Tag: creality CR10

InTheMail | Voltlog #323

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. This one will be focused on 3D Printing because as you know I recently got a new 3d printer, the creality ender 3 PRO and that means new upgrades because why would you get a 3d printer other than constantly work on it and upgrade it. That 3d printing that everyone is talking about is like secondary stuff, you will primarily work on the printer itself once you get it.

Let’s start with the most important upgrade, this is the SKR Mini E3 V2.0 which is the latest version of this 32 bit motherboard that is a plug & play upgrade for the Ender 3. It comes loaded with features like Trinamic silent stepper drivers, it supports dual Z axis and enough memory and processing power to support every feature you would want to enable from Marlin. As far as I know this even comes loaded with the right firmware, it’s a relatively new release of marlin so it’s truly a plug & play solution.

Why Did I Get A New 3D Printer? Ender 3 Pro | Voltlog #312

If you would like to hear why I switched from the Creality CR10 to a Creality Ender 3 pro join me in this video, I’ll share the reasons for which I made the switch as well as talk about the improvements Creality made to the standard Ender 3 to become the Ender 3 pro. But first, let’s do the unboxing.

Inside the box everything is well packaged and protected with foam but compared to the CR10, the Ender 3 is less assembled to say so, there is more assembly work for us to do, if you are in a hurry that might be an issue but for me I actually like doing a bit of assembly work on a new gadget.

While doing the assembly I took a look at the supplied sd card and I also found an assembly video with english captions, it was well made and easy to follow. There are two extra steps I did during the assembly, #1 was to take off the power supply protection cover and made sure all connections are nice & tight and the voltage selection switch is in the right position #2, the lead screw comes already greased but in my experience with the CR10 that type of grease will attract dust on the lead screw which will turn into this black gunk over time. So I cleaned the existing grease with some isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush and at the end I applied some dry PTFE lube to the lead screw which in my opinion is better suited for this application.

Dual Gear Extruder Grinding Itself Problem | Voltlog #308

Welcome to another video about my 3d printing adventures, as you may have seen in a previous mailbag I got myself one of these dual gear extruders to upgrade the standard one that my CR10 came with. The original plastic extruder was working fine initially, but as time passed, the wear increased and it started slipping, the spring was not providing enough tension anymore so it was time for an upgrade.

The dual gear extruder was the obvious choice because it’s affordable and it’s dual gear system should ensure better grip on the filament. I’m not 100% sure but I believe the original design was done by Bondtech and I most certainly got a cheap clone of that from aliexpress. You would think that for such a simple mechanical device it shouldn’t matter if it’s a clone or not but as we’ll see in a moment it does matter as subtle changes can make it better or worse.

I installed my new dual gear extruder, I didn’t make any video about it, didn’t think it was interesting enough and I needed to install it without further delay because I was doing this while I was printing face shields and I needed to have the printer up and running ASAP. It was working great, I printed a bunch of face shields, it had a good grip on the filament but a few days later I accidentally noticed there is a bunch of residue gathered up on the mechanism.

Voltlog #239 – Upgrading The CR10 3D Printer With New Print Surface And Bed Insulation

Welcome to a new voltlog, it’s time for another upgrade on my Creality CR10 3D printer, and this time it’s about the print surface. By default this printer comes with a glass print surface which sits on top of the aluminium bed and that has worked fine for most prints and settings I’ve tried but occasionally I would get some adhesion problems and with glass you need to wait until the part has cooled down in order to remove it. Not such a big deal but there is this newer magnetic print surface, which has two parts, you get the bottom part with adhesive that you stick to the aluminium build plate of the printer and you get the top part which sticks magnetically to the other part.

This way, with the top surface I should get better adhesion and when the print is finished I can just remove the print surface from the printer to have it cool down faster or maybe for easier removal because I could just bend the surface to cause the part to unstick.

I’m also going to upgrade the bottom heater of the bed by installing one of these insulation sheets, this should help it reach working temperature faster and maybe it will use less power to keep it at working temperature.

Voltlog #181 – Installing Stepper Motor Vibration Dampers On The CR10

In this video you will see step-by-step how I installed a set of vibration dampers on my Creality CR10 3D printer. They feature two metallic parts and a compliant rubber part in the middle that connects the outer two. This will reduce vibrations coming from the motor, stopping them from passing through the frame.

Here are some links to places where you can get the parts shown in this video: