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632 sats \ 2 replies \ @freetx 24 Jun \ on: Struggles with Creality's 3D printer Ender 3 V3 SE DIY
I taught myself 3d printing, starting with a Creality Ender 2. (which I have since moved on from, now I use Elegoo Neptune 4). I am by no means an expert....literally everything I know has been from just trial and error (lots of error).
The biggest jumps in my knowledge came from getting 2 identical printers. I needed 2 since I was starting to print higher volumes of prototype parts for work (we mainly use it for cases for little embedded boards).
Having two identical printers taught me many things: For one I now don't believe "filament humidity problems" are nearly as widespread as people think. I say that because two identically sliced models can behave vastly differently on two identical printers using the same spool of filament.
I would say the problems break down like this: 60% of time its bed-leveling problems, 30% of time its printer adjustment problems (belts too loose or too tight, alignment problems, etc), and only 10% of time is it filament.
The real problem with 3D printing is relatively minor changes related to hardware produces big changes in print outcome (especially as model grows larger and larger....small models can print fine of misaligned printers but fail as it gets bigger). Further a model may print fine on one area of bed, but fail on another area of bed because of mechanical / alignment issues....
I think lots of times this happens: You convince yourself that you have a "filament humidity problem"...you excuse the printer because you say "I printed that small case yesterday and it printed fine"...so you start the process of drying your filament.
In the meantime, environmental conditions change (its warmer or colder or the printers heated up or whatever or you print in different orientation or different area of bed, etc), then you print again and you get better results so you think "you see, it was the filament".
Hot Take: Unless you are printing highly hygroscopic materials like nylon, PETG, TPU, etc its most likely NOT a humidity problem. I think the 3D printing "industry" hypes humidity problems simply to sell gadgets. (For the record I live in a relatively high humid environment).
Damn, thank you for the answer, this was more educational than a lot of research I've been doing.
My biggest takeway is that the "industry" is still infant so problems will be solved over time as new features, I say this in the spirit of adjacent industries like photography that used to have a huge entry barrier and nowadays a person with little photography knowledge and a phone can take great pictures or videos. So the complexity is usually abstracted away as technology matures.
That also means there is lots of opportunities in this space to help address these issues like the guys from Obico (creators of Spagetthi Detector) are doing, pretty cool stuff!
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EDIT: Obico, former Spaghetti Detective is the name of the service. It can be found here: https://www.obico.io/the-spaghetti-detective.html
I have no affiliation with them.
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