When I saw the opener of a thing making a noise and you just hitting it, and then the little "yay" I knew that you were making the videos I needed. After some searching for the safety video, I watched both, and am now going to go on to upgrade my printer. Thank you for being so organized, helpful and thorough.
It's crazy to come back and look at these videos years later.... a friend bought a pair of them right after they came out, they're both still printing well, almost daily, with a few mods. The biggest thing he's done is a couple of bearing replacements, and changed them a few years ago to a slightly better board.
Thank you so much for the tutorial, and links. I'm a beginner maker, and while I don't have your printer, learning how people fix things has been absolutely invaluable. THANK YOU!
I got my A8 more than 5 years ago and just found this video. I have 4 important remarks: 1. If you put too much strenght on the belts, you damage the bearings of your steppermotors. This results in stopped movements on the damaged axis and causes shifts in the layers. 2. To improve quality, I installed 2 tread-rods from the top Z-axis to the front X-axis. The stiffness reduces vibrations dramaticly and helped a lot. 3. Flash Marlin - it's worth the effort. 4. Best ( luxory ) decision was to get a raspi and use octoprint. Highly reccommend this ! The A8 isn't as bad as shown in the fist minutes of the video, Z-axis were not correctly installed. With a few $ you can step up the quality of the A8 up to a point where you can even print rc-planes with great accuracy. ( Like I do )
Hands down, you guys were THE most helpful one stop source for assembly and essential upgrades for my Anet A8. I am not a props* but I am a *maker :) . You have my gratitude. And may the force be with you.
Love your videos, I've had my A8 for almost a month now. Strangely, after assembly, my prints looked like your "after" Benchy. I've added only a circular fan nozzle, T-corner brackets and Z-Axis stabilizers. I started out pretty conservative with printing speed and gradually increased it. Very impressed that it can sit quite happily at 70mm/s. Hope your prints continue to improve!
70mm/s is definitely faster than I've been printing. That's pretty fantastic. I suspect that these printers are shipped with a wide range of quality. Perhaps you won the A8 lottery and got the best parts possible. =)
Ho, by the way, I saw your intro your props are fabulous!! and you are so lucky to find a partner making all of that with you, I really wish you eternal success and happiness thank you for sharing!!
I built my first 3D printer and dealt with a lot of these same issues. Exposed mains wiring, sub par parts, hours of adjustments and dialing in settings to get reasonably good results. It was a struggle to get it working well enough to print parts to make it work properly. I enjoyed it and it taught me a lot about 3d printing and that's great if your interest is in 3D printing as a hobby. If your hobby is prop building and the 3d printer is a tool, I'd just find a way to scrounge up the cash to get one that just works. Then you can focus your time and brain power on getting better at designing. My second printer is a PowerSpec Ultra 3D, $700 from Microcenter. I had it working in about 30min and it prints far better quality than my previous printer with dual extrusion to boot. You don't need to spend $2000 to get a decent printer, but it's also not worth saving a few hundred bucks using something that is unsafe. This is by no means a critique on the series, just some advice from someone who's gone down both routes.
Z-Axis decoupler, like those found in thing 1858459 remove the coupling of the X axis to the Z axis and allow the lead screws to move a bit while not moving the X axis side-to-side. Side product is being able to lift the carriage by hand to work on the nozzle to clean or change filaments without needing to do so via the controller. I've also found that toothed idler pulleys remove the "wobble" you find in the X/Y dramatically because they're not constantly changing belt tension during movement due to teeth riding on a smooth surface of the other bearings. Also, with Skynet, a GREAT addition is autoleveling. The developer of skynet sells pre-made sensors on his ebay page for fairly cheap, or if you're not afraid of making a voltage divider and soldering into a connector, you can make one yourself pretty easily as well.
As well, the frame braces found at thing 2099154 made a DRASTIC improvement. Even having just one brace (like I had to move to when I did my dual extruder upgrade) makes a hell of a difference. You can speed up your acceleration and jerk settings a bit and not get wobble or singing in the prints with the braces installed. Added bonus of looking awesome.
A lot of upgrades are not really a game changer, but belt tensioners are, they will make the printer a lot more precise and will solve the most common problems related to inaccuracies.
Of all the things you added, I think the axis reinforcements and the tensioners combined, really were mostly responsible for the changes in your print quality. Some good ideas here! Definitely saving this video for when I build my CNC
I started out on the stock Anet A8 and I was never really happy with it. The creaky and wobbly frame and the ungodly noise it made no matter how I changed the print settings drove me up the wall. In the end it sat unused and half disassembled in a corner for almost a year. I still wanted to get this sucker working, though. So I sat down one day, had a really hard thinking session. Now, a few months later, the only original parts left are the motors, PSU, heat bed and parts of the wiring harness. I did the AM8 mod, with 2040 aluminum profiles and Hiwin style linear rails. The board now is an MKR 1.4 running Marlin 2.0.5. rocking a set of TMC2130 stepper drivers. The addition of Octoprint is on the way. There was a lot of „If I am doing X, then I may as well go all the way and do Y too, while I‘m at it.“ At this point I am not even sure if this is still the original. Feels like I built a new printer. And now I can sit next to it and not hear a peep. No, this is most definitely not budget friendly. But I now have the printer that I didn’t even know I wanted. If any of you readers are curious now: The AM8 is not an easy upgrade path at all. But absolutely worth it for me.
I realise this video is now over a year old, but I suspect that people will still stumble across it for picking out upgrade parts. The A8, set up properly, out of the box should not be printing with the poor quality shown in this video. Rule #1 in upgrading - never bother upgrading anything until you have it set up properly. This printer is not set up properly, and that is the cause of the print problems shown. The most obvious example of incorrect set up is shown by the 'need' for Z-Axis stabilisers. The threaded Z-Axis bars and sprung connector to the motor have been set too low (the threaded bars are likely touching the motor drive shafts). When positioned correctly, those threaded bars will be tall enough to sit inside the hole in the top acrylic piece (which stabilises them). Simply getting this right will make a huge difference in print quality as the sprung connectors can then do their job of damping the torque and vibration from the Z-Axis motors. Upgrade parts 'can' help, but no upgrade is ever going to correct a poorly set up printer.
I agree, I was gonna write that my bare stock A8 prints way better without any mods done so far. (And as has been said in other comments, some of the mods are counter productive).
I also agree. I actually made the same mistake myself before I realized it and made an adjustment. It was that improvement alone in this video that led to the improvement of his prints from what they first were.
Of all the things I've added to my A8 to make it work better, the only one I'd really recommend isn't even present in this video. Spring centering makes the heat bed geometry much more reliable. Whether you do it with collars or inserts, that alone made 90% of my ghosting disappear.
Actually the Z rods should be free, not in any hole in the acrylic piece at the top, nor restrained by any printed part. www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/6fdu4y/should_the_z_lead_screw_be_fixed_at_the_top_prusa/
@@ezpzlmnsqz1337 when adjusted correctly the rod will sit in the guide hole at the top of the A8 ... The hole that is there for that very purpose. (I mean, do you really think the design has holes there for the fun of it?) Being in that guide hole does not restrain the Z-Axis rods, it is there to prevent them wobbling when in motion. Wobble on those rods will negatively affect the print quality by transferring through to the print head. You can choose to run them floating out of the frame and set too low in the motor couplers, that is entirely your prerogative. It is only your prints that are suffering because of it. But before you commit to letting Reddit and your own confirmation bias rule your actions, take a look at high grade and commercial 3D printers. See if you can find a single one with floating Z-Axis rods... Then ask whether the A8 is really supposed to have floating Z-Axis rods, even when the design has the locating holes and equipment to have located rods, or whether the units that have them floating, simply have not been set up correctly.
I have had my Anet A8 for about a year now and If you want solid prints just spend the money on an e3dv6 (Original) and plan on replacing that original motherboard as it will fry without warning(even when cooled). I'm currently running a Ramps1.4 setup and can say that i'm very happy with the e3dv6 with BLTOUCH sensor. Thanks for the video.
Strange that my A8 got the same quality as yours after all the upgrades. So far I've been happy with the quality. If it fails it only fails to start the first layer correctly, and I can restart it or just let it be, problem fixes itself by layer 3. I've also found the fine tune eeprom settings and, was able to calibrate it to permit printing the entire hotbed, with the original software. But I can see all the improvements, and so far I've only added an X-axis tensioner (it's a must if you want to relieve tension on Z screws and guides).
I'm getting excellent results with mine since I've check the squareness of the bed with the x axis rails. Also! Safety tip..check the ground connection of the connector going into the heat bed!
i dont know where to document my life except for youtube comments i guess. anyway, printing the wire chain stuff, the first 4 banger was 9.1 grams, the second was 9.2 grams, just finished the third and it was 8.9 grams. thx for the link man, just built printer now working on the upgrades in spare time.
