They did see it coming, this was the goal.

ASA and ABS are warp prone and this is an 11" / ~275mm wide print that’s equally tall 🤷

The build volume of my printer means lots of surface area for the acrylic enclosure, which in turn makes it hard for me to exceed a 50°C chamber temp, despite 4x bed fans.

The next print, with normal supports, pulled the bed off the magnetic build plate. Insulation eliminated warping and let me pull off the print.

I do agree that a “nicer” enclosure is the preferred method. I have zero issues with PETG at this size. I’ve never tried PLA on this printer, but it should be fine too.

I will second this, even though I also agreed with “build a Voron”. My 2.4 is a massively capable printer, and has a lot of quality of life features like actual mechanical bed leveling, but odds are your first build will have some teething issues. My extruder motor didn’t have a fully aeat wire terminal in its factory harness so it extruded inconsistently. Thankfully it was easy to find and fix. I’ve had a few wire breaks in my cable chains because I didn’t leave enough slack in the runs. The build itself is also long, but I did find it to be straightforward. Vorons are also Vorons, so the modding is endless.

Printer as a tool? Prusa. Maybe also Voron, especially if you want print volume/raw speed/quality of life. Printer as a tinkering device? Voron. Ship of theseus as you upgrade your way to a better printer? Ender.

Haha, came here to say the same thing.

Looks pretty cool. The frame reminds me a bit of a piper. Is this home brew?

PrusaSlicer is a fork of Slic3r Bambu’s slicer is a fork of PrusaSlicer Orca Slicer is a fork of Bambu’s slicer and also pulls in ideas from super slicer (another PrusaSlicer fork).

In other words, they all share a common lineage. Each adds quality of life improvements over the fork, at least in theory. It’s possible those quality of life improvements will make it back upstream to the thing that was forked.

As for specific examples, Orca Slicer has a somewhat different set of tuning parameters, some unique-to-it quality things like scarf seams, built in tuning prints (temp towers, EM multiplier, pressure advance, a test to find your max flow rate, etc) a revamped UI, etc. I haven’t compared the two in a while, so it’s possible that some of this has made its way upstream by now.

TIL there’s a slicer called Lychee Slicer.

Sounds like a hot mess. Are you looking for a alternative? If yes, provide info but my off the cuff recommendation for a FDM printer is Orca Slicer.

On my direct drive Voron I could make it through retraction tower test prints fine with TPU, but it would always jam with retraction enabled on longer prints with my usual 0.3mm. Pulling apart the extruder would always reveal some TPU had gotten wrapped around the drive gear. Rather than try tuning until the failure went away, I just went with 0 lol.

If it’s heat it could also be a cooling thing. If you search the web on your search engine of choice for “<printer name> driver overheat” you’ll see what solutions the community has already come up with.

If the print didn’t come off the bed, I don’t think adjusting z-offset will help. As prints get taller, if you’re running into issues with warping the corners will start to curl up.

Your printer definitely missed some x or y steps. Whether that was due to your drivers getting too hot and just that, or the extruder running into the print. Have you ever seen your printer do this:

It looks like you missed some x and/or y steps, which made the printer lose its orientation and make a lot of spaghetti.

Possible causes usually involve warping, the nozzle catching the wrapped up piece, and then your printer missing some steps.

Have you completed a large print before?

If nothing’s changed since you last print, including the filament, I would suspect a jam/clog. Is the extruder clicking?

So, the biggest difference in quality is the steel and hardness.

My question was rooted in how you would know the quality/hardness of the steel at time of purchase - especially as a (fairly) layperson.

I think my set is dewalt. It included taps, dies, and drill bits for M3-M7. I don’t think I’ve ever used the drills, and the have gotten a lot more use than the dies, but I think I’ve used almost everything in the kit more than once. Before kids, it was cars. Post kids, it’s mostly cheap Chinese furniture my wife buys that I have to chase threads in to get it to assembly well.

Also, for the record, you can absolutely tap plastic for a reasonably strong thread

I’ve had pretty good success sizing 3D printed holes to be interference fit. That’s how I designed/printed the bed leveling thumb wheels for my i3 clone. They backed off far less frequently than the stock metal once.

If it’s stripped, I doubt chasing the threads with a m4 tap will accomplish much. Tapping it for the next size up (m5) seems like a good choice.

What would you consider a high quality tap or die? I have a cheap(er) set that I got at home cheapo. With how little use it gets, its biggest issue is surface rust from sitting in my garage 24/7.

Was the hot end pre-assembled or did you assemble it? I suspect you have a mechanical issue, but it might just be e-steps.

Suggestions:

Pull the nozzle off, measure say 110 mm of filament upstream of your extruder motor, make a line or attach a piece of tape, extruder 100mm, and see how close to 100mm you are. No nozzle means you can do this cold so you’ve eliminated 2 variables: a nozzle clog and temp. More detailed instructions

Once you get that sorted, do a PID tune and run the 100mm extrusion test again with your nozzle attached at say 230. Different number? My money would be on a partial nozzle clog.

Finally, temp tower. Not being able to extrude below 220 seems very weird. How fast are you trying to print?

Ah, sorry. That does sound a bit hot for PLA. I still suggest a temp tower. If you’re having bed adhesion issues, have you cleaned your bed with dish soap lately? Be sure to use only paper towel to clean/dry it - not a sponge or towel. If that’s impractical, I’ve found Windex to work better than IPA.

For PETG that’s not that hot. On my i3 clone I was usually 70 bed and 230-235 nozzle. I would try a temp tower and do what looks best. Based on what you’ve said so far, temp does seem like a possible culprit.

https://ingenext.ca/products/boost-50

50 hp for $1k

I can’t find them right now, but there are similar things you can buy to unlock factory features at a discount.

That you’re looking for is called a flange mount. If you search your favorite search engine with “2mm flange mount” you’ll find some results. I do wonder how much torque you’ll be able to transfer, but given the shaft size I suspect you’re not looking at big loads.

They are harsh chemicals and people definitely aren’t even disposong of them correctly most of the time

This is what really gets me with resin printing :(