How to set up a new 3D printer

December 30, 2023 10:02 AM

I bought my son a 3d printer for Christmas (a Creality Ender-3 S1) and we are struggling with getting our first test prints to come out. We know next to nothing about 3d printing so it's been hard to find answers. Pictures inside.

This is supposed to be a cube.

posted by mkb to Technology (8 answers total)

Just looking at the result, one guess would be that the temperature is not high enough.
posted by falsedmitri at 10:27 AM on December 30, 2023

Best answer: My partner thinks it looks like the nozzle might be too high off the plate, and it could be worth running whatever z-axis leveling the printer has.
posted by Stacey at 10:47 AM on December 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

He also says: make sure the print bed is clean, he screwed up a print this morning and it was a print bed cleanliness issue.
posted by Stacey at 10:50 AM on December 30, 2023

Response by poster: It looks like adjusting the offset and manually leveling the bed were the key things I needed to do! Thanks!
posted by mkb at 10:55 AM on December 30, 2023

This is pretty normal - I think you're looking at a couple things going on here and some annoying double checking to be done:

1) Is the bed surface clean - did you clean it with iso propyl alcohol before the print?

2) Do you have the correct filament set up in the printer and is the model you're using coded for that filament? PLA and PET require different printer and bed surface temperatures. Certain filaments are only really suitable for certain bed surfaces without additional prep.

3) Next thing to tackle on a printer that has not successfully printed is what we call 1st layer adhesion and z-adjustment. It's a fiddly and completely critical thing to get right and likely what's going on. I could spend days writing about it but your best bet is to find your manufacture's equivalent of this page:

https://help.prusa3d.com/article/first-layer-issues_1804

You can also essentially translate this stuff to your printer - it will give you more details troubleshooting steps.

This is _totally_ normal until you've got the printer dialed in, and getting comfortable with these routines will make sure that when it inevitably needs to be redone again you can quickly identofy what is going on.
posted by iamabot at 10:58 AM on December 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

I highly recommend Filament Friday on YouTube. This man knows his Enders and has lots of great videos. Sorry for lack of link…literally in a barn
posted by ZenMajek at 10:59 AM on December 30, 2023

We got a 3D printer for Christmas too, so I’ve been deep in the weeds learning all this stuff. YouTube has been a fantastic resource for learning about 3D printing and troubleshooting prints/my printer. A couple channels I like are The Next Layer and Teaching Tech, but there are tons.
posted by bluloo at 12:18 PM on December 30, 2023

Here’s a very handy troubleshooting guide.
posted by Pork-Chop Express at 3:25 PM on December 30, 2023