Official Creality Ender 3 3D Printer Fully Open Source with Resume Printing Function DIY Printers Build Volulme 8.66×8.66×9.84 inch

Amazing printer!
The Ender 3 marked my entry into the 3D-printing world, and I love it! The 3D printer has been a godsend! If you’re also newbie and searching for advice, here’s my brief take on the Ender 3. It’s awesome!The Ender 3 arrives in pieces that you must assemble. Since it is essentially a robot, assembly can seem overwhelming at first, but if you take it one step at a time, you’ll be printing in no time. I found the printed instructions accompanying the unit to be more sizzle than steak, but, fortunately there are several videos on YouTube that make assembly a breeze. Believe it or not, assembling the unit yourself is beneficial because it familiarizes you with the device. It will allow you to easily make the minor adjustments that 3D printers often require.My wife and I have found that 3D printing comes with somewhat of a steep learning curve, but it’s fun. YouTube and websites such as “all3DP dot com” have proven themselves to be life savers.The most common adjustments you’ll make while 3D printing is “bed leveling.” In truth, though, you’re not actually “leveling” the print bed, but rather you’re ensuring that the print nozzle is uniformly distanced from the bed (the print surface) on all its 4 corners. The nozzle needs to be super close, too. …not about an inch or two away from the print bed, but rather it needs to be no further than the thickness of a piece of paper. Crazy, huh?When my wife and I printed a test file provided by Creality (the manufacturer), we frankly sat mesmerized at the unit’s precision. It was like staring into a campfire and getting lost in the flames. The nozzle just zipped back and forth across the print bed leaving tiny bits of corn-based “plastic” one layer at a time, and eventually (over time) created a cat/dog thingy.In search of more things to print, we settled on two websites with tons of 3D-printable files that are very often free to download. The websites are “thingiverse dot com” and “cults3d dot com”. The latter site takes longer to load, but seems to have more options. Creality has one too, but I haven’t really checked it out yet. It’s important to note that the files you download from such websites are *.stl files, whereas the Ender 3 needs *.gcode files. To make the file conversion, we downloaded a piece of software called Cura. It appears to be the best (free) software on the market for “slicing” 3D files into *.gcode files. That too has a steep learning curve, complete with complicated settings. But fortunately there are lots of tutorials online along with settings you can copy from experts. I mostly rely on “all3DP dot com” for that.After a while, we decided to invent our own designs and then print them into existence. In my opinion, the cat’s meow — the best and easiest 3D design application — is Fusion360. It has a limited free version for students and schools, but otherwise it’s quite pricey. My wife then found free, open-sourced design software called FreeCAD. We love it, and haven’t turned back since.The filament we prefer is PLA. In our experience, PLA produces little to no fumes and it’s guilt-free because it’s corn-based and biodegradable. It should be noted, though, that not all PLA is created equally. This is primarily because (according to what I’ve read) pigments affect the PLA in different ways. So, when I order PLA from Amazon, I always look for the PLA with the most and highest reviews. Then, I refer upon their temperature recommendations.Overall, we absolutely love the Ender 3. At under $200, it’s extremely affordable, and the process of printing things into existence can be (in my experience) somehow transformative. And if you find yourself confused about something, take my advice by not wasting time by trying to figure it out for yourself. Just refer to the experts on any of the websites I mentioned so, later on, you can focus on things that really matter…like design.Note: the bearing on a little fan went out. So, I reached out to Comgrow, they got back to me immediately, and now a new fan is on the way. No fuss no muss.Finally, at the risk of getting to personal, I’m a disabled veteran who benefits from focusing on tangible things. The process of 3D printing has proven itself to be such a godsend in that regard, that I think the VA should seriously explore ways of getting more vets 3D printing.I hope this helped newbies like me. Happy printing!

I really gotta give props to Creality for making this printer so affordable and (relatively) easy to set up and use. Since getting it I learned a of stuff about 3D printing (both by being forced to do it and trying to troubleshoot all the different issues :P)It’s a great printer for the price, not sure what else I can say. Initial assembly was relatively easy and took around an hour. Then I realised I haven’t done it properly so I had to re-assemble parts I assembled before (another 1h). Then a couple of days later I realised the frame is not straight… So I disassembled and re-levelled the whole thing from scratch (another 2h or so) Then i’ve done it yet again a couple of days later to straighten the gantry 😛 Unfortunately factory pre-assembled parts were not perfectly assembled. The bed is not perfectly even either, seems a bit warped but oh well the glass bed upgrade is too expensive.Usage is straightforward after assembly, there’s an amazing amount of 3D-printable improvements to the Ender 3, tons of guides and information readily available. SD card slot is a great addition but you’ll probably want to move to an Octoprint setup for ease of use and to flash a more recent Marlin firmware.Unfortunately the Pause feature has bugged out multiple times on me on the original firmware (just freezes printer in place, ruining prints) but at least the power-loss recovery works fine (once it freezes just shut it off and back on and it will give you an option to resume). No such issues with the custom-built Marlin fw.Worth noting is that my unit came with a 4.2.2 32-bit motherboard, an extruder guide enforced with metal and adjustable tension. Attached amount of filament was almost enough to print the sample doggy figure – you can clearly see where the filament ran out ;(Overall it’s a fun learning experience but if you’re expecting to just “buy, print and forget” – this might be the best choice for you as it has no auto bed levelling and other features present in more expensive printers (unless you upgrade it yourself)Definitely watch one or two assembly videos to get an idea of what to look out for during assembly, it will save you time in the longer run

****UPDATED FEBRUARY 2021****Most problems have been solved, thanks! They sent me replacement and/or partial refunds for the problematic parts. Thanks a lot!Ender 3 pro is long to build – be sure to watch Youtube Videos as written info isn’t enough – but it’s fully customizable, affordable and printing quality is amazing. You have to put some efforts into it, beware, but the satisfaction of your 3d printer working perfectly is worth it.

Product is simple and amazing. I am looking at functionality versus absolute quality and this is perfect for me. The product has been handy for making anything u can think of. I was able to quickly draw a repair part for a washing machine and that has recoverd a third of my investment here. With some free 3d online files, i’ve managed to make my printer more compact.Only cons for any enthusiast is the purchase of 3d drawing software if Tinkercad aint enough.