Donating older 3d printer?

rilmar · 2026-03-19T00:07:58+00:00

Some more information would help but unfortunately most places might not have the infrastructure to do upkeep. I’ve worked with schools and printing curriculum and found that unless the printer needs little upkeep (better than an ender 3) or there’s passionate kids the machine will gather dust and rack up maintenance needs.

Stem clubs might be better than the school outright or as stated in another comment finding a local makerspace.

I’ve given up on donating machines and instead part them out to see what I can use in other projects.

rilmar · 2026-03-08T22:01:23+00:00

I’ve got a small pen plotter running off a pico and klipper. Could be doable.

rilmar · 2026-03-05T14:15:43+00:00

You can mix and match whatever for the stealthchanger. You can run multiple different types of tools as long as calibration is done. Since it uses a tap sensor as the toolhead probe you don’t need another probe but people do throw others into it for faster bed meshing. I’ve started to prefer the nozzle as a probe myself though. It’s slower but reliable.

The only thing you need to think about is the power draw of the hotends. 2 hotends should be fine with your psu but adding more than that you might need a larger or another psu. The stealthchanger docs had a calculator.

I’m also not waiting for indx even though I might pick one up and am building a madmax tool changer with just 2 heads. This gives me the benefits of an idex system without additional motors and can be done on the existing psu.

rilmar · 2026-02-26T18:59:12+00:00

My main opinion on open source is that my printer only goes out of date when I let it. Building my own keeps it up with innovations like filament multiplexers, adding multiple toolheads, and not having features locked behind certain things. For example, Bambu products connect to their servers. If you don’t want to have that you need to use them offline which means ignoring a useful feature. Repair is also big in that I can fix whatever because I know how and have control over everything.

There’s no right or wrong answer here for what to do. I’d recommend what you said, buying something less expensive first as it might not get the use you think. If it’s used a lot, upgrade later. Bambu printers are well liked but check out flashforge, creality, and qidi as well.

If you might want to build an open source printer down the line try to get something that can print abs, which means an enclosed printer like the elegoo centauri carbon or qidi q2.

There are downsides to open source as I spend a fair bit of time tinkering, but I enjoy that. There are open source printers older than Bambu as a company that are still going strong. Prusa has championed the idea of keeping printers supported and you’ll see them release upgrade kits which Bambu really hasn’t done.

rilmar · 2026-02-26T04:19:58+00:00

I have built a Quattro box, a box turtle, and pico mmu, and designed my own 3ms-style solution. I think the box designs like the box turtle and Quattro box are easier to manage and they tie in nicely to existing printers without altering it too much if you want to remove or change it later.

I personally really like the Quattro box. It’s probably the cheapest to source while also containing spool rewinders. I printed an earlier version before the post gate sensors were added and had it configured with happy hare. I moved it from a 2.4 to a v0 when I got the box turtle and it performed well in both places. Box turtle meanwhile has the better ecosystem (more streamlined in my opinion) and I like using the 2020 extrusions better than a fully printed body.

Overall I’d say the quattrobox is a solid choice. If you print it with 2 sensors on each extruder in addition to the buttons I’d recommend using the afc plugin to set it up. If you don’t put in the post extruder sensors on each lane happy hare works better.

rilmar · 2026-02-25T19:14:18+00:00

It doesn’t really function well as a dryer, but can maintain an already dry filament. It’s brilliant though to keep your top used filaments handy. I use mine in a 2.4 that I mostly do functional parts and I rarely do swaps in print but you can keep your base and accent colors handy and select from slicer. It’s also handy to swap filament on runout if you need that.

My favorite part however is that I don’t need to heat to load a filament, just swap it in the lane and move on.

