I’ve printed a couple of spools at different sizes, it’s really kind of nice to have them. Particularly smaller spools for smaller sample lengths, super worth it.

But another thing you can do is just print a little single-wall cylinder that friction fits inside one of your existing spools, then cut the existing (non-printed) spool in half down the middle and use the cylinder as a friction-fit sleeve to hold the two halves together. That also gives you the same functionality. It’s not as cool but it saves on filament? ^_

I do, but with a temperature tower. You get top and sides, curves and spanning, overhangs, and, well… temperature. ^_

Y’know just in general I really strongly recommend going all-metal or better bimetallic on your hot end? It cleared up so many problems for me. The Ender 3-series hotends really aren’t bad if you just back that PTFE up a bit.

I like this one (no affiliation other than I bought one) quite a lot, and I got it on sale so it was cheaper than the current price. But even at the current price I’d definitely say it’s still worth it.

If you’re willing to get into annealing, I’ve had good service from annealed HTPLA in high temperature/humidity and even overpressure environments. I’m three years into a build that gets multiple hours of use in such conditions a week and it’s held up fine. There have been other problems, but nothing related to bad behaviour out of the HTPLA.

oh that’s pretty great :D

When my house got electricity in 1924, they got a backlit front light for over the doorway. It wasn’t in good shape when we found it, but it was there, and I got it back together - except for the lighting. Which this really, really makes me want to fix now. :D

Nah, but I will print a temperature tower if it’s a new filament - even if it’s very similar to a filament I’ve had before. (As long as it’s not an identical replacement. If it’s an identical replacement and the previous isn’t ancient, I won’t even do that.)

Having done this, you can also get a “3D pen” that will work with your filament and that’ll work decently well for small areas, and you can also use it to fill in gaps. Overheat the PLA a bit and work fast.

Like you, I’ve got a little assortment of spools I either printed or modified for this purpose - and in different sizes - and they work great. I’m at the point of getting spoolless filament when I can and I haven’t seen a downside yet.

But if I’m going to get a new spool with my filaments, I’d prefer it be cardboard.

Yep, and that was like… the second thing I did for my printer. Since then I’ve gone to printing out of a warming box, but I still use the roller occasionally and I’m still glad I did it, it solved problems.

Oh wow, that looks hilarious, but in a fuck yeah you mad lad way. Is it the tower resonating or the part you’re printing? If it’s the tower I’d bet money you could solve the last of the problems with some kind of wall attachment for the tower. (Clip if you actually do haul it around, bracket if you don’t.)

I had similarly good luck with a height mod on my 3V2 but that thing has a lot more mass to it, I expected it to work. I would not have expected this to work.

Also yeah instead of paper for levelling I bought a feeler gauge and it’s way more reliable since, well, that’s what it’s for, as opposed to paper where thicknesses can be all over the place. They cost very little (under $10 USD) so they’re something I consistently recommend.

Ender 3 V2 here, and yeah, I’ve done to dual-Z axes (along with a bunch of other mods) and I agree that it does give you more stability. But it also makes the problem you found with the eccentric nuts an even bigger deal, it took me a couple of reassemblies to get all that back to where it needed to be.

I am running magnetic sheet on glass bed with magnetic layer and it works great for me. I get a lot of weird pushback from people but… yeah, it works fine. And you can swap out plates and keep the rigidity and thermal mass of glass. If you don’t want that then yeah, go straight to putting the magnetic sheet on the heating plate itself, but I’ve had heat-evenness issues and I like the extra thermal inertia so it solves problems for me.

I wrote it all up here if anyone wants to see details:

https://solarbird.net/blog/2023/04/09/the-question-im-sure-was-on-everyones-mind-can-you-combine-pei-and-glass-beds/

Yeah, exactly this.

You could also make it more colourful safely for the moment by filling the letters with different colours of play-doh.

If the extruder is clicking, it’s able to grasp the filament. It’s that it’s trying to move it forward, literally can’t, and it slips and makes that click. That also grinds down the filament at the wheel as well.

I’ve printed fine with eSun PLA+ on an Ender 3 V2, it’s a very straightforward filament in my experience. Not my favourite, but it’s fine. (Their cleaning filament by contrast is excellent and I recommend it highly.) I would take apart the entire filament path and make sure it is incredibly clean, because this really sounds to me like a recurring clog issue caused by some particulate matter, which can include extraheated filament hat no longer wants to melt right.