Thanks for all of these Bill, I've been dealing with an issue where it seems mine extrudes plenty of fill for the raft and then not enough for the main. I'll check the Extruder with a .4mm Thank you so much again for all your and Brit's help over the years.
Punished Props yeah, I was trying to futz with that and thespian and the print speed. There is a 3 way Vin diagram there somewhere. Really liking that I'm learning so much, wishing is dint have to learn it.
proper tension in your belts and bed leveling is key. Those frame supports are necessary because the frame will flex if you tension the belts. another thing is extrusion. make sure your printer is extruding at the correct rate. When you extrude 100mm from the printer console 100mm should have extruded on your printer. messuring and marking the filament should help here then just adjust the flow rate to compensate for the inaccuracy. most pla's come with a recommended print and bed temperature. i recommend printing a bench that changes the temperature during the print to see which temperature the filament prints best at. one more thing the nozzle you are using is unfortunately probably the second worst one (after the stock cooler) and often comes off during prints. The semi-circular seems to preform the best overal and mounts more securely . upgrading to skynet is deffinately a good choice
Nice you've done about all of the AnetA8's upgrades for the stock setup. I think you already have the 30A 12V psu, and the on/off socket. I'm still tinkering with mine as well and it has been a journey. I'm printing ABS at 270 degrees with a 85 degrees hotbed and it gives very strong parts. I recommend that you: - update to a newer version of skynet3d, look at their facebook page. (maybe calibrate your extruder e-steps) - buy a polycarbonate print bed sheet, the cheapest 220x220 for cost me around € 3,49. If you ever melt holes in it, it can be fixed with superglue and sanded down.(super glue is also polycarbonate) - use some cardboard and maybe aluminium foil to insulate the bed. - buy an e3d V6 clone bowden setup (€8.09), and extra all metal throats (5pc, € 1,62) so you can print ABS or better. - Some better PTFE tubing for jamming it against the extruder so you could print flexible filament. Maybe a translucent/clear one, it's about € 1,- per meter. - Push fit couplers for the PTFE € 0,29 a piece. If it says it's for 3d printers, it's an 1/8"BSPT / PT (OD:9.5mm). - set of e3d clone nozzles (€ 2,06 for a 8pc, which is a set from 0.2 to 0.5) - Extra thermocouplers 100K ohm NTC 3950 since they can break if you over bend the cables. (€ 0,45 or cheaper) - A better extruder, use MK8 or MK7 gears (€ 0,72 a piece) I recommend a tight extruder - Some bearings for a spoolholder and extruder. Usually 10x 608-2RS or 625-2RS go for € 3,11 or something. - If you want a very sturdy Y axis, buy 1 meter of M6 rod end, and use this thingy ''Y-axis rework for Anet A8by matsekberg'' OR ''Anet A8 Frame Braces w/Y-Axis Belt Tension Rods by LittleMrJ'' optional: - Buy silent fans if you want to. Some set ups use 3x40mm fans. On my own thingyverse I have made a 3x50mm fan one. These fans are € 5,- a piece. - an external micro SD card holder. - A better screen, buy the ''upgraded'' anet screens with the turn button. (€ 11,16) - Print lighter bushing holders to reduce the weight on the X-carriage. Anyway that should be able to give you 60+ mm/s whilst being highly accurate and reaching 270 degrees. Just note that the Anet's hot bed is pretty meh and can reach 100 degrees but it cannot maintain it. 85 degrees was the best it could keep stable for me. I print at 150mm/s to 100mm/s, but it cannot reach that speed with certain shapes. Also my outer wall speed is 60 to compensate for the speed and drooping at 270 degrees with cheap 10 euro per 1kg roll ABS filament from hobbyking. But hey it works and it's pretty fast and stable atm. Maybe you can use what I just typed or anyone else who reads this.
There are all sorts of upgrades and modifications, (some of what you did are mods as opposed to upgrades.) for all sorts of printers. OK, so you spent a bit more money and solved some problems. But consider this--The upgrades were already there for the downloading, and I'm pretty sure that you'll find that when you get around to replacing the hot end, or some other critical part--you're going to find the replacement parts you need easily and at fairly low cost. In my case, the "best" mod/upgrades were the ones that let me tighten the belts easily. I've been getting good prints since I added the Y-tensioner and further improvements came from tuning and adjusting heat settings and extrusion speed and such. Tho, even my earliest prints looked better than most of your later prints. (I attribute that to luck.) Finally--The only reason to Skynet firmware is to add the leveling feature. (OK there are a few extra safety features.) And there are various configurations included in the Skynet package for which control panel you're using and whether or not you have a bed sensor. If you use the wrong config.h file, you can make it more difficult to level the bed, or be unable to control your printer. You should be using the version labeled " A8- 5buttonkeypad- no autolevel" Anyway, your Anet vids have been great, and very fair and unbiased.
Another consideration is the parameters in your slicer software can make a huge difference. With my A8 printing at 30mm/s alone delivered dramatic results. Still working on other areas but an essential check
The only thing i replaced is the bearings as they was noisy and got the same as yours, From the looks of it this printer was not built Square/level (correct) even tho you done a good job. Apart from that I print production quality parts. I don't use Cura as it seems to do weird things,like 2 prints were never the same & always getting poor prints. it also has so many settings that just causes complication to other settings. Anyway i use Matter control. its also free and just works perfectly. you can design models inside it, so No cad or tinker stuff needed, also the best thing is you can change quality or other settings as you print, so just say you have a model and the bottom part only needs to be low resolution and the upper parts needs to be Fine quality . so you just change settings when you need to. The best thing that I like is that, at night time as to not loose to much sleep from noise, I change the settings to a lower speed, and so makes it a lot quieter. My Advice would be. Before thinking about spending time and filament on so called upgrade parts to get better print. Is look at the software settings, and in my case Matter Control works fab on my Anet A 8 Just as i wrote this comment i have also designed a MG34 rear gun sight and now printing , all in within 15 mins, just thought to say . Lol The only safety device i had bought was a Remote control RCD plug adaptor, again it is good , as no Mosfet to install and plus it give me direct control to turn on or off without installing an on /off switch.
Awesome, Bill! That little budget printer's lookin' mighty fine! :D One little piece of advice though for anybody looking to do these upgrades; Browse cable chains on Amazon or eBay before you commit to printing them. They're usually around $10 or less for quite a good length... And while the filament usage is no real concern, printing a bunch of cable chain can be _very_ time-consuming. (Basically a "Weigh it against what your/your printer's time is worth." scenario.)
Heh. :D That's the conclusion _I_ reached when I was looking to wrangle _my_ wiring harness... ;P Of course, being me, I still haven't installed it, and it'll probably end up in the laser cutter instead...because ヽ(ﾟ∀｡)ﾉ :chaos: ヽ(｡∀ﾟ)ﾉ
for the heat break fan i just used a small i beleve 10 mm fan i had too bolt one side down and use a twist tie on the other but had no problems out of it ever again. it looks like you are using the same upgrades i am for mine .
Tim Montanus i also get very bad printouts. So frustrating and disappointing. Tried the bed leveling, temp increase decrease. Filament tension. Slower speed. Nothing helps. Prints garbage
It's probably a matter of quality control at the manufacturer. Loose tolerances make for some items that work perfectly and others that don't work at all. Back in the 60's I met a guy with a 650 Triumph who could rev it farther in second gear than others could in 3rd. He got that one perfect one. Heh, it would almost keep up with a 1969 Honda 750.
I've had my Anet A8 for over a year now and it has been printing flawlessly. Not sure how some of you are getting such terrible prints. I've only had those issues the first day before I realized the belts were too loose. After tightening up the X & Y axis belts the quality has been outstanding. The safety issues with the printer... that's another story. Get mosfets and also solder the heated bed connection wires at the very least. Upgrade to Marlin firmware to enable basic thermal runaway protection.
Not sure if I got lucky or you got a dud but I have a bone stock a8 and it prints beautifully. I do plan on adding the mosfets and a little cable clean up but I couldn't be happier with mine I've put well over a thousand meters through mine will little to no issues. It would be interesting to check a good one and a bad one side by side to see where the differences are.
hey great video, with my a8 the biggest differences in print quality made a bowden tube, good and detailed slicing parameters with cura, adjusting the extruding flow and a good leveling of the bed.
I got the even cheaper wooden variant, and replaced the whole frame with a welded steel one.This massively improves rigidity and print quality on its own.Files for the parts required to convert to the steel version are on thingiverse.Also belt tensioners,new cooling nozzle and toothed idlers plus upgraded to all metal extruder drive.
