Z motor shim (more of a fix than upgrade), then paid upgrades (in order of importance) PEI on glass bed, Yellow/blue die cast bed springs, Octopi on Raspberry pi, SKR mini e3 silent board, 3D touch.' printed upgrades include bulleye fan duct mod, cable chains, rear electronics box, front parts and tools drawers, V slot covers, LCD bezel, power supply fan cover. Less useful and could do without (3 point Y carriage), Creality textured glass
Good, honest video. Thanks for the idea. I've carried out many mods on my Ender 3, but by far the best is to my Bowden tube. I printed and fitted brackets to each end - thingiverse.com/thing:3482440 and thingiverse.com/thing:3625215, and removed the cable-ties holding the tube to the cable harness. This has fixed the tube from rotating and wearing each end for a more reliable connection.
Thank you for your honesty in evaluating this mod. I just started printing TPU on my Ender 3 Neo, and frankly, I am amazed at the quality I'm seeing with the standard bowden tube setup. So far, I've used Priline, Giantarm, and Sain Smart 95A filament, and seen superior results. I did make modifications to insure smooth, low friction filament feed, such as a spool roller, etc, but I really thought I was going to need direct drive to print with these materials, but now I've rethought this.
good to know, I was looking at this for my Ender 3 Neo and haven't tried any of these filaments thinking I would need to have it direct drive. I'll have to try a couple out based on this.
Thanks. My 3rd spool on my Ender 3 V2 was eSun TPU, and it printed great using the boden set-up. I was thinking of this upgrade, but now I won't bother. Thanks again
The direct drive takes less retraction and less feed speed so when dialed in there’s less variation between different filaments, and Bowden settings are drastically reduced. Like microswiss recommends 0.8 mm - 1.5mm range of retraction for their direct drive
Thanks for the video. I'm going to upgrade mine using a plate from 3D Fused because I have their linear rail system but ... the direct drive has to be better and more precise than a bowden tube. Has to be because it has less slop in the extrusion. I surmise that (as others have said) the lower quality has to be attributed to some tuning differences you need to look at. Such as flow rate, E-steps, and anything else you can think of that affects the area you have modified. I have linear rails, but you do not. It might have to do with the weight of the extruder motor which is bigger than the other three. They did this so it would have a little more torque that the other motors (for bowden tube). I do not think the direct drive needs as much torque. In fact I purchased a 42-34 stepper like the others (X,Y,Z) and installed it in place of the 42-40 motor as an experiment prior to me getting the direct drive plate. Even with the bowden tube setup, the smaller motor works OK (does not skip). I proved this comparing several prints using both motors on the extruder. The smaller motor weighs 75 grams less than the larger motor. You might want to look into the weight issue also. Waiting for your further experiments.
I haven't done this upgrade yet but I am guessing the change in print quality afterward is that you then need to adjust your esteps value in the firmware so that the extruder is extruding the right amount. I am guessing it's overextruding a bit with the shorter bowden tube since it has less friction and tension in the filament which produces blobs on the surface of the model.
Extra motor weight on the moving head increases the inertia and makes it hard to stop at a precise position. Maybe slowing down the print speed can improve the quality.
the problem with direct drive is the inertia movement (the drive will be heavier) that causes failures on wall. the way to fix that is making adjustement on belts, slowing down print speed and maybe with TL smoothers
Surface quality is likely affected due to the additional moving mass. You basically undid what the bowden tube setup is meant to fix; moving mass. Hopefully by now you're running Klipper and have an accelerometer so you can tune the resonance of the carriage which should solve those quality issues. Ender 3 for life, yo! It's like a Honda, everyone hates owning one, but it they're reliable and keep on running and have thousands of mods. :D
Nice idea - to differ from other ones that I saw here It'll not require adding a stopper to the X axis - so the table space won't be reduced But pay attention that it limits the height because your extruder motor will bump into the top rail
You can check for example my video "How to Calibrate E-steps and Flow Rate" th-cam.com/video/xyrC0vVNGMs/w-d-xo.html for some later developments with the printer.
