A honest and somewhat educated review of the Creality Ender 3 3D printer (+ a few fixes)

I got my printer second hand for the equivalent of 76 Euro, glass bed included. It was cheap for a reason and in pretty poor condition.

Please excuse my dirty bench, I have way too many unfinished projects 😭

Fixes:

Some of the rollers were a bit scored so I carefully sanded the damage (they still had enough material left in order to be reused)

All rollers and had to be adjusted, Z axis needed greased and the X axis belt was rubbing against the frame, I ended up slightly bending the side with the motor because the gear wasn't straight and there is no adjustment from the factory

Adjusted the bed

Replaced the hot end (I got one brand new in the box from a 3D printing business that upgraded their hardware and was selling the outdated hardware for very cheap on OLX, I only paid the equivalent of 9,50 euro for the new hot end)

The filament feeder gear was worn out but thankfully it's pretty wide so all I had to do was to slightly raise it in order for it to grab filament

The filament feeder tensioner arm was cracked so I reinforced it with 2 pieces of steel, 2 bolts and a few nuts (I had to grind the bolts and melt the plastic part in order for the steel piece to not contact the part that mounts on the feeder motor). It's janky but it works and it was free.

before:

after:

I also installed Marlin firmware, it was an absolute pain because all the links to the necessary resources were dead (mine is an early V1.1.4 revision board so it's especially bad) and the Linux way of doing this has almost 0 documentation so I had to use Wind*ws. Also I used this programmer (I got it from a local robotics parts store) in order to comunicate with the board because from the factory it doesn't have a bootloader installed so you can't use the USB port to flash the firmware: https://ardushop.ro/en/electronics/1207-isp-programmer-for-atmel-avr-atmega-attiny-6427854017147.html  

Pro tips:

You don't have to perfectly adjust the Z axis height switch (the mechanism sucks and it's hard to do), I usually leave it a bit low and shim it with a folded piece of paper to the correct height.

In order to make the base layer stick to the bed, use glue sticks (the type you would normally use for paper) and apply a thin layer on the part of the bed un which the print will be made. When done, wash the bed with warm water.

Results:

The prints are almost flawless. It's not for everyone (if you value your time it's definitely not for you but if you want the absolute cheapest thing, readily available and cheap parts and open source firmware you can't really beat it).

PETG print:

I know this 3D printer has become a meme especially because of bad base layers but I think it gets way too much hate for the fact that it doesn't have auto bed leveling (and if I'm being honest I'd say that a lot of the issue has to do with user error). I think the main issue is that it was marketed to normal people who don't want to constantly mess with it and just want their parts printed.

Thanks for stopping by on my blog! What are your thoughts on this 3D printer?