I realize this video is over a year old, but an upgrade everybody needs to do is printing and installing some guides for the bed adjust springs to stay straight. While you're at it, also add some larger knobs to the butterfly nuts of the springs, so it can be easier to adjust them. Also, and inductive bed auto leveling sensor is a must.
Pretty impressive upgrades! I got one of these as my first 3d printer and have attributed many of the issues I've had with it to my own noobishness :D I may have to try some of these, I'm interested to see what all you do with this machine Bill!
Try working with your print settings more. Do temperature towers and extrution cubes to find the sweet spot. I feel like I have the worst printer and the benchy prints are amazing after a few hours of calibration prints.
A 3d printer resumes to accurate movement in x y z and this means no skip steps, no loose spring belts, no wobbly axis of movement (the axis itself mounted in the frame and the carriage bearings) and no binding or restricted movement (if axis are sqewed or bent, shot bearings out of lube and with play, or resonance movement with a springy frame and slim axis). After that comes the smoothness of control of the steppers like microsteps, small angle steps, smooth electric control from the driver (something like trinamics, or at least TL smoothers) So the recepie for a good printer is to have a good stiff frame. Extruded aluminum with corner brackets can make a super sturdy frame (some diagonal braces as well). Here you spend a good chunk of money Then you need nice movement on linear bearings like thick round bar axis and good linear bearings. or even linear rails with adjustment gibs to make the fit perfect (you need nice quality to get the straightness level and accurate dimensions and proper hardening) so most cheap china printers have low quality axis (sort of straight, low hardness, crappy bearings that may work but will grind the axis rod in short time and also they use small diameter to make it cheap) Even more important is how the axis is mounted on the frame. Ideally you need angular free play to make the axis self align and not stay in tension, like spherical joints or Heim coupling, or self align bearing blocks. This is to keep the y axis(for example) stay tension free in the frame. Next is critical that you can adjust the position of the ends of the axis to make two axis perfectly parallel and perpendicular to the other axis(for two Y axis or two x axis, or two z axis). So i've made use of some blocks with self align sleeve bearings that are mounted on the frame on slots. I can shim the block to raise or lower and move side to side (even front and back) with the elongated hole mount. The critical part is how to measure the true aligment and have a system of adjusting. For example mount the bed on 3 bearings not 4, make the 3 bearings swivel-able so each can self align on the axis and not put bend stress. Then by moving the bed end to end you can create a set distance between axis so is time to carefuly tighten the axis with the bed mounted and ensuring free movement of the bed. Same for X carriage and Z axis. Then after you have the means to clamp without stressing the axis, to align the axis here you need, and have a bearing that will not force a bend (swivel) in the axis this is the base for a very good printer. After all this hard work you need to mount a way of moving the axis in a tension free fashion. Here there are options with belts (stiff but flexible and does not stress parts much and have minimal backlash),movement screws (like on Z axis on most printers) that have backlash and even antibacklash nuts are not a solution if forces are applied (there ae ways with fixed backlash adjust but the risk is bending the screw if the nuts are nt in perfect aligment), or rack and pinion (it has backlash but with a split gear it can be adjusted to tighten and eliminate backlash), or other fancy recirculating driving nut and screw. After all that care has been taken to have proper axis and frame it would be a shame to skimp on a quality original hotend with precise nozzles and accurate thermistor and good heating, good heat management design (to prevent creep or other issues.. so original E3d or copperhead or other nice hotends). Also good steppers (reliable with no skip steps also torquey and fast with low angle. Also use the appropriate gearbox or pulley diameter to further increase resolution but make sure the steps are not smaller then the minimal play you get on your axis. Also good steppers are a shame to be contolled by cheap choppy drivers so you go trinamics on a good reliable board with lots of functions and easy to implement like duet 3d 32bit, or even 8bit einsy rambo. In the end a good printer has nothing useful from a cheap china printer. If you want minimal equilibrium betwen frame and components quality the you look at Prusa mk3s that has quality original parts in ever regard, a decent AL frame, good control on reliable electronics and steppers, good belts with proper tensioning, good design, and massive comunity. So i got a prusa as my 1st printer. Then i got a cheap A6 Anet that i've improved a lot in the axis and stiffen the frame (from steel.. i'm a decent welder and work with steel.. so i fashined a steel frame and ensured a way to adjust axis positions to account for warps from welding and other stuff.) and got it going sort of ok but still had crappy motors, crappy control, crappy belts, crappy hotend. I'm qeeping my anet a as it is with the limited upgrades and call it a day.. print quality is decent if properly tuned. I will be building a proper diy printers with a steel frame (I can weld and steel is cheap) with overkill axis (at least 20mm round) and true stepper motors and drivers (got some beefy ones from an old CNC.. not great step angle at 3degrees but i can trim it down in a gearbox. They have plenty torque and speed) - sure i will need custom drivers found in CNC machines rather than trinamics drivers. I plan to use a supervolcano e3d (maybe two extruders) and plan to make a mount for a CO2 laser for lasercutting/engraving and why not a CNC 2.5D mill but chips on a 3d printers will be another issue. B the time i'm done i estimate i will go over 2k euro in it.. so i might just find a cheap truce CNC mill and make the adaptations for a 3d printer. it maybe cheaper and sturdy and accurate (as a mill requires) Anyway I'm mechanical engineer by trade and as a sum of the above post is that above all upgrades the major thing is to make sure you have good movement on axis with no tight spots, no bends, no stress in the moving parts to force a bend, no out of parallel axis, tight belts not springy. This will get even the stock cheap printer print rather good.
I've got 1 in my cart right now, this video has made me extremely rethink that. I don't mind some mods but I'm not trying to buy something I've got to start off by modifying. For 120 it doesn't seem bad but 250 and countless hours of modification seems like a waste. Wish it was a simple answer of worth it or not
It would appear that you've got a lot of Z axis wobble on your printer. I'd check they are straight, cos I bet they're not. Also, where's your auto levelling? That's a must have upgrade. I agree with others about the Bowden upgrade too. An already heavy X carriage is being weighed down with more stuff like the unnecessary cable arm.
Hi I have a question, how do you feed the pla through the nozzle, I disassembled the whole fan and ran it through and re assembled it but it still didn’t go through. Can you be able to tell me how it goes through please?
its funny i have not done any upgrades to my anet a8 and the only think I head to do was tighten down the print bed's belt and all my prints have looked really good. But i am thinking of adding some of these upgrades to make the printer look better and to tidy up the cable mess other then that the printed for me has been really good right out of the box.
I also have an A8, but it prints virtually flawlessly with no additions. Of course I have many of the 'things' for the A8, now. You should remove the top Z axis bearing guides... if they don't line up it is because the motor below is not centered. Fix that and the lead screws will be centered all of the time. Keeping the Z axis bearing guides is just going to cause the lead screws to bend in the middle as it prints and you will get lower quality/offsets/stress. The noise that you heard before applying oil was likely the due to the misalignment of the motor/lead screws..
Can you share your pla settings ? My prints on my a8 are always spongy and the demos that came with the printer are beautiful and hard shell that tell me it’s my settings
If you want to have better bed adherence, get a sheet on PEI and install it over the heated bed. It sticks like crazy when hot and pops right off when it cools down.
When you run out of blue tape. :) www.amazon.com/Gizmo-Dorks-Printer-Surface-Polyetherimide/dp/B01KBGJU5S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503497811&sr=8-1&keywords=PEI It's really wonderful, I wouldn't go back to tape....ever. :)
Hi PPA, why my Anet A8 with board v1.7 (she had a 1.5 but it was replaced because it die) when is heating up, no matter the temp thet you stablish for printing she never goes to the temp goal and stay always 5º behind and like this the printer doesn´t start... I have to feed directly the 12 V in the mosfet to heat up to the stablish temp.... can you help me?
I have almost all the same printed upgrades on my a8, I set mine on a foam mat to reduce vibrations, Also maybe try printing with different cooling and speeds, this is what improved my quality the most
Iirc you're in the Seattle area, if I'm right, go to Tacoma Screw for nuts and bolts. They have a Seattle location, Tacoma, and some others I believe. You can get whatever you need and at insanely better prices than Lowes. It's also a great store for tools.
Great video!! One thing I might add if you don’t mind is a fan for the power supply it brought the temp down quit a bit and I would imagine prolong the life of the power supply. I would add a picture of mine but I don’t know how
Hi, I’m just beginning to try my hand at 3D printing. I have an Anet A8 that I just got put together. Haven’t even plugged it in yet, want to learn all I can about it so I won’t screw it up. My question is, how do I get what it takes to print an object from thingiverse to my printer? I have looked on thingiverses’ web site and looked at all the upgrade stuff they have pictures of but I could not figure out how to get their project information to my printer or my computer so I can print that object. I appreciate any help you might have.