Ty for a great video im newish to 3d printing got into it 3 months ago & im hooked for life, so ive been looking for ways to tweak / upgrade my printer & im glad i found this vd
@@HardFirmSoft My friend has one, its good and pretty cheap too! I did it the hard way and swaped the drivers on my stock creality board and then modded in UART
One of the biggest tweek is the retraction figure put it down to 1mm instead of the standard 6.5mm . My mod works great, the finish is superior to the bowden tube method.
I have come to a similar conclusion about print quality and direct drive. Perhaps other printers handle this much better, but I found my ender 3 pro was better off with the tube setup, as I prefer quality over the exotic options I could print. If I were to have a direct drive it would be a second printer, and not my main.
I hadn't really heard about those before, but wouldn't that require the motor driver to be changed? I wasn't really seeing any lost steps on anything else than the extruder, so maybe it wouldn't help on the X-axis. But thanks for bringing the closed loop concept to my knowledge.
@@HardFirmSoft No the driver is placed on the back of the Nema 17 size motor so just plug in the original cable in the driver but change place on controll board or use adapter. Im more thinking of it as a help to cope with the added weight so it hopefully reduce the uneven surface. Sot sure it will help but maby. There are several brands with different resolutions. www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=AS_20200724131759&SearchText=closed+loop+stepper+nema17
I printed the part as you said without supports but the 2 sides were slightly off the bed which i did not see and they bowed/bulged out lol, waist for a 5 hour print (as i did 50% infill) lol
I did not try that so I'm not sure what went wrong. Are you saying the object wasn't completely touching the build plate when slicing it? You probably don't need 50 % infill, my usual range is 10 - 20 percent.
@@HardFirmSoft i did but as i said, the 2 sides on the top and bottom are not flush, i actually got a micro swiss direct drive and hotend for my birthday yesterday anyway lol
Проблема в немного гибком соединении, когда экстудер подает филамент, он немного давит на тефлоновую трубку тем самым смещая центр тяжести, и из-за этого получается смещения слоёв
Very cool. Have you looked into replacing the extruder motor with a lighter pancake style motors that are used in the new light weight extruders out now?
I think TL smoothers have helped reduce unwanted artifacts on my prints. I would really love to learn about other upgrades that do help make prints better. Thanks for the video
Really good to hear from you what you want see! I'm going to be making videos about more upgrades for this printer and also how to tune settings to get better quality.
Great video but let's try and smile every now and then and maybe work on the monotoneness lol. Just messin with ya bud. Keep doin your thing. Good channel!
Also I'm not sure the link to the stepper extension wire is the right product. The comments on amazon seem to say it's the the right size. Searching amazon for "nema 17 stepper extension" gives quite a few other results that are less expensive and have reviews saying they fit.
Thanks for the comment! With that search, I'm only seeing cables that have a male 4-pin connector on the other end. In addition to the male 6-pin, the cable needs to have a female 6-pin to fit for this purpose. The cables in that search would work if you wanted to replace the whole cable and plug it directly to the mainboard.
After 7 months were you able to get better quality prints as the bowden setup? And would pla be safe for this upgrade or will the hot end melt the mount?
Yeah, it's definitely better now. I would say the quality is pretty much equal to the bowden setup. So I wouldn't do this upgrade if you want better surface quality than stock. And no issues with the heat from the extruder motor.
You deserve 100k subscribers. What is your opinion now in 2021? I am printing this mod now but I am afraid it will not be good.. Well done for the content!
@@HardFirmSoft I can tell you, it is okeisch with bowden. I tuned it as good as possible (with my knowledge) and i am left with some really thin hairs, depending on the filament more or less. But i want it perfect! I am waiting for your review, Thanks in advance.
esteps need to be recalibrated retraction dist in the range of like 0.25 - 1.0 and reduce retract speed to like 25ish.... after that print some temp towers and retract towers, then linear advance
Shouldn't need to recalibrate esteps if you're using the same stepper and extruder gear. esteps only affects how much filament you're moving which isn't changed in this mod. But it's much more worth just upgrading to a Micro Swiss NG w/EVO.
