The Ender 3 Pro is a budget-friendly 3D printer that is accessible, reliable, and provides good results with a few adjustments. Despite its age, the team at Mebius LTD is happy to own one, and use it for various projects. Here are few fulcrums derived from my own experience with it:
Proper bed leveling is crucial for accurate 3D printing. If not done correctly, filament won’t stick well on some areas or leave white marks on the bed. Technical solutions for auto leveling exist but they add cost and complexity to the machine. To ensure durability, it’s best to keep it simple and level the bed manually. The main issues are often caused by incorrect distance between the bed and the nozzle, even if the bed is perfectly level.
The optimal space between the nozzle and build surface should be less than 0.2mm, which is the typical size of extruded filament. A little less is better so there is a pressure between the extruder, and the surface, a tighter space creates better adhesion. Regular paper sheets are not suitable as they are too thin and will result in failed prints. Instead, use a business card as it has the ideal thickness. Put the visit card, rotate the adjustment wheel until you start to feel the both surfaces of the base, and the nuzzle. Let the card slide freely, when you move it around, you should feel the scratch of the nuzzle on its surface. When this happen you know that you can move to the next point. Don’t forget to level the middle sections of the platform as well.
Speed– A common issue in 3D printing is filament not adhering to the bed, particularly at the start of the print. This can be caused by the bed being too far away or poor adhesion. The result can range from a slightly elevated corner to complete failure and damage to the printer. In one instance, a high corner attached itself to the nozzle, caused the extruder to continue dispensing plastic until it covered the entire head, resulting in a “plastic snowball” that caused vibrations and even detached all four elevation wheels. Though it seemed like the printer was beyond repair, I was able to remove the cover, heat the head, remove the plastic ball, and successfully restart the printer. To my amazement, it work again nice, and smoothly, if we do not count the overall smell of plastic, that was evaporating from the nozzle radiator.
So to avoid similar unfortunate event, just reduce the print speed to 40, it is very small speed reduction, but with very nice impact, and stay with your print, at least at the beginning 🙂
The printer have one notable design flaw. The plastic filament feeding mechanism is prone to breaking under pressure. This can result in unexpected loss of filament during a print and negatively affect the final product. To avoid the situation, proactively purchase an aluminum replacement and install it promptly to save time and frustration in troubleshooting. There are plenty of these in interment, and they are quite cheap, here is a link to one in Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/3D-Extruder-Aluminum-Filament-Creality/dp/B07B96QMN2