Ok I know this video is super old now and you may have already been told this, but I haven’t seen it in the comments. You need to extend your Z axis couplings! The lead screw end should be flush with the hole in the top of the frame. I’m willing to bet that was causing a bunch of your problems. I have this printer and it took me forever to discover that on my own. It stabilizes the Z axis while also leaving some wobble room for the slop.
The updates look great. I haven't done much to my A8 except the donut exhaust and filament guid. I'm gonna try the oil on the thread bering, frame stabilizer pieces and wire chain next. As for the helmet I'm guessing it might be either iron man or mass effect ✌🤓🤘
Try adjusting extruder temps or even a different brand of filament. I have noticed a difference changing from 190 to 200 for pla, ymmv but tinkering with many of the settings can change print quality.
Yeah, something just doesn't feel right here... I got excellent print results with my A8 straight out of the box with no upgrades. I did use a cordless drill with a very low torque setting to assemble it and make sure the frame did not move. It seems your frame moves A LOT comparatively and I think that might be the primary issue. It does take some force and two hands to bend my frame like that. There are a few small parts that did crack during assembly so take care not to over-torque them. Some people suggest that the z-axis screws have to be perfect, but they don't - mine are 2mm difference and it doesn't affect the quality of the print at all - that's what bed leveling is for! I did end up putting a switch on it because that was just annoying and will have to upgrade the power supply since it has trouble keeping temps when using the heated bed.
belt tensioners by far make the biggest improvement to print quality out of any of the upgrades they should be printed first. I started printing in ABS so i didn't need to upgrade my fan nozzle right away so i was able to get a lot of the frame stiffeners made.
I can't understand why such poor print quality, even after upgrades. My A8 printed it's first print (PLA and ABS) better than Bill's post-upgrade prints. Must be a physical problem with the nozzle, or possibly something loose somewhere? But I couldn't imagine how, after all the rebuilds. E3D V6 (or clone) would do wonders.
Some of your quality issues may have more to do with the speed you are printing, than frame rigidity. You tried slowing it down below 20mm/s? Nice to have good belt tension too. Those Y-axis braces are a must. Mine started to warp badly, esp after hot-boxing it, trying to reduce shrinkage on ABS. My most recent A8 upgrade, an inductive bed sensor, is the BOMB! Just hair spray on bare (60C) aluminum works well for adhesion, with a level bed. After the bed cools, not so hard to remove the print ... a little water can help.
AHhh yeah I did that all in one go because I was getting frustrated. I recommend doing it anyway. Apparently it helps protect the machine from thermal runaway.
Without all this upgrades, my Anet A8 do the same job, i only replaced the Y carriage by an aluminium frame because it was bended and i added a new glass plate from anycubic to cancel warping.
Thanks for the video its helps lot. But I want to asks something. Is their any 3d printer that can using a cement and sand material? As this can make it easy to print a baluster and roman columns without using a mould I need help please Sir
Make sure to join the Facebook group for the printer and read up on the process. and ask questions if needed.. the instructions are passable but there are several things you can do while building to improve the machine (such as flipping the print bed tray, ensuring the front acrylic print bed plate is the right way around, and finally installing the Z-threaded rods in right). Also make sure those belts are tight! Biggest improvement to print quality has been making sure they are tight. You will have a lot of fun building it!
Good advice! I bought one after watching Bill put his together live on stream. Price point seemed good, difficulty seemed low, & I intend to do the same sort of things Bill plans with his. So it was a nice surprise after the purchase to see how huge & supportive the community is for the A8! LOTS of informative & friendly users in the Facebook group, lots of TH-cam videos out there on upgrading & repairing things too!
Suddsky s it ended up printing about as good as my monoprice select, for a bit less money with the upgrades. Imo you should just save yourself the time and just buy a better printer
2:48 FIRST thing I printed to upgrade my a8, and they truely do stiffen the thing quite a bit. they should definitely come with the printer. marlin software+careful CURA settings will help with that overhand ugliness.
Really love your high tech solution to a noisy fan! I thought I was the only one who had to do that. I use a 15 sledge though. Hmm, maybe that's why the fan broke off the mount... I also tried your finger snapping technique. I started snapping my fingers while standing in front of the printer. Nothing happened! What's your secret? Inquiring minds want to know...
I have my A8 sitting in the shipping box on my table. I've heard about some of the upgrades from the support group on FB. Someone in the group linked to your safety video.
what slicer do you use? I found switching from cura to slic3r prusa edition made a huge difference. seemed to get rid of a lot of imperfections. its free too
I watched the entire video and TH-cam shows only HALF the red 'watched' bar. How often does TH-cam do this to NOT pay the uploaders correctly?!? Give this video it's credit for me watching all 100% of it!
Out of the box this printer was making very good prints for me compared to what you were showing. A big part of print quality comes from your slicer settings...cheapest upgrade is to fine tune them. I would get rid of the "Anti Wobble Upgrade" It's not an upgrade and goes against the idea of the spring coupler at the bottom, the better "upgrade" is to make sure the rods are aligned properly. The A8 can achieve fantastic prints comparable to $1000+ printers without much put into it other than tinker time.
The belts did really great for me as well. The other thing that helped was I printed some clamps and a board for a base. Cut down the flex of the upper frame a bunch
When I saw the opener of a thing making a noise and you just hitting it, and then the little "yay" I knew that you were making the videos I needed. After some searching for the safety video, I watched both, and am now going to go on to upgrade my printer.
Thank you for being so organized, helpful and thorough.
You are so welcome!
It's crazy to come back and look at these videos years later.... a friend bought a pair of them right after they came out, they're both still printing well, almost daily, with a few mods. The biggest thing he's done is a couple of bearing replacements, and changed them a few years ago to a slightly better board.
Thank you so much for the tutorial, and links. I'm a beginner maker, and while I don't have your printer, learning how people fix things has been absolutely invaluable. THANK YOU!
You're welcome!
I got my A8 more than 5 years ago and just found this video. I have 4 important remarks:
1. If you put too much strenght on the belts, you damage the bearings of your steppermotors.
This results in stopped movements on the damaged axis and causes shifts in the layers.
2. To improve quality, I installed 2 tread-rods from the top Z-axis to the front X-axis.
The stiffness reduces vibrations dramaticly and helped a lot.
3. Flash Marlin - it's worth the effort.
4. Best ( luxory ) decision was to get a raspi and use octoprint. Highly reccommend this !
The A8 isn't as bad as shown in the fist minutes of the video, Z-axis were not correctly installed.
With a few $ you can step up the quality of the A8 up to a point where you can even print rc-planes with great accuracy. ( Like I do )
Hands down, you guys were THE most helpful one stop source for assembly and essential upgrades for my Anet A8.
I am not a props* but I am a *maker :) . You have my gratitude. And may the force be with you.
You're welcome. =)
Love your videos, I've had my A8 for almost a month now. Strangely, after assembly, my prints looked like your "after" Benchy. I've added only a circular fan nozzle, T-corner brackets and Z-Axis stabilizers. I started out pretty conservative with printing speed and gradually increased it. Very impressed that it can sit quite happily at 70mm/s. Hope your prints continue to improve!
70mm/s is definitely faster than I've been printing. That's pretty fantastic. I suspect that these printers are shipped with a wide range of quality. Perhaps you won the A8 lottery and got the best parts possible. =)
Haha, maybe! Putting it on a vibration-dampening surface also helps a lot with little glitches.
Good luck and cheers from a fellow Seattle maker!
Correct belt tension has made the biggest improvement on my A8. I'll be upgrading to a bowden soon. Print quality right now is outstanding.
Ho, by the way, I saw your intro your props are fabulous!! and you are so lucky to find a partner making all of that with you, I really wish you eternal success and happiness thank you for sharing!!
My bench was always makeing amazing prints since day 1. I have a feeling you did not tighten the belts enough when you bought it
I built my first 3D printer and dealt with a lot of these same issues. Exposed mains wiring, sub par parts, hours of adjustments and dialing in settings to get reasonably good results. It was a struggle to get it working well enough to print parts to make it work properly. I enjoyed it and it taught me a lot about 3d printing and that's great if your interest is in 3D printing as a hobby.
If your hobby is prop building and the 3d printer is a tool, I'd just find a way to scrounge up the cash to get one that just works. Then you can focus your time and brain power on getting better at designing. My second printer is a PowerSpec Ultra 3D, $700 from Microcenter. I had it working in about 30min and it prints far better quality than my previous printer with dual extrusion to boot. You don't need to spend $2000 to get a decent printer, but it's also not worth saving a few hundred bucks using something that is unsafe.