I did this without any instruction to my ender 3 v2, now I'm wondering if you have to change something in the slicer to account for the direct extrusion
great video! I would also consider re-calibrating E-Steps & Flow rates. do to length change of the tubing. you'll have less resistance on the filament since there is almost no tubing.
Nice to hear that you enjoyed the video. I actually made a video about that already, so maybe you'll want to check that out :) th-cam.com/video/xyrC0vVNGMs/w-d-xo.html
Just for anyone watching at this point in time. If you don’t have any of these materials or tools it will cost you the same to buy the kit from creality as it will to get the materials and tools. They sell them for $40.
Still using it. Spending some more time tuning and adding a few new upgrades have raised the quality probably past what it was originally, in addition to the usability benefits.
What is the best upgrade you've done to your 3D printer? Let me know in the comments!
Great video man!. My favorite upgrade on my ender 3 pro, without a doubt has been the Filament spool roller assembly
www.thingiverse.com/thing:3209211
Switching to the Creality Glass bed and side mount spool holder and quiet motherboard.
Z motor shim (more of a fix than upgrade), then paid upgrades (in order of importance) PEI on glass bed, Yellow/blue die cast bed springs, Octopi on Raspberry pi, SKR mini e3 silent board, 3D touch.'
printed upgrades include bulleye fan duct mod, cable chains, rear electronics box, front parts and tools drawers, V slot covers, LCD bezel, power supply fan cover.
Less useful and could do without (3 point Y carriage), Creality textured glass
Good, honest video. Thanks for the idea. I've carried out many mods on my Ender 3, but by far the best is to my Bowden tube. I printed and fitted brackets to each end - thingiverse.com/thing:3482440 and thingiverse.com/thing:3625215, and removed the cable-ties holding the tube to the cable harness. This has fixed the tube from rotating and wearing each end for a more reliable connection.
Buying Cr10 springs for the bed of my Ender 3. What a difference in bed leveling.
just a tip : don't cut your 4 or 6 wires perpendically but in diagonal. Like this it will be more easier to identify your different wires.
For extending the wires I’ve always been a fan of extending one wire at a time. That way it’s impossible to mix up the connections. Great video.
That's a great idea! Gotta use it next time.
Thank you for your honesty in evaluating this mod. I just started printing TPU on my Ender 3 Neo, and frankly, I am amazed at the quality I'm seeing with the standard bowden tube setup. So far, I've used Priline, Giantarm, and Sain Smart 95A filament, and seen superior results. I did make modifications to insure smooth, low friction filament feed, such as a spool roller, etc, but I really thought I was going to need direct drive to print with these materials, but now I've rethought this.
good to know, I was looking at this for my Ender 3 Neo and haven't tried any of these filaments thinking I would need to have it direct drive. I'll have to try a couple out based on this.
Thanks. My 3rd spool on my Ender 3 V2 was eSun TPU, and it printed great using the boden set-up.
I was thinking of this upgrade, but now I won't bother. Thanks again
The direct drive takes less retraction and less feed speed so when dialed in there’s less variation between different filaments, and Bowden settings are drastically reduced. Like microswiss recommends 0.8 mm - 1.5mm range of retraction for their direct drive
Interesting, I haven't tried going that low on the retraction. Maybe I'll try also lowering the speed as well.
Thanks for the video. I'm going to upgrade mine using a plate from 3D Fused because I have their linear rail system but ... the direct drive has to be better and more precise than a bowden tube. Has to be because it has less slop in the extrusion. I surmise that (as others have said) the lower quality has to be attributed to some tuning differences you need to look at. Such as flow rate, E-steps, and anything else you can think of that affects the area you have modified. I have linear rails, but you do not. It might have to do with the weight of the extruder motor which is bigger than the other three. They did this so it would have a little more torque that the other motors (for bowden tube). I do not think the direct drive needs as much torque. In fact I purchased a 42-34 stepper like the others (X,Y,Z) and installed it in place of the 42-40 motor as an experiment prior to me getting the direct drive plate. Even with the bowden tube setup, the smaller motor works OK (does not skip). I proved this comparing several prints using both motors on the extruder. The smaller motor weighs 75 grams less than the larger motor. You might want to look into the weight issue also. Waiting for your further experiments.
