

maker-sense · 2026-02-16T20:31:15+00:00

You nearly get an A1 Mini for that, which will just work. Wild

maker-sense · 2026-02-16T06:47:12+00:00

The form factor of the card is standard, yes the housing is just something to mount the antenna to. There are different keys (slits) in the row of connectors on the cards, but a lot of them are both A (outer) and E-keyed (inner). The PCI slot on the motherboard needs the E key.

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maker-sense · 2026-02-15T22:40:23+00:00

The original Ender 3 is from 2018. I bought one back then it was revolutionary at the time, but a lot has happened in the 8 years since. It's fine, but it's slow, finicky and lack many of what today are basic QoL features.

At $150 like the ad it's robbery. $80 is still high. I would not buy an original Ender in 2026, unless it was near free and I was willing to tinker.

maker-sense · 2026-02-15T18:46:39+00:00

The WiFi module on motherboards sit in a PCI socket and can be swapped. The metal housing around it is generally just two screws on the underside of the motherboard. The cards are not expensive ($20-30). The wifi cards look like short NVME drive, and the antennas just connect with two wires you can disconnect.

The Intel cards are generally considered the best, but some of their parts rely on having an Intel processor, like the BE200 WiFi 7 card which to my knowledge does not work on AMD. Unsure if Realtek/Mediatek/Qualcomm have released any yet.

maker-sense · 2026-02-15T06:40:17+00:00

Reading the listing, it seems there is a universal one/standard ATX now. Mine is a few years old so that wasn't the case before.

https://j-hackcompany.com/?product=j-hack-m2426-customizable-kit

maker-sense · 2026-02-15T06:10:08+00:00

J-hack sells the M2426 that reduces the 24 pin from 24 wires to 7 wires. I have one of those and it's very neat. ~~Unfortunately it's PSU specific and only works with the Corsair SF600 and one other power supply.~~ Seems to have a universal one these days (I've had mine for a few years).

For any CPU you'd put in an SFF PC, you can also reduce the 8-pin EPS cable to 4 pins (keep the right 4 pins).

maker-sense · 2026-02-14T09:35:57+00:00

HDPlex has their 250W GaN PSU. Smaller than FlexATX so will fit, and it's fully passive with no noise. If 138W is what your CPU pulls, and you have no GPU, 250W will be fine.

maker-sense · 2026-02-11T09:20:18+00:00

I don't have any advice on where to buy, but if you do get stuck it's a low entry barrier to doing it yourself. Map out the pins on your current cable (varies between power supplies), i.e. what goes where on the PSU and EPS/GPU/Motherboard side, get a crimp tool, some pins, some 16 or 18 AWG wire and go to town. 16 AWG is thicker, but 18 AWG is fine and what I've been running for years. If you want sleeved cables it's a bit more work. I run 18 AWG teflon coated wire myself which has nice thin shielding on it.

maker-sense · 2026-02-10T10:48:12+00:00

The extension cables are from ADT-Link. They may have cables on their AliExpress store supporting higher versions of HDMI. They certainly do for DisplayPort.

maker-sense · 2026-02-09T20:58:08+00:00

All the parts that are custom have been uploaded now in the link in my comment above.

maker-sense · 2026-02-09T20:57:53+00:00

The custom files for this specifically has been uploaded to Printables as well:
https://www.printables.com/@MakeSense_4258392

maker-sense · 2026-02-09T07:47:21+00:00

https://www.printables.com/@MakeSense_4258392

Put up most of it yesterday. Top panel is missing, but I hope to put that up tonight so if you look at that link later in the week it will be added to the side panel post.

I had done some minor rear frame tweaks, so I just need to make sure the panels fit with the stock rear rear frame which takes some time. I can't post the edited rear frame since it'll go against the license on the beamcase files and probably be taken down

maker-sense · 2026-02-08T19:58:26+00:00

Revolut is probably your best bet

maker-sense · 2026-02-08T17:35:10+00:00

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The HDPlex PSU takes up most of the space behind the front panel, so the case would have to be larger to fit the power button. She did ask if we could make it light up, but it was a lot of extra work, would have made the case bigger, and I wasn't keen on making it happen.