This is by no means a critique on the series, just some advice from someone who's gone down both routes.
Great advice, thanks for sharing.
Z-Axis decoupler, like those found in thing 1858459 remove the coupling of the X axis to the Z axis and allow the lead screws to move a bit while not moving the X axis side-to-side. Side product is being able to lift the carriage by hand to work on the nozzle to clean or change filaments without needing to do so via the controller.
I've also found that toothed idler pulleys remove the "wobble" you find in the X/Y dramatically because they're not constantly changing belt tension during movement due to teeth riding on a smooth surface of the other bearings.
Also, with Skynet, a GREAT addition is autoleveling. The developer of skynet sells pre-made sensors on his ebay page for fairly cheap, or if you're not afraid of making a voltage divider and soldering into a connector, you can make one yourself pretty easily as well.
As well, the frame braces found at thing 2099154 made a DRASTIC improvement. Even having just one brace (like I had to move to when I did my dual extruder upgrade) makes a hell of a difference. You can speed up your acceleration and jerk settings a bit and not get wobble or singing in the prints with the braces installed. Added bonus of looking awesome.
A lot of upgrades are not really a game changer, but belt tensioners are, they will make the printer a lot more precise and will solve the most common problems related to inaccuracies.
Thanks for sharing!
Of all the things you added, I think the axis reinforcements and the tensioners combined, really were mostly responsible for the changes in your print quality.
Some good ideas here! Definitely saving this video for when I build my CNC
It would seem that the belt tension is a big one on most people's lists. I think I could tighten up the X-Axis on mine even more than it is now.
Thank you for your understandable English. I'm stupid russian pupil and you're one of few bloggers that i can watch) thank you
So glad you're able to enjoy our videos!
I started out on the stock Anet A8 and I was never really happy with it. The creaky and wobbly frame and the ungodly noise it made no matter how I changed the print settings drove me up the wall.
In the end it sat unused and half disassembled in a corner for almost a year. I still wanted to get this sucker working, though.
So I sat down one day, had a really hard thinking session. Now, a few months later, the only original parts left are the motors, PSU, heat bed and parts of the wiring harness.
I did the AM8 mod, with 2040 aluminum profiles and Hiwin style linear rails. The board now is an MKR 1.4 running Marlin 2.0.5. rocking a set of TMC2130 stepper drivers. The addition of Octoprint is on the way. There was a lot of „If I am doing X, then I may as well go all the way and do Y too, while I‘m at it.“
At this point I am not even sure if this is still the original. Feels like I built a new printer. And now I can sit next to it and not hear a peep.
No, this is most definitely not budget friendly. But I now have the printer that I didn’t even know I wanted. If any of you readers are curious now: The AM8 is not an easy upgrade path at all. But absolutely worth it for me.
I realise this video is now over a year old, but I suspect that people will still stumble across it for picking out upgrade parts. The A8, set up properly, out of the box should not be printing with the poor quality shown in this video. Rule #1 in upgrading - never bother upgrading anything until you have it set up properly. This printer is not set up properly, and that is the cause of the print problems shown.
The most obvious example of incorrect set up is shown by the 'need' for Z-Axis stabilisers. The threaded Z-Axis bars and sprung connector to the motor have been set too low (the threaded bars are likely touching the motor drive shafts). When positioned correctly, those threaded bars will be tall enough to sit inside the hole in the top acrylic piece (which stabilises them). Simply getting this right will make a huge difference in print quality as the sprung connectors can then do their job of damping the torque and vibration from the Z-Axis motors.
Upgrade parts 'can' help, but no upgrade is ever going to correct a poorly set up printer.
I agree, I was gonna write that my bare stock A8 prints way better without any mods done so far. (And as has been said in other comments, some of the mods are counter productive).
I also agree. I actually made the same mistake myself before I realized it and made an adjustment. It was that improvement alone in this video that led to the improvement of his prints from what they first were.
Of all the things I've added to my A8 to make it work better, the only one I'd really recommend isn't even present in this video.
Spring centering makes the heat bed geometry much more reliable. Whether you do it with collars or inserts, that alone made 90% of my ghosting disappear.
Actually the Z rods should be free, not in any hole in the acrylic piece at the top, nor restrained by any printed part. www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/6fdu4y/should_the_z_lead_screw_be_fixed_at_the_top_prusa/
@@ezpzlmnsqz1337 when adjusted correctly the rod will sit in the guide hole at the top of the A8 ... The hole that is there for that very purpose. (I mean, do you really think the design has holes there for the fun of it?)
Being in that guide hole does not restrain the Z-Axis rods, it is there to prevent them wobbling when in motion. Wobble on those rods will negatively affect the print quality by transferring through to the print head.
You can choose to run them floating out of the frame and set too low in the motor couplers, that is entirely your prerogative. It is only your prints that are suffering because of it.
But before you commit to letting Reddit and your own confirmation bias rule your actions, take a look at high grade and commercial 3D printers. See if you can find a single one with floating Z-Axis rods... Then ask whether the A8 is really supposed to have floating Z-Axis rods, even when the design has the locating holes and equipment to have located rods, or whether the units that have them floating, simply have not been set up correctly.
Love your Hyperion T-shirt bro!! Takes me back to the good ol' Borderlands days.
Catch a riiiiiide!
I have had my Anet A8 for about a year now and If you want solid prints just spend the money on an e3dv6 (Original) and plan on replacing that original motherboard as it will fry without warning(even when cooled). I'm currently running a Ramps1.4 setup and can say that i'm very happy with the e3dv6 with BLTOUCH sensor. Thanks for the video.
I'd replace the mainboard just for the extra IO, so I can finally have things like a probe, or the ability to turn off the power supply.
Strange that my A8 got the same quality as yours after all the upgrades. So far I've been happy with the quality. If it fails it only fails to start the first layer correctly, and I can restart it or just let it be, problem fixes itself by layer 3. I've also found the fine tune eeprom settings and, was able to calibrate it to permit printing the entire hotbed, with the original software. But I can see all the improvements, and so far I've only added an X-axis tensioner (it's a must if you want to relieve tension on Z screws and guides).
I feel pretty lucky to have my Anet A8 print awesome right off the bat, and only got better after my upgrades.
I'm getting excellent results with mine since I've check the squareness of the bed with the x axis rails. Also! Safety tip..check the ground connection of the connector going into the heat bed!
Great tips, thanks!
i dont know where to document my life except for youtube comments i guess. anyway, printing the wire chain stuff, the first 4 banger was 9.1 grams, the second was 9.2 grams, just finished the third and it was 8.9 grams. thx for the link man, just built printer now working on the upgrades in spare time.
Thanks for all of these Bill, I've been dealing with an issue where it seems mine extrudes plenty of fill for the raft and then not enough for the main. I'll check the Extruder with a .4mm
Thank you so much again for all your and Brit's help over the years.
You're welcome! You may need to check the "estep calibration". I've never done it myself, but it's been recommended to me several times.
Punished Props yeah, I was trying to futz with that and thespian and the print speed. There is a 3 way Vin diagram there somewhere. Really liking that I'm learning so much, wishing is dint have to learn it.
proper tension in your belts and bed leveling is key. Those frame supports are necessary because the frame will flex if you tension the belts. another thing is extrusion. make sure your printer is extruding at the correct rate. When you extrude 100mm from the printer console 100mm should have extruded on your printer. messuring and marking the filament should help here then just adjust the flow rate to compensate for the inaccuracy.
most pla's come with a recommended print and bed temperature. i recommend printing a bench that changes the temperature during the print to see which temperature the filament prints best at.
one more thing the nozzle you are using is unfortunately probably the second worst one (after the stock cooler) and often comes off during prints. The semi-circular seems to preform the best overal and mounts more securely
. upgrading to skynet is deffinately a good choice
Man watching this video is making me so excited for my cr 10 that's coming next week!
I bet you're SUPER STOKED!
Punished Props let's put it this way for the next week I'm gonna be watching out my window like a sniper waiting for the FedEx guy.
You're the best, man! I'm already tuning up my printer! Thanks a lot for this! :D it's all i needed!
Fantastic!
Very helpful video. Thanks for the parts list for a beginner. It takes time to find the parts the first time. Again thank you. Job well done.
Nice you've done about all of the AnetA8's upgrades for the stock setup. I think you already have the 30A 12V psu, and the on/off socket.
I'm still tinkering with mine as well and it has been a journey. I'm printing ABS at 270 degrees with a 85 degrees hotbed and it gives very strong parts.