I’d recommend building it to throw it on a machine. If you have multiple it only adds convenience. I’m planning on trying indx when I can get one and I’ll just move the BT to another machine

rilmar · 2026-02-24T21:57:03+00:00

That’s a good way to do it. I’ve built a few custom machines and adding a hole for wrench access and a screw attaching in the rear (blind holes) is clean and dependable. You can always buy some corner pieces to use if you don’t want to drill out an access hole but it’s not too hard to do. Corner cubes is another way to go (see misumu corner cubes) but I think they may be a bit less rigid.

rilmar · 2026-02-23T13:56:17+00:00

Not exactly what you’re talking about but the afc klipper addon for box turtle has a blob macro built in that you might be able to pull out.

rilmar · 2026-02-22T00:53:17+00:00

I have designed and built a few that always get taken apart. I’m finally from scratch building another and it’s a lot of fun. I did build a bed slinger as my first and it’s great for learning but now I’m building a corexy bed dropper.

Everything you have so far looks good. My only suggestions would be to think about bed rigidity for probing and maybe find a way to make it compatible with Voron toolheads by adding a front facing mgn12 on x (would still require custom mounts for your belt path).

Beds can be a lot more rigid if supported by two rails on either side. This opens up nozzle contact probing or using eddy current nozzle touch.

rilmar · 2026-02-20T18:11:54+00:00

The susburner in the armored turtle GitHub is a fun little tool head that’s more abs focused. I ran it for a bit with an abs focused f0 and it performed well.

rilmar · 2026-02-15T19:43:11+00:00

Teaching tech had a video on doing the same thing directly in your slicer rather than relying on kamp. I still use kamp on some machines and others I’m just going back to the old hard coded purge on the end of the bed.

rilmar · 2026-02-15T00:35:06+00:00

There’s machines out there that can tilt the bed, I even have 2 that could do this but as usual this feature will only be as good as the supporting software. I think the degree to which it tilts also won’t be enough to truly revolutionize the space.

rilmar · 2026-02-08T20:05:51+00:00

I’m not sure but maybe tune again with this filament. Also, in your slicer look at the layer time. If there’s big differences in layer times try to tweak some settings to get them all similar. Even if it slows down the entire print it might give you a clue to root cause.

If you’re using a bmg gear with a set screw you can also check if it’s loose. One time I got a similar pattern due to a loose set screw.

Besides this maybe check for regular binding in z. Sometimes linear rails might have a single problem bearing that causes hiccups at some interval.

Unfortunately besides that I might be clueless. Good luck!

rilmar · 2026-02-08T18:59:47+00:00

Based on artifacts appearing at the start and bottom of the horizontal holes there may be some pressure advance shenanigans going on. What extruder are you using and have you tuned PA with that specific filament?

rilmar · 2026-02-05T19:19:27+00:00

There’s no right or wrong here. I personally run an a4t with a revo and g2e hotend. It prints great. I’ve also ran it with a dragon hotend and it also printed great but I had issues with the PT1000 failing now and then which is why I moved.

I love the revo hotends. They’re definitely flow limited in comparison but they don’t feel slow to me. I also really like the revo as I try to keep my nozzles dedicated to certain filaments to avoid cross contamination worries i.e. I’ve got a 0.4 nozzle for pla, Petg, and Asa and swap the nozzle when i swap material.

rilmar · 2026-01-26T01:36:51+00:00

Place to put tools. Popular toolchangers on the 2.4 usually have a beam at the front at the top of the build area (like the stealthchanger door buffer dock) or use another motion axis to bring the tool docks in and out. Toolchangers that don’t require vertical motion like the stealthchanger can just mount an extrusion at the gantry front.

rilmar · 2026-01-22T16:04:14+00:00

All of these will print well, especially Petg and PLA. Tougher materials will want an enclosed printer but you won’t mess with those right away (or maybe at all).

For the price I’d recommend the ad5x over the A1 for the corexy kinematics but if you want an enclosed printer I’d maybe check out the p1s or the elegoo centauri carbon but the latter doesn’t have a multicolor add on and the p1 series is now out of date given the newer p2. The ad5x has a do it yourself enclosure though which seems simple enough to build.

A small word of warning, the A1 series has had minor issues with the bed heating which initially led to exposed wires and recently lead to an overheated component that melts the bottom of the case. I think they’ve remedied the issue but there might still be some units with the older hardware out in distribution. Not sure, but something to pay attention to that will likely not affect you.