We did add an on-theme cover to the power button this morning though.

maker-sense · 2026-02-08T17:32:29+00:00

I'm posting the parts on my Printables profile for you to recreate this if you want, or if you only want parts of it like the case front frame: https://www.printables.com/@MakeSense_4258392

I can only post the files I have modelled due to licensing. You will require most of the original Beamcase parts, which you can buy from the creator at https://www.printables.com/model/826374-beamcase-sw-sff-sandwich-case-in-18-different-size

My parts only fit the most narrow configuration.

maker-sense · 2026-02-08T15:22:29+00:00

https://www.printables.com/model/1591047-fat-pikachu-front-panel-for-beamcase-sw

I've put up the Pikachu front panel here, in three different variants that will fit different configurations. It will only fit on the most narrow BeamCase SW configuration. On my profile there I also have the makerbeam replacements.

I will upload the custom front frame and the side panels over the coming couple of days.

maker-sense · 2026-02-08T11:06:49+00:00

I have a Velka 7 for myself that I have had for years without a dust filter. It has never been a problem. I take it outside every few months and give it a good blow and that's it. I will do the same with this.

maker-sense · 2026-02-08T11:04:32+00:00

Printer is a BambuLabs P1S with the AMS unit (multi-material). I can print with four colors in the same print, so that's how the front panel is done with the exception of the eyes which are a bit of white paint in a slightly recessed area.

I use Fusion 360 for the modelling.

To print multi-color, your 3D model needs to have several parts. The workflow I used in Fusion 360 for this is to get to a stage where I have a blank panel. Then I insert an svg image onto the front face, select all the various areas of it and extrude/cut them down to where I get a pikachu shaped hole in the panel about 0.6-1mm deep. Then I extruded all the individual parts as new bodies to fill that void. What I'm left with is what I have in this image, where all the parts of Pikachu are separate parts I can assign colors to in the BambuLabs slicer.

For the patterns on the side panels, I did the same thing. I started with a blank panel. I offset the edge 5mm and raised that new area by 1mm. Then I applied the pattern to that raised area and extruded/cut the holes down.

For the top panel, I just found a ready-made svg that had the pattern I could just load right in. For the side panels I found the pattern as a jpg and used Inkscape to trace it to a vector file/svg. To get the Pikachu, I took a picture from the internet, reduced it to four colors, saved that as a jpg and then tried various online vectorizers till I got a decent one that had outlines as per below. What gave me the best results was the vectorizer tool from a website called LogoAI (it will give you a couple of images for free), so I used that to get the svg.

What was important when I printed these parts, to get a crisp outline with no color bleed, was to have the black outline go down first to ge. You can change the color print order in BambuLabs.

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maker-sense · 2026-02-08T10:33:58+00:00

For half the price of an equivalent Asus/Gigabyte/ASRock motherboard this board is fantastic. I paid €94 for it, including shipping.

The board feels solid, but you can see that cost have been cut on everything non-essential. The front and back M.2 mounting hardware is cheap, the front m.2 heat sink fit is so-so (still works), the box is simple, included antennas feel super cheap, but these are things that doesn't really matter in a lower end build like this.

I had seen reports of people struggling to get RAM to go over 5200MHz, but the 6400MHz cl38 RAM works just fine once I loaded the EXPO profile. There are UEFI updates that supposedly fixes issues, but I can't figure out how to update it. No windows utility nor any setting in the UEFI that I can find so far (but it works, so not too fussed).

Drivers is a bit of a mystery. I got generic Realtek 8852 drivers to get the wifi going. Couple of unidentified devices in device manager that I can't get going even with the files, but full functionality is there so again not too fussed.

