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I have been using my Creality Ender 3 Pro filament printer for -- what? -- 2-1/2 years? For most of that time I've had good success printing all kinds of custom slotcar components. But of late I have suffered a lot of filament jams -- filament swelling up in the Bowden tube right above the hot end and jamming tight enough that it cannot be fed. Apparently a common problem and not easily solved.
So when I discovered Creality was offering a new one-piece filament feeder/extruder for the Ender 3 Pro I was ready for it. At US$110 it was a significant investment, but my hope was it would also be a significant upgrade, extending the service life of my printer.
No doubt I'll have lots to say about the Sprite unit, and I'll be posting here. But to start with...
Assembling the Sprite onto my Ender 3 Pro required removing the existing filament feed and extrusion system. Mechanically not a difficult job, especially since I had assembled the machine in the first place -- it comes only partially assembled.
With the original hardware off the new stuff bolts on with minimal pain. But the electrical assembly is a bit more tedious. Still, I was able to do it without removing the circuit board. The instructions do show you where everything goes, but the print is so small and faint I needed my headband magnifier to read it. You need to bring your inner watchmaker to the task. That circuit board is small and dense. Cool confidence, diligence and patience will get you through.
But the big, unanticipated pain is that you need to reset the e-step parameter for the filament feed. The instruction sheet shows nicely illustrated instructions for how to do this. What they don't mention is that you need to dial through something north of 40,000 steps on that little push-and-twist knob you use to input commands. I mean that for real -- 40,000 steps. I found I could dial through 1.000 steps in just under a minute, but even so that meant the best part of an hour spent twisting that little knob. Creality Support says, "Uh, nope, no better way to do that."
So, finally, all bolted in, wired up and reprogrammed. Time for the smoke test. POWAH!!!
And... No filament is feeding. So why's that? Well it could be the hot end is dead cold. Yup. Cold as the grave.
So I shoot off an email to the crew at Creality Support. And they respond asking for a whole bunch of background info. Not what I'd hoped for. But its okay because in the meantime I had found the problem all on my own.
Turns out there was a loose electrical connector sporting a blue tag that says, in essence' "Plug me in!"
So I did that, and, gosharooty! It worked!
The filament fed, faithfully executing my commands. Too bad the instruction booklet said fudge all about any loose connector, or blue tags for that matter.
In retrospect, the installation and startup was not all that horrible. Worthy of Microsoft but not of Apple. But then I had gone into the project with the realistic expectation there'd be a hiccup or three. No disappointment there.
More to come. I'll be posting here. Stay tuned.
So when I discovered Creality was offering a new one-piece filament feeder/extruder for the Ender 3 Pro I was ready for it. At US$110 it was a significant investment, but my hope was it would also be a significant upgrade, extending the service life of my printer.
No doubt I'll have lots to say about the Sprite unit, and I'll be posting here. But to start with...
Assembling the Sprite onto my Ender 3 Pro required removing the existing filament feed and extrusion system. Mechanically not a difficult job, especially since I had assembled the machine in the first place -- it comes only partially assembled.
With the original hardware off the new stuff bolts on with minimal pain. But the electrical assembly is a bit more tedious. Still, I was able to do it without removing the circuit board. The instructions do show you where everything goes, but the print is so small and faint I needed my headband magnifier to read it. You need to bring your inner watchmaker to the task. That circuit board is small and dense. Cool confidence, diligence and patience will get you through.
But the big, unanticipated pain is that you need to reset the e-step parameter for the filament feed. The instruction sheet shows nicely illustrated instructions for how to do this. What they don't mention is that you need to dial through something north of 40,000 steps on that little push-and-twist knob you use to input commands. I mean that for real -- 40,000 steps. I found I could dial through 1.000 steps in just under a minute, but even so that meant the best part of an hour spent twisting that little knob. Creality Support says, "Uh, nope, no better way to do that."
So, finally, all bolted in, wired up and reprogrammed. Time for the smoke test. POWAH!!!
And... No filament is feeding. So why's that? Well it could be the hot end is dead cold. Yup. Cold as the grave.
So I shoot off an email to the crew at Creality Support. And they respond asking for a whole bunch of background info. Not what I'd hoped for. But its okay because in the meantime I had found the problem all on my own.
Turns out there was a loose electrical connector sporting a blue tag that says, in essence' "Plug me in!"
So I did that, and, gosharooty! It worked!
The filament fed, faithfully executing my commands. Too bad the instruction booklet said fudge all about any loose connector, or blue tags for that matter.
In retrospect, the installation and startup was not all that horrible. Worthy of Microsoft but not of Apple. But then I had gone into the project with the realistic expectation there'd be a hiccup or three. No disappointment there.
More to come. I'll be posting here. Stay tuned.
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