Printers Info:
Printers are Ender 3 Pro with BLTouch and Ender 3 s1 (both with ender magnetic mat, DDE conversion)
Ender 3 Pro:
• BLTouch
• DDE Conversion
• Silicone leveling swap
• Ender magnetic matt
• Current firmware
Ender 3 s1:
• DDE Conversion
• Stiffer springs upgrade
• Ender magnetic matt
• Current firmware
Both are printing from a filament dryer directly.
I bought the Ender 3 s1 about 3 months ago, and the Ender 3 Pro about a month ago.
Both have identical issues, the pro more so though.
Both printers I cannot get to print consistently. I’ll spend literal days from 8am to 2 in the morning just getting them to print at all. Print a few lackluster items that always have issues, then both printers will sit for a few days, and when I go to print with literally no change at all, both of them will no longer be able to print at all. No adhesion even with added adhesion. Will spend literally hours upon hours (today alone, for the E3Pro I’ve spent 4-5 hours and am still trying to get the printer to level as I type this, it’s printing a leveling test as I type, that has multiple issues after 4-5 hours), trying to fix issues, usually spend at least 4+ hours per printer just getting it level and to adhere at all.
Once I finally get a printer to adhere, while technically “level” i always have to bias it towards being too close to the nozzle no matter what, which cause multiple print quality issues, and also often results in failed prints. I’ve replaced the mats 3 times (I’ve bought 5 mats total in 3 months, new), I have all brand new nozzles, the extruders and hot ends are new.
These issues occur with all sizes of nozzle (0.2, 0.4, 0.6) and both PLA and PETG, multiple brands, all dried with a dryer and printed directly from the dryer.
On the Ender 3 Pro, the BLTouch just causes more issues than anything, and I’m probably just going to remove it as it’s making everything worse. Using a feeler gauge I’ll manually level the bed, then disable steppers, check Z offset, set Z offset, run bed leveling, disable steppers, verify Z offset is correct, and then when I run my leveling test print (have tried with and without M420 code, and also commenting out G29 and G500 (using this article here), the bed is suddenly too far away. The only way I can get it remotely close is to have it run bed leveling at the beginning of the print after all of the above, then as it’s heating up move the bed realy close by at least a turn on each knob, and then move it out as it runs the test print. Regardless, once I finally get it to print and adhere, it’s always too close to the nozzle, so prints turn out like ■■■■.
I’ve been trying to get to the point where I can calibrate anything else (have done limited flow calibration) but I can’t even get past leveling the bed with any consistency on either printer.
Not sure what to do at this point. Seems like these printers just aren’t good, but I don’t have experience with any others. I don’t want to drop $1k-$2k on a higher end printer just to have the same issues either.