3D printer set up advise

I’m super excited guys because my very own 3D printer is set to be delivered tomorrow thanks to my very supportive grandma. I went with the Ender 5 plus because I like big prints and I cannot lie. :wink: Any advice or tips with getting this bad boy set up is very welcome.

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Congrats! Definitely not my favorite brand, but they can get the job done. My biggest issue with Creality printers in general is that their hotend and extruder are pretty low quality. I wouldn’t print anything hotter than PLA without upgrading the hotend; it will work for a while, but the PTFE tube softens and compresses against the nozzle which causes jams. We also have intermittent issues with the auto-leveling. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it decides to start the print 3mm in the air. If anyone can explain that one to me I’m all ears. We’re probably going to flash a stock version of Marlin at some point and see if that helps.

As far as setup goes there generally isn’t too much assembly required so it should be pretty straightforward. I like to use Octoprint because I’m too lazy to deal with SD cards, but Raspberry Pis are pretty difficult to get a hold of these days. I think the stock nozzle is 0.4mm, so if you plan on doing a lot of large prints I would look into swapping that out for a larger one. I don’t know what Creality nozzles cost, but they are threaded the same as e3d nozzles which are $7 for the standard brass version.

I would check youtube for good videos. I had much success building an Ender 3 from the videos. (If you get stuck, I think Frank either has a 5 or has had one.)

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I really like my 5+. I haven’t experienced the issues @Christian mentioned…but I’ve seen some bugs. Mine will crash on occasion into the bed during the print start procedure. After leveling it goes to the front-left corner to wait fo the bed to heat. Then the bed crashes into nozzle when it should go lay down the initial strip on the side. This forces me to get the two Z steppers aligned. This has happened two or three times. My printer has been running nearly 24/7 for months with little trouble.

I put a Microswiss direct drive on mine and I love it. I have a .4 nozzle and normally print at a layer height of .16 or .12. Most of what I print is PLA but I have used ABS and TPU. I haven’t gotten my settings set very well for TPU yet.

I also have OctoPrint on mine. This should be the first thing you do. Life is too short for swapping SD cards.

I love my ender 5 plus too but I modified my hot end with volcano hot end and direct drive so i never experienced hot end problems mentioned above great printer.
Also never had wandering print problem height on mine. Running stock software and octoprint beautiful prints on my end.

Gratz

Hmmm…I had to say something nice about my printer:

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I plan on upgrading the hotend and setting up octoprint as soon as I can and I’ll look into the direct drives. With all the printers I’ve used at the space, I’ve always preferred the Creality printers over the other brands. Also, @Frank, do you still have a supply of PLA available? I would love to by a few spools off you.

I do carry filament. I have 17 colors in stock! Ready for pickup! I use what I sell exclusively all my fdm prints I post on the forums are made with this product!
See carol and franks maker page

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If you like, bring it to the space and I’ll be more than happy to partake in assembly!

Thanks for the offer Brad. It just came into day around noon and I already have it assembled and printing. Now to dial in the settings to get the best prints I can before I start upgrading. I think the hardest part is going to be finding a raspberry pi and accessory so I can get octoprint set up without it costing me an arm and leg.

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I have been using the Raspberry pi zero 2 w

It is a very affordable version of pi I use them on mine.
Brad turned me on to these and saved me a lot of money.
They work perfectly!

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Yeah, the Zero 2 W is officially supported (unlike the original Zero W) and is generally the cheapest option. Currently the cheapest one I could find in stock is a $55 kit. Pis are super hard to find at good prices these days. :frowning:

I think talking about the ender 5s jinxed them. The one at the makerspace decided to start printing 2mm above the build plate again yesterday. I guess @Frank’s will be next :wink:. I’m gonna look at ordering a standard 12864 LCD so we can flash it with stock Marlin 2.0. The touch screen has a lot less functionality than the regular LCD + encoder menu system.

3 posts were split to a new topic: Ender 5 first layer issues

5 posts were merged into an existing topic: Ender 5 first layer issues

I would recommend checking that the filament runout sensor actually pauses the printer if it runs out. I just tested the one at the space and it just kept on printing air.

I ran in this problem on my printers with octo print on filament runout if you use octo print the stop code don’t work but if you load directly from onboard SD card it works. This one puzzles me too

Yeah, Brad and I were talking about this last night. Apparently it’s a common issue when using Octoprint, which is the only way we run our printers. There are a few ways you can fix it, but we’re just going to flash a version of Marlin that will pause properly when printing from USB or SD.

I’m sincerely sorry. I really did not realize how much extra issues the space would have with this when I donated it. I was truly just trying to expand our capabilities with larger prints. I hope this works out and we can fix it I truely love mine at home! I make a lot in one print or one big print!


My most recent prints aerogarden replacement baskets on my ender 5 +

Yeah, it’s definitely handy to have a larger printer available, we just need to put in a little time to get it properly fixed up. Once we get a new hotend/extruder and update the firmware I think it will be a lot more reliable. Members have appreciated having access to it. I might complain about it when it has issues, but that’s partly just because I like complaining about 3D printers. :sweat_smile:

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I’m thankful the Ender 5+ is there… I’ll help in any way I can to maintain it.

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