The State of My Printers

I now have a Bambu Lab A1 printer with AMS. The MK3s+ and CR10 Mini are gone. What happened? Well, I’ll tell you, starting with the MK3s+.

MK3s+

The short answer of what happend with this machine was that I did not want to spend another $100 for a brass nozzle. The nozzle doesn’t cost $100, but the filter assembly with an attached brass nozzle does. The MK3s+ kit I put together included a filter assembly and after struggling with changing nozzles, trying Nozzle X, and installing a Dragon hotend, I learned that the only reliable option I had was buying an entire filter assembly. After about two months of not getting good prints and not printing at all, I was on the verge of making a decision to sell the machine. Then, I received an email from the Prusa team – “Let’s get you upgraded.” I saw the price of the upgrade and really, I was offended. I made a decision to sell the machine.

CR10 Mini

The CR10 began skipping areas of prints consistently early in 2024. I pretended it wasn’t a problem in the beginning, but eventually, I had to come to terms with what was happening. I first thought it was the new timing belt I installed. The x-axis was moving smoothly from one end to the other, so I didn’t understand how it could be the belt. I asked a few people at the Midwest RepRap Festival about the problem after showing them photographs of some prints and one person suggested there was likely something in the tube or a problem with the extruder.

Later, after a process of elimination, I found the motherboard was most likely the issue. I tried replacing it with a v42.7 board, but all the cables I ordered were not true substitutes for the cables I had. That was the decision point for me. Do I spend time trying to figure out how to make the right cables, get rid of the machine, or make an entirely different printer with the structure. After two months of consideration, I made the decision to give it away.

Bambu Lab A1

I bought this machine in September while I was having issues with the CR10 mini motherboard installation. The A1 has been working just great so far. There was a bit of a learning curve, but I have adjusted, pretty much. I have not enclosed it yet and have been using 3 air purifiers during times when I can smell the filament; 1 or two around the printer and 1 room. The motherboard has a heat sink instead of a fan, making an enclosure complicated. I have seen a couple of workarounds for ventilating the board and I have read a few comments on Facebook goups about the workarounds as a good solution. I already have two Pengda 12v fans that I bought for the MK3s+. I want to use one of those instead of the 5v fans recommended in the workarounds. I think I have figured out how to add one and I hope to have an enclosure in February.