I haven't done this upgrade yet but I am guessing the change in print quality afterward is that you then need to adjust your esteps value in the firmware so that the extruder is extruding the right amount. I am guessing it's overextruding a bit with the shorter bowden tube since it has less friction and tension in the filament which produces blobs on the surface of the model.
Thanks for the tip! I'll be looking at tuning E-steps among other things in an upcoming video.
Great video ! Was considering this upgrade but I appreciate your honesty at the end !
Extra motor weight on the moving head increases the inertia and makes it hard to stop at a precise position. Maybe slowing down the print speed can improve the quality.
the problem with direct drive is the inertia movement (the drive will be heavier) that causes failures on wall. the way to fix that is making adjustement on belts, slowing down print speed and maybe with TL smoothers
I didn't saw the recalibration of the extruder. Did you did it ?
This guy looks like if Bobby flat and Gordon Ramsey had a son together
Ha!!! Butt hole baby. : /
Well my brother and I felt he just looked depressed.. As if he was forced into making this video 😂
@@customengravingsbyhuntersh657
.... at gun point.... like Linda Lovelace.
Prob had to do the same.... no wonder. : /
@@timd9430 Lol yeah, I mean dont get me wrong it was a great video but I feel he should have acted more excited for the upgrade
Surface quality is likely affected due to the additional moving mass. You basically undid what the bowden tube setup is meant to fix; moving mass. Hopefully by now you're running Klipper and have an accelerometer so you can tune the resonance of the carriage which should solve those quality issues. Ender 3 for life, yo! It's like a Honda, everyone hates owning one, but it they're reliable and keep on running and have thousands of mods. :D
Nice idea - to differ from other ones that I saw here It'll not require adding a stopper to the X axis - so the table space won't be reduced
But pay attention that it limits the height because your extruder motor will bump into the top rail
Work on your settings and I'd bet it will be drastically improved and results from print to print will likely be more consistent with this upgrade
Ps - lower your jerk and acceleration settings. More mass on the gantry means harder to change direction quickly.
Thanks, I think I'll try that next time I'm tuning the printer.
Even smaller retraction? 1.5mm? Maybe changing the speed of retraction as well? DD is not a favorite of PLA.
did you do an update video as to what the problem was with the print at the end @13:24 ?
You can check for example my video "How to Calibrate E-steps and Flow Rate" th-cam.com/video/xyrC0vVNGMs/w-d-xo.html for some later developments with the printer.
Very informative and honest video. Thank you for taking the time to make it.
Ty for a great video im newish to 3d printing got into it 3 months ago & im hooked for life, so ive been looking for ways to tweak / upgrade my printer & im glad i found this vd
This videos makes the upgrade look scarier than it is
Best mod so far has to be TMC2208 driver on my ender 3! Nice and quiet now
That's nice to hear! I'm actually planning to install an SKR E3 Mini mainboard upgrade to get 2209s in my printer.
@@HardFirmSoft My friend has one, its good and pretty cheap too! I did it the hard way and swaped the drivers on my stock creality board and then modded in UART
@@ximonx Whoa! That's some hardcore modding! I didn't even realize that could be done. Why aren't you making videos? 😄
@@HardFirmSoft not really considered it, i wrote about the mod here though simons.tech.blog/2020/01/19/creality-ender-3-v-1-1-3-tmc2208-uart-mod/
@@ximonx Gotta read through that. Nice to see people creating something new in this community! 🙂
Thanks for this review, you burst my bubble/fantasy right before I pressed print.