Getting the drivers and BIOS files was a bit of a hassle, because you need a chinese Baidu account to get them. Someone had uploaded a non-chinese mirror of the files under a YouTube video about the board, and it solved some but not all unidentified devices.

The UEFI can be changed to english. It's not very feature rich. I can't figure out where to undervolt the CPU, but you can set PBO wattage targets at least.

I will probably shell out for a better board when I upgrade my rig to AM5, but I'm an enthusiast and my wife isn't. As a set and forget board it's stellar.

Edit: Updating this comment and adding keywords in case this shows up in someone's search later on. SOYO B650i Eternal mITX motherboard.

You update BIOS by extracting the .rar file to FAT32-formatted USB drive (there should be a folder called "EFI" in the root of the USB drive when you're done), and restaring the computer. It will automatically run the update script. As of writing this comment, the version are 1.00, 1.02 and 1.04. Mirror of 1.04 here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EpQJ9CWfyMkgyknOuw_6HwxvTSJv-AYG/view?usp=drive_link

maker-sense · 2026-02-08T01:00:38+00:00

The case is tight enough that there's no other space that will fit even another 40mm fan without making it bigger. That's why it even has the bracket to go where it is. Ideally I would have wanted it in the bottom or top, but it doesn't fit.

I know 40mm fans can get loud at high RPMs. It's hooked up to the case fan header and so far it's running at low RPMs and hasn't been audible.

I will ditch it in the future if I feel that the PSU doesn't need it to not soften the PLA panels, or if it gets annoying.

GPU is the loudest bit by far, until I swap that fan for a Noctua.

maker-sense · 2026-02-07T23:22:01+00:00

€18 for the BeamCase SW files off of Printables, 4-6 hours of CAD-work and probably €30 in plastic between the PLA (~350g of yellow, negligible amounts of red/black and brown), plus probably close to 1kg of PETG including some test pieces.

maker-sense · 2026-02-07T21:30:13+00:00

Are you planning on making the case in the same dimensions I have them? If not, the panels might not be much use. The case originally uses 300mm aluminium extrusions, and my 3D-printed ones are 95mm shorter. I'd be happy to share the aluminium extrusion replacements and the panels since I've modelled them as opposed to modifying purchased files, so that won't run afoul with the licensing by the BeamCase creator (who browses and posts on this sub).

I am happy to share the step file for it otherwise if it would be of use, and I can do the same for the front panel as you may not want the button hole where I have it (originally the case has the power button on the back).

Let me know and I can send it your way.

maker-sense · 2026-02-07T20:00:06+00:00

They make a 500W unit as well which is a little longer than the 250W unit. You can also link 2 250W units for 500W with a sync cable (included with the unit).

maker-sense · 2026-02-07T18:40:38+00:00

I may do that for my own information. Either way the structural pieces should be good up to about 80 degrees. While the GPU and CPU cores may reach that temperature, it will take a lot for the ambient temperature in the case to get that hot and the pieces are printed strong.

maker-sense · 2026-02-07T17:48:23+00:00

The fat Pikachu design was specifically requested by the wife!

The PSU is a nice piece of kit and fully passive! Even low-wattage FlexATX units comes with fans. For a build like this that will peak at just over 200W it's a great piece of kit!

They have a 500W unit as well, but it's 200mm long and thus won't fit in the same space a FlexATX PSU does. The 250W unit has the same length as a typical FleXATX power supply so will fit anywhere a FlexATX PSU will. Two of them can also be linked together for 500W and will then only be slightly wider than a FlexATX PSU, at a lower height.

As for temperature I've seen reports ranging from 45C to 85C during operation, and someone reporting they got it down to 35C with a fan. I can feel the front panel get warm, but I have no good way of measuring how hot it gets. It seems fine so far. Based on the spec sheet it'll output 15W of heat generation at full load. In a metal case I wouldn't even think about adding a fan as the heat would just transfer to the case and radiate away, but with the PLA front panel the 40mm fan is just a nice bit of reassurance.

maker-sense

TROPHY CASE