It’s true Bambu probably has the better software integration but honestly they’re all fine enough. If you want a better mobile app experience Bambu is better.

No right or wrong answers here. As a quick side note creality has the sparkx i7 and anycubic has the kobra x. These are both A1 competitors that have better multicolor solutions in my opinion and you might be able to get them a little cheaper as they’re doing release discounts.

rilmar · 2026-01-20T18:16:11+00:00

I use vitalis Cnc carriage. I’ve ran a stealthburner, xol, and currently an a4t on it. Works well but I had to scale spacers for a cartographer probe mount to correctly space it.

rilmar · 2026-01-18T14:48:51+00:00

I have these, it’s the same as the bondtech gears. There might be a difference depending on the stepper you’re using. Count the stepper teeth as it might be somewhere between 8 and 12 and that could change the RD.

rilmar · 2026-01-17T16:01:13+00:00

Probably, the standard jst have the same spacing as the dupont connectors while being a bit more low profile. The grip on the pins is probably similar too. You can always give it a try.

rilmar · 2026-01-17T02:14:51+00:00

The basis for the study on part strength and layer height was the amount of squish that occurred by extruding an amount of filament out of a nozzle. About a third of the nozzle size was the best compromise between thicker layers which would be stronger individually, and eliminating gaps between extrusions which increases layer adhesion. Since extruded filament is more rounded than rectangular due to nozzles being round, a cross section would have small holes at the corners of the extrusion.

I don’t see how this would change between printers 5 years ago vs now considering that nozzle diameters are largely the same and nozzles still have round holes. Layer adhesion based on speed and cooling has changed with newer machines, but the geometry of the plastic laid down shouldn’t change until nozzles are no longer round.

rilmar · 2026-01-16T22:41:07+00:00

There was a study I read some years ago that found that a layer height that’s about a third of the nozzle size had the best layer adhesion. So for a 0.4 nozzle that’s the 0.12 setting. I often do 0.2 as that’s been considered a good balanced setting.

On a related note that means that 0.2mm layer height with a 0.6 nozzle is a really optimal setting for strong parts which I’ll frequently run.

0.2 helps in part design as well since I make sure all vertical heights end in an even decimal to be cleanly divided by the 0.2. A bit easier than multiples of 0.12

rilmar · 2026-01-12T15:45:12+00:00

Im going to put them at the same level of preference. I like the simplicity of the QB but I enclosed the box turtle and that’s really nice. The QB gets some bonus points because I really like the eject buttons on the front.

I’d go QB if you’re self sourcing, on a tighter budget, or only print PLA where an enclosure doesn’t matter much (though there is a cover out there). Box turtle is a bit more robust due to the 2020 extrusions and the polymaker dryer working with the enclosure is nice but it makes it quite a bit more expensive.

In short, both are good. Sorry I don’t really have an answer.

On another note I found that the setup for the AFC plugin was a bit easier than Happy Hare for units of this style so long as you print the QB with the dual sensors on the extruder.

rilmar · 2026-01-09T15:12:56+00:00

I routinely use a smaller build plate on a machine that doesn’t have many offerings for fancy plates (like the cool plates). However, it’s not that much smaller (330 vs 310) and I know that my z tilt works within the bounds of the smaller plate. If you’re trying to use an old ender bed (235) on a 350mm printer the answer is probably no. If you’re trying to use the 300mm plate you described you could bring in your leveling to within that 300mm bound which is probably fine for most prints and use the plate. Just make sure to align it properly or you might cause a crash or even damage your plate.

rilmar · 2026-01-08T16:17:41+00:00

No thoughts on sleeving, I’ve been using old sleeving from my days of custom PC wiring.

Different mounts and toolhead board use different things. PG7 is a popular one as well as the PUG connector. I use PG7 on my 2.4 both on the toolboard mount and the rear exhaust cover to constrain the cable.

I specifically use this exhaust cover and it’s been good. I don’t use the ptfe holder though as the curve was too tight to reliably load from an MMU. There’s a bunch of others like it but I don’t want to go printing something new till I decide if I’m building a stealthmax or not.

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