One of the biggest tweek is the retraction figure put it down to 1mm instead of the standard 6.5mm . My mod works great, the finish is superior to the bowden tube method.
Yeah, I should probably try different retraction amounts and speeds to improve the printing quality.
I have come to a similar conclusion about print quality and direct drive. Perhaps other printers handle this much better, but I found my ender 3 pro was better off with the tube setup, as I prefer quality over the exotic options I could print. If I were to have a direct drive it would be a second printer, and not my main.
I’m new to this but I was thinking of doing it but also doing a dual z at the same time to fix the issue from all the weight
Between this and your e-steps video, I have smashed that subscribe button. Thanks very much for this, appreciate your content. Cheers!
I can't get over how clear and well produced your tutorials are with only 161 subs. Keep it up, seriously well done.
Thank you so much! What I need to work on is to upload consistently 🙂
Hmm i wonder if a closed loop stepper on x axis would help?
I hadn't really heard about those before, but wouldn't that require the motor driver to be changed? I wasn't really seeing any lost steps on anything else than the extruder, so maybe it wouldn't help on the X-axis. But thanks for bringing the closed loop concept to my knowledge.
@@HardFirmSoft No the driver is placed on the back of the Nema 17 size motor so just plug in the original cable in the driver but change place on controll board or use adapter. Im more thinking of it as a help to cope with the added weight so it hopefully reduce the uneven surface. Sot sure it will help but maby. There are several brands with different resolutions. www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=AS_20200724131759&SearchText=closed+loop+stepper+nema17
I printed the part as you said without supports but the 2 sides were slightly off the bed which i did not see and they bowed/bulged out lol, waist for a 5 hour print (as i did 50% infill) lol
I did not try that so I'm not sure what went wrong. Are you saying the object wasn't completely touching the build plate when slicing it? You probably don't need 50 % infill, my usual range is 10 - 20 percent.
@@HardFirmSoft the object cannot completely touch the build plate, i only found that out after it had finished lol
In Cura, there's a rotation mode "select face to align to the build plate." There should be a similar feature in most slicers. Have you tried that?
@@HardFirmSoft i did but as i said, the 2 sides on the top and bottom are not flush, i actually got a micro swiss direct drive and hotend for my birthday yesterday anyway lol
I've been thinking about the micro swiss hot end. Let me know how the upgrade works out. 🙂
Awesome, dude!
Very informative, and direct to the point, keep doing this great job.
Проблема в немного гибком соединении, когда экстудер подает филамент, он немного давит на тефлоновую трубку тем самым смещая центр тяжести, и из-за этого получается смещения слоёв
Will this work for the Ender 3 max?
There is another great printable upgrade for the BMG extruder with the original MK8-10 hotend instead of the V6.. enclosed, so better for flexibles
finaly a person who uses alan keys correctly
Very cool. Have you looked into replacing the extruder motor with a lighter pancake style motors that are used in the new light weight extruders out now?
48 subscribers is SCANDALOUS!! fanstastic video! very clear! deffo earned a sub from me!
do you have any suggestion for a hot end cooling duct that will work for this direct drive? would be nice if we can also just use the stock fans.
Good unbiased video. Did you fix your issue? I'm sticking with bowden because I want to be able to print faster.
Nice video mann what i was just looking for
Did you calibrate e-step, your slicing setting?
subscribed! your videos are the perfect length and extremely informative!
Glad you like them!
can a bmg extruder fit with this mount
Thank you for your honest work.
Great video!
I think TL smoothers have helped reduce unwanted artifacts on my prints. I would really love to learn about other upgrades that do help make prints better.
Thanks for the video
Really good to hear from you what you want see! I'm going to be making videos about more upgrades for this printer and also how to tune settings to get better quality.
@@HardFirmSoft I believe the PID calibration might be affected by this also
do you know the settings for the bondetch extruder for the ender 3 v2?
Very honest video Thank You mate.
Great video but let's try and smile every now and then and maybe work on the monotoneness lol. Just messin with ya bud. Keep doin your thing. Good channel!
direct drive upgrade eyebrows? LOL J/k ( I liked the video !)