I recommend that you:
- update to a newer version of skynet3d, look at their facebook page. (maybe calibrate your extruder e-steps)
- buy a polycarbonate print bed sheet, the cheapest 220x220 for cost me around € 3,49. If you ever melt holes in it, it can be fixed with superglue and sanded down.(super glue is also polycarbonate)
- use some cardboard and maybe aluminium foil to insulate the bed.
- buy an e3d V6 clone bowden setup (€8.09), and extra all metal throats (5pc, € 1,62) so you can print ABS or better.
- Some better PTFE tubing for jamming it against the extruder so you could print flexible filament. Maybe a translucent/clear one, it's about € 1,- per meter.
- Push fit couplers for the PTFE € 0,29 a piece. If it says it's for 3d printers, it's an 1/8"BSPT / PT (OD:9.5mm).
- set of e3d clone nozzles (€ 2,06 for a 8pc, which is a set from 0.2 to 0.5)
- Extra thermocouplers 100K ohm NTC 3950 since they can break if you over bend the cables. (€ 0,45 or cheaper)
- A better extruder, use MK8 or MK7 gears (€ 0,72 a piece) I recommend a tight extruder
- Some bearings for a spoolholder and extruder. Usually 10x 608-2RS or 625-2RS go for € 3,11 or something.
- If you want a very sturdy Y axis, buy 1 meter of M6 rod end, and use this thingy ''Y-axis rework for Anet A8by matsekberg'' OR ''Anet A8 Frame Braces w/Y-Axis Belt Tension Rods by LittleMrJ''
optional:
- Buy silent fans if you want to. Some set ups use 3x40mm fans. On my own thingyverse I have made a 3x50mm fan one. These fans are € 5,- a piece.
- an external micro SD card holder.
- A better screen, buy the ''upgraded'' anet screens with the turn button. (€ 11,16)
- Print lighter bushing holders to reduce the weight on the X-carriage.
Anyway that should be able to give you 60+ mm/s whilst being highly accurate and reaching 270 degrees. Just note that the Anet's hot bed is pretty meh and can reach 100 degrees but it cannot maintain it. 85 degrees was the best it could keep stable for me. I print at 150mm/s to 100mm/s, but it cannot reach that speed with certain shapes.
Also my outer wall speed is 60 to compensate for the speed and drooping at 270 degrees with cheap 10 euro per 1kg roll ABS filament from hobbyking.
But hey it works and it's pretty fast and stable atm.
Maybe you can use what I just typed or anyone else who reads this.
Thanks for the tips!
There are all sorts of upgrades and modifications, (some of what you did are mods as opposed to upgrades.) for all sorts of printers. OK, so you spent a bit more money and solved some problems. But consider this--The upgrades were already there for the downloading, and I'm pretty sure that you'll find that when you get around to replacing the hot end, or some other critical part--you're going to find the replacement parts you need easily and at fairly low cost.
In my case, the "best" mod/upgrades were the ones that let me tighten the belts easily. I've been getting good prints since I added the Y-tensioner and further improvements came from tuning and adjusting heat settings and extrusion speed and such. Tho, even my earliest prints looked better than most of your later prints. (I attribute that to luck.)
Finally--The only reason to Skynet firmware is to add the leveling feature. (OK there are a few extra safety features.) And there are various configurations included in the Skynet package for which control panel you're using and whether or not you have a bed sensor. If you use the wrong config.h file, you can make it more difficult to level the bed, or be unable to control your printer. You should be using the version labeled " A8- 5buttonkeypad- no autolevel"
Anyway, your Anet vids have been great, and very fair and unbiased.
+DancesWithRobots Cool! Yeah I wanted Skynet for the thermal runaway safety feature. Belt tension seems to be the best upgrade so far.
Another consideration is the parameters in your slicer software can make a huge difference. With my A8 printing at 30mm/s alone delivered dramatic results. Still working on other areas but an essential check
Good to know!
Interesting. When I try to print that slow, quality starts to suffer.
The only thing i replaced is the bearings as they was noisy and got the same as yours,
From the looks of it this printer was not built Square/level (correct) even tho you done a good job.
Apart from that I print production quality parts.
I don't use Cura as it seems to do weird things,like 2 prints were never the same & always getting poor prints. it also has so many settings that just causes complication to other settings.
Anyway i use Matter control. its also free and just works perfectly. you can design models inside it, so No cad or tinker stuff needed, also the best thing is you can change quality or other settings as you print,
so just say you have a model and the bottom part only needs to be low resolution and the upper parts needs to be Fine quality .
so you just change settings when you need to.
The best thing that I like is that, at night time as to not loose to much sleep from noise, I change the settings to a lower speed, and so makes it a lot quieter.
My Advice would be. Before thinking about spending time and filament on so called upgrade parts to get better print. Is look at the software settings, and in my case Matter Control works fab on my Anet A 8
Just as i wrote this comment i have also designed a MG34 rear gun sight and now printing , all in within 15 mins,
just thought to say . Lol
The only safety device i had bought was a Remote control RCD plug adaptor, again it is good , as no Mosfet to install and plus it give me direct control to turn on or off without installing an on /off switch.
Awesome, Bill! That little budget printer's lookin' mighty fine! :D One little piece of advice though for anybody looking to do these upgrades; Browse cable chains on Amazon or eBay before you commit to printing them. They're usually around $10 or less for quite a good length... And while the filament usage is no real concern, printing a bunch of cable chain can be _very_ time-consuming. (Basically a "Weigh it against what your/your printer's time is worth." scenario.)
Well geez. I should have just bought some! HA! =)
Heh. :D That's the conclusion _I_ reached when I was looking to wrangle _my_ wiring harness... ;P Of course, being me, I still haven't installed it, and it'll probably end up in the laser cutter instead...because ヽ(ﾟ∀｡)ﾉ :chaos: ヽ(｡∀ﾟ)ﾉ
for the heat break fan i just used a small i beleve 10 mm fan i had too bolt one side down and use a twist tie on the other but had no problems out of it ever again. it looks like you are using the same upgrades i am for mine .
how the freakin hell do you manage to get so terrible prints with that machine? my benchis has been almost flawless from day 1 with cheapo filament
Yeah same without any upgrades it printed better than this thing with upgrades
Tim Montanus i also get very bad printouts.
So frustrating and disappointing.
Tried the bed leveling, temp increase decrease. Filament tension. Slower speed.
Nothing helps. Prints garbage
It's probably a matter of quality control at the manufacturer. Loose tolerances make for some items that work perfectly and others that don't work at all. Back in the 60's I met a guy with a 650 Triumph who could rev it farther in second gear than others could in 3rd. He got that one perfect one. Heh, it would almost keep up with a 1969 Honda 750.
My a8 worked fine from the start at 100mm/s movement speed and cheep filament
I've had my Anet A8 for over a year now and it has been printing flawlessly. Not sure how some of you are getting such terrible prints. I've only had those issues the first day before I realized the belts were too loose. After tightening up the X & Y axis belts the quality has been outstanding. The safety issues with the printer... that's another story. Get mosfets and also solder the heated bed connection wires at the very least. Upgrade to Marlin firmware to enable basic thermal runaway protection.
Not sure if I got lucky or you got a dud but I have a bone stock a8 and it prints beautifully. I do plan on adding the mosfets and a little cable clean up but I couldn't be happier with mine I've put well over a thousand meters through mine will little to no issues. It would be interesting to check a good one and a bad one side by side to see where the differences are.
I've heard that from several other people. I got the runt of the litter.
Hey Bill after watching your videos in jumping in to 3D printing and ordered a anet A6 hopefully my experience is as good as yours
That's exciting. Happy printing! =D
hey great video, with my a8 the biggest differences in print quality made a bowden tube, good and detailed slicing parameters with cura, adjusting the extruding flow and a good leveling of the bed.
I got the even cheaper wooden variant, and replaced the whole frame with a welded steel one.This massively improves rigidity and print quality on its own.Files for the parts required to convert to the steel version are on thingiverse.Also belt tensioners,new cooling nozzle and toothed idlers plus upgraded to all metal extruder drive.
Oh neat!
I realize this video is over a year old, but an upgrade everybody needs to do is printing and installing some guides for the bed adjust springs to stay straight. While you're at it, also add some larger knobs to the butterfly nuts of the springs, so it can be easier to adjust them.
Also, and inductive bed auto leveling sensor is a must.
"and to avoid similar issues *snaps* I assembled it with magic" --- Subscribed.
+NinjaGamer_S Ha! Thanks. =D
great video, id say not all the upgrades are needed but good to have and def adding mosfet is a must!
