Official Creality Ender 3 3D Printer with Resume Printing, Stable Power Supply, Precise Printing, and V-Slot Rails, DIY 3D Printer, Printing Size 8.66x8.66x9.84 inches, Ideal for Mold Sample Printing

Watch the third-party free YouTube on-line beginner videos BEFORE building. The included assembly sheet is VERY confusing … and I’m an engineer! The videos make good points about how extremely important it is to make sure the printer’s frame is absolutely square in all three dimensions. Just gradually tightening the bolts in a rotation (like when tightening the bolts/nuts on a vehicle wheel) isn’t good enough.The Z limit switch mounting bracket has a nub on the left front corner (looking from the front of the printer). Some videos say to clip it off (e.g., with diagonal wire cutters or heavy-duty shears), which is the only way that I could get to perform the bed “leveling” process. The process actually positions the bed parallel to the X-Y plane of the printer’s frame (left-to-right, and front-to-back).Some people mistakenly try to use a carpenter’s level to “level” the bed, but if the printer isn’t sitting on a perfectly level table/bench surface, and the bottom of the printer frame isn’t exactly parallel to the supporting table/bench surface (not likely), a carpenter’s level won’t be of any use.Threading the printing filament past the gripping feed rollers and into the white feed tube to the print head is very tricky. Some videos show that it helps to unscrew the brass fitting attached to the feed tube and get the filament to protrude out of the right side of the feed mechanism about an inch (25 mm), then screw the brass fitting back into the mechanism after pushing the fitting over the protruding filament.That makes it possible to get the filament into the feed tube - I couldn’t have accomplished that step without that hint. Getting the end of the filament into the hole beyond the gripping feed rollers was extremely frustrating, as the hole is impossible to see, even with bright lighting, as the hole passes through a black plastic housing behind the very close rollers.The menu items are somewhat different on my printer from any of the manual versions (included on the USB thumb drive, on the Creality.com site, elsewhere on-line, or what’s shown in the videos. I was able to guess that the Motion menu item was what had to be selected from the main menu in order to get to the Auto Home and Disable Steppers menu items, needed to perform the “leveling” steps.Once I had stumbled through the assembly sheet, then discovered the YouTube videos and done things right, printing was pretty straightforward using the built-in micro-SD card reader. I haven’t been able to scale a model down in the included Creality subset of the free, open-source Cura “slicing” software.The provided gcode files print just fine, but not the .stl files after scaling and saving as gcode files. The printer only displays and prints from gcode files that the slicing software generates from .stl (3D Object) files. I’m trying to resolve this issue via on-line searches and forums.

I love this printer! I have a CR-10s and wanted to add another printer as I'll be selling parts and need to increase my print capacity. Overall, I'm more impressed with this little powerhouse than I am with my CR-10s though they use much of the same components and are built using very similar hardware. I'll outline the similarities and differences below. I print PLA and PLA+ from Hatchbox and eSun (200c and 210c respectively) but otherwise my Cura settings are the same for both (tweaked default Cura profiles). While it's nice to have the extra print volume, I prefer the Ender 3 and for the price I will probably be buying several more!Similarities include: frame parts and hardware (sizing differs), hot end, bowden tube, X and Y axis motor and drive belt.Differences:Smaller print volume (Ender 220x220x250; CR10 300x300x400)All-in-one design (doesn't have a 'ball-and-chain' control box like the CR-10 does)Single Z axis motor and rod (CR-10 has a dual Z motor/rod)Coated print bed (CR-10 comes with a glass bed)Large, easy to adjust bed leveling knobs (CR-10 has annoying small bed leveling knobs)Filament spool mount at the top of the frame (CR-10 mounted on control box)No color inserts, straight black frame*UPDATE: My hot end seems to have died after printing great for a couple days. I will be returning and re-ordering because I loved this little printer so much while it was working. Unfortunately, the hot end is permanently wired into the control box so a part swap wouldn't be easy. Re-ordering a new printer is the way to go on this one. It started as under-extrusion halfway through a print. Then I noticed the extruder gear would push filament and then snap back like there was resistance somewhere along the line. I ruled out the extruder gear by running the extruder without filament, it worked as expected. It would only do this when it tried to push filament through the nozzle. The next logical step was to clean it out in case there was a partial clog, unlikely since it was a brand new printer. All cleaned and still no luck. It actually seemed to be getting worse. The more I tried to trouble shoot, the less filament would come out of the hot end. Eventually, the hot end no longer reach a temp capable of melting the filament and I couldn't even hand feed filament through. The screen read 210c but the hot end was barely heated at all. Return processed, printer re-ordered. The assembly was a breeze and I'm sure I can get the new one printing in an hour or so now that I've gone through the assembly once already. I'll edit with another update soon...UPDATE 2: The new printer has been running like a gem for a few weeks now. I LOVE this little thing. I won't post a long-winded update. I'll just say that returning and re-ordering through Amazon was a breeze as always and in my opinion makes it work the extra money over some other lower-priced options outside of Amazon. That's all folks! Now I need to get back to printing!