Upgraded cheap 3D printer into a high quality

Description

I wont to be considered as a student and this as a student entry. I am 17 years and I am a student of Mechanical engineering school Fausta Vrančića in Zagreb. You can buy many high quality 3D printers but they are too much expensive. The best thing is to buy a cheap 3D printer and the learn all about 3D printing and how to upgrade your printer and make with him many things. I bought my 3D printer over eBay for $154 that I earned with the school practice I've done. As you can see in the picture, it's a Prusa i3 model printer from a Chinese company CTC. I changed the old mk8 hotend and feeder to a e3D v6 hotend and mk9 material feeder. As you can see in the pictures the red fish fossil is low quality, has stings and it is not flexible - the fish is printed on the printer with the old hotend and feeder. The brown fish fossil is printed on the upgraded printer and it has no strings and its flexible.

Details

I changed my mk8 hotend and mk8 feeder into a e3D v6 hotend and mk9 material feeder. You can buy e3D v6 hotend on eBay, Amazon, Gearbest... from $ 10 to $20. You can download for free the mk9 material feeder and print it. The 3D printer is avelible for $154 on eBay. It is a Chinese CTC Prusa i3 Pro B 3D printer kit. I buyed it from my money I earned in school practice.

Original CTC i3 Pro B 3D printer kit:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2018-A8-3D-Printer-DIY-i3-Upgradest-High-Precision-Reprap-3D-Desktop-Drucker-DHL/253370272531?hash=item3afe0b8b13:g:uqsAAOSws0JaXEa5

Material:

1x e3D v6 hotend (https://m.gearbest.com/3d-printer-parts/pp_613785.html?wid=21)
1x 3D printed mk9 material feeder (light green 3D printed part)
1x radial cooling fan (https://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-50mm-12V-24V-Cooling-Fan-Blow-Radial-Hot-End-Extruder-For-3D-Printer-Parts/192192426968?hash=item2cbf8fb3d8:m:m-Wd27iXrwhjvyQ8sc0OsHg)
1x 3D printed e3D v6 mount (white 3D printed part)
1x 3D printed fan duct (dark green 3D printed part)
1x 3D printed material feeder motor holder (blue 3D printed part)
1x M4 nut
8x M3 nut
8x M3 bolt
2x self-tapping screw
1x spring (thickness 0.8mm, inner diameter 6mm, outside diameter 8mm, height 18mm)

PRINTING PARTS

All 3D printed parts are printed on Ultimaker 2+ 3D printer. You load the 3D models into your slicer for 3D printing and chose printing parameters All 3D printed parts are printed with PLA on 0.1 mm layer high, 0.4 mm nozzle, 210C on hetend, 60C on heatbed, 30% - 50% infill and with supports. The material feeder motor holder (blue part) is printed with 100% infill and no supports.

You can download all 3D models for free here:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2781938

STEP 1

Instal the e3D v6 hotend on the printer with the white 3D printed part (e3D v6 mount) using 4x M3 nuts, 4x M3 bolts. Use 2x M3 nuts and bolts to mount the e3D v6 mount to the X carrige and 2x M3 nuts and bolts to mount the hotend.

Then instal the filament cooling fan with 1x M3 bolt and 1x M3 nut on the white 3D prined part and then instal the dark green 3D printed fan duct with 2x self-tapping bolts.

The brown mask is printed with 0.3mm layer high with 20% infill and with wood PLA.

2. STEP

Drill 2x 4mm holes for the motor feeder mount, and 1x 8mm hole for the bowden tube on the printer frame.

3. STEP

Mount the material feeder on the motor with 2x M3 bolts, 1x spring, 1x bearing from the old material feeder and 1x M3 nut and bolts for bearing.

STEP 4

Mount the motor feeder mount on the printer frame with 2x M3 nuts and bolts.

STEP 5

Use a thin sheat of paper to calibrate the heatbed on you 3D printer by screwing or unscrewing the nut on your heatbed. Move the paper and twist the nut untill you feel a bit of resistance. Repeat for all 4 cornes.

CURA TURTORIAL

STEP 1

Download Cura for free on: https://ultimaker.com/en/products/ultimaker-cura-software

Help for downloading Cura: https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/51943-installation-ultimaker-cura

STEP 2

Open Cura on your compunter.