Pretty impressive upgrades! I got one of these as my first 3d printer and have attributed many of the issues I've had with it to my own noobishness :D I may have to try some of these, I'm interested to see what all you do with this machine Bill!
Try working with your print settings more. Do temperature towers and extrution cubes to find the sweet spot. I feel like I have the worst printer and the benchy prints are amazing after a few hours of calibration prints.
A 3d printer resumes to accurate movement in x y z and this means no skip steps, no loose spring belts, no wobbly axis of movement (the axis itself mounted in the frame and the carriage bearings) and no binding or restricted movement (if axis are sqewed or bent, shot bearings out of lube and with play, or resonance movement with a springy frame and slim axis). After that comes the smoothness of control of the steppers like microsteps, small angle steps, smooth electric control from the driver (something like trinamics, or at least TL smoothers)
So the recepie for a good printer is to have a good stiff frame. Extruded aluminum with corner brackets can make a super sturdy frame (some diagonal braces as well). Here you spend a good chunk of money
Then you need nice movement on linear bearings like thick round bar axis and good linear bearings. or even linear rails with adjustment gibs to make the fit perfect (you need nice quality to get the straightness level and accurate dimensions and proper hardening) so most cheap china printers have low quality axis (sort of straight, low hardness, crappy bearings that may work but will grind the axis rod in short time and also they use small diameter to make it cheap)
Even more important is how the axis is mounted on the frame. Ideally you need angular free play to make the axis self align and not stay in tension, like spherical joints or Heim coupling, or self align bearing blocks. This is to keep the y axis(for example) stay tension free in the frame.
Next is critical that you can adjust the position of the ends of the axis to make two axis perfectly parallel and perpendicular to the other axis(for two Y axis or two x axis, or two z axis). So i've made use of some blocks with self align sleeve bearings that are mounted on the frame on slots. I can shim the block to raise or lower and move side to side (even front and back) with the elongated hole mount.
The critical part is how to measure the true aligment and have a system of adjusting. For example mount the bed on 3 bearings not 4, make the 3 bearings swivel-able so each can self align on the axis and not put bend stress. Then by moving the bed end to end you can create a set distance between axis so is time to carefuly tighten the axis with the bed mounted and ensuring free movement of the bed.
Same for X carriage and Z axis.
Then after you have the means to clamp without stressing the axis, to align the axis here you need, and have a bearing that will not force a bend (swivel) in the axis this is the base for a very good printer. After all this hard work you need to mount a way of moving the axis in a tension free fashion. Here there are options with belts (stiff but flexible and does not stress parts much and have minimal backlash),movement screws (like on Z axis on most printers) that have backlash and even antibacklash nuts are not a solution if forces are applied (there ae ways with fixed backlash adjust but the risk is bending the screw if the nuts are nt in perfect aligment), or rack and pinion (it has backlash but with a split gear it can be adjusted to tighten and eliminate backlash), or other fancy recirculating driving nut and screw.
After all that care has been taken to have proper axis and frame it would be a shame to skimp on a quality original hotend with precise nozzles and accurate thermistor and good heating, good heat management design (to prevent creep or other issues.. so original E3d or copperhead or other nice hotends). Also good steppers (reliable with no skip steps also torquey and fast with low angle. Also use the appropriate gearbox or pulley diameter to further increase resolution but make sure the steps are not smaller then the minimal play you get on your axis.
Also good steppers are a shame to be contolled by cheap choppy drivers so you go trinamics on a good reliable board with lots of functions and easy to implement like duet 3d 32bit, or even 8bit einsy rambo.
In the end a good printer has nothing useful from a cheap china printer. If you want minimal equilibrium betwen frame and components quality the you look at Prusa mk3s that has quality original parts in ever regard, a decent AL frame, good control on reliable electronics and steppers, good belts with proper tensioning, good design, and massive comunity. So i got a prusa as my 1st printer.
Then i got a cheap A6 Anet that i've improved a lot in the axis and stiffen the frame (from steel.. i'm a decent welder and work with steel.. so i fashined a steel frame and ensured a way to adjust axis positions to account for warps from welding and other stuff.) and got it going sort of ok but still had crappy motors, crappy control, crappy belts, crappy hotend. I'm qeeping my anet a as it is with the limited upgrades and call it a day.. print quality is decent if properly tuned.
I will be building a proper diy printers with a steel frame (I can weld and steel is cheap) with overkill axis (at least 20mm round) and true stepper motors and drivers (got some beefy ones from an old CNC.. not great step angle at 3degrees but i can trim it down in a gearbox. They have plenty torque and speed) - sure i will need custom drivers found in CNC machines rather than trinamics drivers. I plan to use a supervolcano e3d (maybe two extruders) and plan to make a mount for a CO2 laser for lasercutting/engraving and why not a CNC 2.5D mill but chips on a 3d printers will be another issue. B the time i'm done i estimate i will go over 2k euro in it.. so i might just find a cheap truce CNC mill and make the adaptations for a 3d printer. it maybe cheaper and sturdy and accurate (as a mill requires)
Anyway I'm mechanical engineer by trade and as a sum of the above post is that above all upgrades the major thing is to make sure you have good movement on axis with no tight spots, no bends, no stress in the moving parts to force a bend, no out of parallel axis, tight belts not springy. This will get even the stock cheap printer print rather good.
I've got 1 in my cart right now, this video has made me extremely rethink that. I don't mind some mods but I'm not trying to buy something I've got to start off by modifying. For 120 it doesn't seem bad but 250 and countless hours of modification seems like a waste. Wish it was a simple answer of worth it or not
It's been a while since I made these videos and since then dozens of these machines have caught fire. I would recommend *not* buying one.
just getting my new to me anet 8 printer. I can't get it to go to the print file page, I got it to home pre heat everything else.
It would appear that you've got a lot of Z axis wobble on your printer. I'd check they are straight, cos I bet they're not. Also, where's your auto levelling? That's a must have upgrade. I agree with others about the Bowden upgrade too. An already heavy X carriage is being weighed down with more stuff like the unnecessary cable arm.
Good job of responding to comments
It's what I do! =D
Loved the new video! I did a lot of similar upgrades to our TEVO Tarantula. Just finishing up installing my mosfet and power switch :)
That's pretty fantastic! =D
Hi I have a question, how do you feed the pla through the nozzle, I disassembled the whole fan and ran it through and re assembled it but it still didn’t go through. Can you be able to tell me how it goes through please?
its funny i have not done any upgrades to my anet a8 and the only think I head to do was tighten down the print bed's belt and all my prints have looked really good. But i am thinking of adding some of these upgrades to make the printer look better and to tidy up the cable mess other then that the printed for me has been really good right out of the box.
I also have an A8, but it prints virtually flawlessly with no additions. Of course I have many of the 'things' for the A8, now.
You should remove the top Z axis bearing guides... if they don't line up it is because the motor below is not centered. Fix that and the lead screws will be centered all of the time. Keeping the Z axis bearing guides is just going to cause the lead screws to bend in the middle as it prints and you will get lower quality/offsets/stress. The noise that you heard before applying oil was likely the due to the misalignment of the motor/lead screws..
That is a super interesting point. I'll have to tinker with centering the motors. Thanks for the heads up. =D
My A8 printed very nice too, out of the box. Your piece must be somehow defective. Anyway, I like your X-chain mount piece.
Can you share your pla settings ? My prints on my a8 are always spongy and the demos that came with the printer are beautiful and hard shell that tell me it’s my settings
RCisco Open your printer config file and change the filament from 3 mm to 1.75 mm.
Add that auto bed leveling sensor. It's awesome for getting that solid first layer. Thanks for sharing and happy printing :)
So would you say the tensioner bracket thingies were the only upgrade to the printer that resulted in better resolution?
It's hard to say exactly, but they certainly seemed to make the biggest difference.
Hello, superb video!!!!BRAVO!! Small question: how to solve the problem of dimension in X and Y? I have 25mm x25mm instead of 20mm.. Thanks in advance
If you want to have better bed adherence, get a sheet on PEI and install it over the heated bed. It sticks like crazy when hot and pops right off when it cools down.
Good tip. Gonna stick with blue tape for now, but that would be a good addition in the future.
When you run out of blue tape. :) www.amazon.com/Gizmo-Dorks-Printer-Surface-Polyetherimide/dp/B01KBGJU5S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503497811&sr=8-1&keywords=PEI It's really wonderful, I wouldn't go back to tape....ever. :)
Hi PPA, why my Anet A8 with board v1.7 (she had a 1.5 but it was replaced because it die) when is heating up, no matter the temp thet you stablish for printing she never goes to the temp goal and stay always 5º behind and like this the printer doesn´t start... I have to feed directly the 12 V in the mosfet to heat up to the stablish temp.... can you help me?