Also I'm not sure the link to the stepper extension wire is the right product. The comments on amazon seem to say it's the the right size. Searching amazon for "nema 17 stepper extension" gives quite a few other results that are less expensive and have reviews saying they fit.
Thanks for the comment! With that search, I'm only seeing cables that have a male 4-pin connector on the other end. In addition to the male 6-pin, the cable needs to have a female 6-pin to fit for this purpose. The cables in that search would work if you wanted to replace the whole cable and plug it directly to the mainboard.
have you tried a dual drive on this direct drive yet? i bet that would help a lot with quality also.
Haven't tried it yet, but I have an upgraded part on the shelf waiting for installation and testing.
What fan ducts do this work with?
After 7 months were you able to get better quality prints as the bowden setup? And would pla be safe for this upgrade or will the hot end melt the mount?
Yeah, it's definitely better now. I would say the quality is pretty much equal to the bowden setup. So I wouldn't do this upgrade if you want better surface quality than stock. And no issues with the heat from the extruder motor.
@@HardFirmSoft i was mostly looking into this upgrade just so i can primt flexible filaments
You deserve 100k subscribers. What is your opinion now in 2021? I am printing this mod now but I am afraid it will not be good.. Well done for the content!
How about the strining from petg, is it going to be less then with a bowden?
I have some PETG ready, so I will test how good this setup works. Unfortunately I can't compare to the stock bowden setup.
@@HardFirmSoft I can tell you, it is okeisch with bowden. I tuned it as good as possible (with my knowledge) and i am left with some really thin hairs, depending on the filament more or less. But i want it perfect! I am waiting for your review, Thanks in advance.
it works so damn well with petg!
esteps need to be recalibrated retraction dist in the range of like 0.25 - 1.0 and reduce retract speed to like 25ish.... after that print some temp towers and retract towers, then linear advance
Shouldn't need to recalibrate esteps if you're using the same stepper and extruder gear. esteps only affects how much filament you're moving which isn't changed in this mod. But it's much more worth just upgrading to a Micro Swiss NG w/EVO.
I did this without any instruction to my ender 3 v2, now I'm wondering if you have to change something in the slicer to account for the direct extrusion
You will need to calibrate your e-steps to account for the new positioning and reduced friction.
@@christopherjones2301 thank you so much, now I know why my printer is over extruding a bit
Stagger your cable cuts to avoid a large "bunch" where you solder/heatshrink :-)
Perhaps slowing down the print speed could help?
hello friend, very good video.
What challenges are you using now? after the upgrade?
Sorry for the late response, but I don't quite understand your question. What do you mean what challenges am I using now?
great video! I would also consider re-calibrating E-Steps & Flow rates. do to length change of the tubing. you'll have less resistance on the filament since there is almost no tubing.
Nice to hear that you enjoyed the video. I actually made a video about that already, so maybe you'll want to check that out :) th-cam.com/video/xyrC0vVNGMs/w-d-xo.html
Thank you, very good class.
Wow~~!! Good explanation. Thanks very much
Just for anyone watching at this point in time. If you don’t have any of these materials or tools it will cost you the same to buy the kit from creality as it will to get the materials and tools. They sell them for $40.
Thanks! perfect guide.
I'm glad you liked it!
Love the enthusiasm lmao
You look so happy 😋
Still using this upgrade?
Still using it. Spending some more time tuning and adding a few new upgrades have raised the quality probably past what it was originally, in addition to the usability benefits.
where are you from?
Thanks for watching! I'm from Finland.
Hard Firm Soft i was sure you were swedish by your accent, but Finland is cool
Thank you.
Yeah well i can tell you are an expert
Awesome video. Cosmetics don't matter to me. Strictly structural parts and carbon fiber filaments eat bowdens.
Yeah, the direct drive system is way better for some things, but seems to require more tweaking to get great surface quality.
I feel you made this much more complicated then it is
Alexi pls your hair OMG