STEP 3

Chose your 3D printer model or chose a custom FDM 3D printer if you cant finde your printer model.

STEP 4

Enter your printer name (you can chose your own printer name) and confirm.

STEP 5

Chose printing parameters. We will walk over all important parameters. First switch to custom settings.

STEP 6

Chose your filament material (PLA, ABS, PETG,...)

STEP 7

Chose print profile. 0.06mm extra fine print, 0.1mm fine print, 0.15mm low quality print, 0.2mm draft,... For best and fast results chose 0.1 or 0.15mm profile.

STEP 8

Chose print quality. 0.1 or 0.15mm for best results.

STEP 9

Chose wall thickness. Thicker the wall - more strong object.

1mm...

Files

ctc_mk8_extruder_right_base.stl

material feeder part 1 (light green 3D printed part)

Standard Tesselated Geometry - 99.59 kB - 02/04/2018 at 18:02

Download

ctc_mk8_extruder_right_lever.stl

material feeder part 2 (light green 3D printed part)

Standard Tesselated Geometry - 111.90 kB - 02/04/2018 at 18:02

Download

feeder_motor_mount (1).stl

Feeder motor mount (light blue 3D printed part) After a while of printing you pause the print and insert the nut in your 3D printed part. You will see when the nut hole appeare and when it is starting to close then insert nut for bowden tube.

Standard Tesselated Geometry - 72.15 kB - 02/04/2018 at 18:00

Download

Duct.stl

Fan duct (dark green 3D printed part)

Standard Tesselated Geometry - 110.24 kB - 02/04/2018 at 18:00

Download

Bowden_clamp_v2.stl

hotend mount part 2 (white 3D printed part)

Standard Tesselated Geometry - 251.84 kB - 02/04/2018 at 17:59

Download

Discussions

hubidrei wrote 11/15/2018 at 22:33

I also use an e3d v6 hotend with aluminum feeder on the top plate from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2719853
It works fine with Marlin Firmware, but now I use Klipper firmware with octoprint and octoklipper on an BananaPi M1, the results are better, at higher speed.

https://github.com/KevinOConnor/klipper

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Ashrin Mathur wrote 02/21/2018 at 01:27

where did you get the spring from ? cant find it anywhere. i'm in the US . A link would be very helpful. thanks a lot for the guide. its awesome. i have the same printer.

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Mateo Miličević wrote 03/01/2018 at 10:20

You can buy it on eBay or Amazon

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hubidrei wrote 11/15/2018 at 22:08

You can also use one of this cheap aluminum extruders.

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[deleted]

[this comment has been deleted]

Mateo Miličević wrote 02/09/2018 at 13:57

Thank you, what printer do you have? CTC i3 Pro B like me?

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ekaggrat singh kalsi wrote 02/07/2018 at 02:06

i have been through a lot of cheap printers before i came up with my own full metal corexy. The bigest thing that makes a difference on a cheap printer is the extruder and its calibration. u can have a 2000 dollar ultimaker or whatever and get crappy prints if your extruder is not tuned well. I have also been through a lot of extruder designs , some mine some from thingiverse. The biggest change in quality of the print comes from a dual hobb extruder. The ideal one is a bondtech but i would recommend you to try a saintflint from thingiverse.. That is the most robust and brilliant extruder. If you use the original setup ( bicc flint ) you can even use a 35 mm nema 17 motor in direct drive mode. If you use a mk8 even then it is bulletproof. NO more filament skipping or chewing up by the hobb wheel.

Another big difference is the lead screws used . A dedicated lead screw gives much better results than a threaded rod!

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Mateo Miličević wrote 02/07/2018 at 22:09

yes, everything you seid is ok, but not every CTC I3 Pro B or another 3D printer is good as the first one produced or the second, 3th,... My extruder and material feeder was correct conected and it was tuned well and it wasnt working well - it was just full of filament and it clogged, the old feeder has no pressure on the filament and it was skipping layers. With this design, feeder and extruder are working perfect. My messeg is to let each choose what is best for him - somebody want to have fun and work on his printer and sombody else wants just good printes for his job, hobby or something private. I like your minde and i will definitely check and work on your idea because if there is no evidence, every story can be fake. Thank you for your comment. :)

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Upgraded cheap 3D printer into a high quality

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