I have almost all the same printed upgrades on my a8, I set mine on a foam mat to reduce vibrations, Also maybe try printing with different cooling and speeds, this is what improved my quality the most
Yay foam! I'll be tinkering with print settings in the next video.
Iirc you're in the Seattle area, if I'm right, go to Tacoma Screw for nuts and bolts. They have a Seattle location, Tacoma, and some others I believe. You can get whatever you need and at insanely better prices than Lowes. It's also a great store for tools.
+Joshua Ogden Yeah that place is awesome! It's about 30 mins north of me.
I love Tacoma Screw
Hi bro, do you have the Y front support file?
Great video!! One thing I might add if you don’t mind is a fan for the power supply it brought the temp down quit a bit and I would imagine prolong the life of the power supply. I would add a picture of mine but I don’t know how
Hi, I’m just beginning to try my hand at 3D printing. I have an Anet A8 that I just got put together. Haven’t even plugged it in yet, want to learn all I can about it so I won’t screw it up. My question is, how do I get what it takes to print an object from thingiverse to my printer? I have looked on thingiverses’ web site and looked at all the upgrade stuff they have pictures of but I could not figure out how to get their project information to my printer or my computer so I can print that object. I appreciate any help you might have.
your t shirt capture me. now you have a new follower from italy
Ok I know this video is super old now and you may have already been told this, but I haven’t seen it in the comments. You need to extend your Z axis couplings! The lead screw end should be flush with the hole in the top of the frame. I’m willing to bet that was causing a bunch of your problems. I have this printer and it took me forever to discover that on my own. It stabilizes the Z axis while also leaving some wobble room for the slop.
The updates look great. I haven't done much to my A8 except the donut exhaust and filament guid. I'm gonna try the oil on the thread bering, frame stabilizer pieces and wire chain next. As for the helmet I'm guessing it might be either iron man or mass effect ✌🤓🤘
+RedSin Designs Both good guesses, but nope!
I have the same problem with the fan as you had in the first few seconds, any way to fix it?
What’s your pla setting ? I can’t get my anet a8 to print solide pieces there always spongy
Try adjusting extruder temps or even a different brand of filament. I have noticed a difference changing from 190 to 200 for pla, ymmv but tinkering with many of the settings can change print quality.
+Ian Ide Yeah I'll cover that in the next video.
Yeah, something just doesn't feel right here... I got excellent print results with my A8 straight out of the box with no upgrades. I did use a cordless drill with a very low torque setting to assemble it and make sure the frame did not move. It seems your frame moves A LOT comparatively and I think that might be the primary issue. It does take some force and two hands to bend my frame like that. There are a few small parts that did crack during assembly so take care not to over-torque them. Some people suggest that the z-axis screws have to be perfect, but they don't - mine are 2mm difference and it doesn't affect the quality of the print at all - that's what bed leveling is for! I did end up putting a switch on it because that was just annoying and will have to upgrade the power supply since it has trouble keeping temps when using the heated bed.
The heated bed itself is low powered. Source: use an ATX power supply.
Great video Bill 👍
I'm seriously looking at getting an A8. Looks like fun.
If you enjoy tinkering with a 3D printer to get it to work properly, than yes, it's super fun. =)
The oil will help for long term care. I'm kind of sure it will help print as well, Less sticking and friction to wear down the metal.
Good to know.
belt tensioners by far make the biggest improvement to print quality out of any of the upgrades they should be printed first. I started printing in ABS so i didn't need to upgrade my fan nozzle right away so i was able to get a lot of the frame stiffeners made.
I can't understand why such poor print quality, even after upgrades. My A8 printed it's first print (PLA and ABS) better than Bill's post-upgrade prints. Must be a physical problem with the nozzle, or possibly something loose somewhere? But I couldn't imagine how, after all the rebuilds. E3D V6 (or clone) would do wonders.
Some of your quality issues may have more to do with the speed you are printing, than frame rigidity. You tried slowing it down below 20mm/s? Nice to have good belt tension too. Those Y-axis braces are a must. Mine started to warp badly, esp after hot-boxing it, trying to reduce shrinkage on ABS. My most recent A8 upgrade, an inductive bed sensor, is the BOMB! Just hair spray on bare (60C) aluminum works well for adhesion, with a level bed. After the bed cools, not so hard to remove the print ... a little water can help.
Great video! Wish the firmware upgrade had been a separate step so you could see if that made any impact on print quality.
AHhh yeah I did that all in one go because I was getting frustrated. I recommend doing it anyway. Apparently it helps protect the machine from thermal runaway.
Great video. So honest about all your upgrades. Thanks !
You're welcome!
Without all this upgrades, my Anet A8 do the same job, i only replaced the Y carriage by an aluminium frame because it was bended and i added a new glass plate from anycubic to cancel warping.
Thanks for the video its helps lot.
But I want to asks something. Is their any 3d printer that can using a cement and sand material? As this can make it easy to print a baluster and roman columns without using a mould I need help please Sir
Hi Bill I hope you will reconsider the auto bed leveler, i'd really like to see how that works.
Sorry I won't be doing that.
donde consigues las piezas para imprimir?
This weekend I'm going to start building my printer.
Make sure to join the Facebook group for the printer and read up on the process. and ask questions if needed.. the instructions are passable but there are several things you can do while building to improve the machine (such as flipping the print bed tray, ensuring the front acrylic print bed plate is the right way around, and finally installing the Z-threaded rods in right). Also make sure those belts are tight! Biggest improvement to print quality has been making sure they are tight.
You will have a lot of fun building it!
Good advice! I bought one after watching Bill put his together live on stream. Price point seemed good, difficulty seemed low, & I intend to do the same sort of things Bill plans with his. So it was a nice surprise after the purchase to see how huge & supportive the community is for the A8! LOTS of informative & friendly users in the Facebook group, lots of TH-cam videos out there on upgrading & repairing things too!
Suddsky s it ended up printing about as good as my monoprice select, for a bit less money with the upgrades. Imo you should just save yourself the time and just buy a better printer
2:48 FIRST thing I printed to upgrade my a8, and they truely do stiffen the thing quite a bit. they should definitely come with the printer.
marlin software+careful CURA settings will help with that overhand ugliness.
6:41 looks like it's covered ;)
I want to print some (a lot) interlocking floor tiles to cover a large room. Would that be cost effective?
thx for the good start ;), a good upgrade it will be the tmc2100 and a mks gen L, just this will improve the machine noise and the quality
Really love your high tech solution to a noisy fan! I thought I was the only one who had to do that. I use a 15 sledge though. Hmm, maybe that's why the fan broke off the mount...
I also tried your finger snapping technique. I started snapping my fingers while standing in front of the printer. Nothing happened! What's your secret? Inquiring minds want to know...
Ah yeah I had to go to Hogwarts for like 4 years to learn that finger snapping technique.
i love your videos, and the amazing amount of talent in each prop!
Thanks!
Great work on 'Zipper' (lots of captured nuts!)
HAH! =D
I have my A8 sitting in the shipping box on my table. I've heard about some of the upgrades from the support group on FB. Someone in the group linked to your safety video.
I only did 4 upgrades, and I got cr-10 quality prints. And surprisingly, it was none of those. It was problably the settings on the slicer.
Can you please put the files in the discription of this video for the improvements
only thing I did was changed the software to Marlin. Lately the benchys have been printing really well. Still gonna add these upgrades though
what slicer do you use? I found switching from cura to slic3r prusa edition made a huge difference. seemed to get rid of a lot of imperfections. its free too
So far I've been using Cura.
At the very beginning, this fan sound is familiar to everyone. What is it and how to fix without having to knock?
What did you use for the setting on the chain pieces? I printed some out and they don't align as well as I would think
Sorry I don’t recall the settings I used.
I watched the entire video and TH-cam shows only HALF the red 'watched' bar. How often does TH-cam do this to NOT pay the uploaders correctly?!?
Give this video it's credit for me watching all 100% of it!
Out of the box this printer was making very good prints for me compared to what you were showing. A big part of print quality comes from your slicer settings...cheapest upgrade is to fine tune them. I would get rid of the "Anti Wobble Upgrade" It's not an upgrade and goes against the idea of the spring coupler at the bottom, the better "upgrade" is to make sure the rods are aligned properly. The A8 can achieve fantastic prints comparable to $1000+ printers without much put into it other than tinker time.
Amazing video! Really nice! Subscribed!
are you print abs or pla items?
The belts did really great for me as well. The other thing that helped was I printed some clamps and a board for a base. Cut down the flex of the upper frame a bunch
what speeds can you print at?