The problems could be a few things or just one of these things:

- Nozzles - Personally I would just stick with the 0.4mm brass ones, tried the hardened steel and had problems. Going slightly smaller may give you a finer print but takes longer. I also go for nozzles that are about 45 deg angle not the real shallow ones.

- Heater Cartridge - you may have an issue with the heater cartridge / sensor... and when starts to failure can be a little eractic and consistent heat is important.

- Teflon Feeder Tube - I have noticed is the feeder tube after time suffers wear internally and starts to grab the plastic that feeds through it and can cause stalls in the plastic feed and snapping of the feeding material. I now replace the Teflon tube after about 6 rolls and also give a quick squirt of silicon spray after each new roll of plastic installed inside the teflon tube outside away from anything and this ensures a nice material feed. The silcon burns off in the 200 degree heat through the nozzle.

- Rafting - Lastly for years I never used the raft feature and use to have average prints due to the base layer lifting etc, and since the first layer is so critical for all printers especially on the older makerbots which had no bed levelling early days. Now with using the rafting, my prints have improved as it also tends to take into account slight bed levelling issues.

All that said I only use the printer for proof of concept so does not get a huge workout like it use to.

hope that helps

I just get a bulk pack of brass nozzles from Amazon for under 10 bucks. How old is the material you are printing? You may need to dry it out in a food dehydrator, or just get a new roll. Some materials will absorb moisture, and then they will print like garbage.

Here is an article you may find helpful:
https://filament2print.com/gb/blog/45_humidity-problems-3d-filaments.html

1. always try to use brass, it conducts heat better than steel. Like JodyG said, they are super cheap on amazon, not worth thinking twice
2. I've used .2 nozzles when I had to print something small, not something I do regularly (and your bed needs to be super flat because the first layer has to stick at half the height). I've also used .8 nozzle when a marble filament kept clogging my .4 nozzle.
3. Doesn't necessarily have to be a clogged nozzle. If the knurl on the thing feeding the filament is worn it may skip (or under extrude). I would look at that too

So do these nozzles really give out that quickly? I've been having some major issues with mine the past few weeks, and I basically got so frustrated I just stopped using it. I'm wondering if it's because I need to replace the nozzle. My issue is underextrusion though, and it seems to me that the nozzle would get larger when it starts to wear out...

sometimes a bad material can clog it up, especially if you different brands.. even if your nozzle doesn't get clogged, eventually the abrasion of material flowing will wear the hole larger (and you won't be printing at .4mm, something bigger). If you're extruding at the rate of .4mm but the hole is actually .8mm, that's when you'll start underextruding.

Wow! Counterintuitive. I'll check out the nozzle - I have several spares.

Don't discount the moisture in the filament also. It burns and gets crusty inside, blocking your nozzle. Store your filament in a closed container with desiccant in with it at a minimum.

Another general tip...I had the glass bed from Creality on my Ender 5 from the get go. I was having a hell of a time lately getting prints to stick to either side of it. I decided to go back to the original magnetic bed.....and holy crap, those parts are almost glued on there. Half of that battle is making sure you micro adjust the z axis down for proper squish in the first layer. I started a print yesterday and realized I had the wrong one started half way through the base layer. I stopped the printer and tried to take that thin layer of PLA off the magnetic bed....it was fused on there so tight, it wouldn't budge. I wound up just printing over it with the next print, and it then came off.

agree on a few points
- filament can absorb moisture which can affect the print and the feed as some will snap easier before getting to the heater cartridge.
- once filament gets old or a crappy supply it can fail through the feeding wheel and clog that up
- from my experience the nozzles generally go alright except for when they clog due to the teflon tube / clogged feeding wheel - from mositure affected or crappy filament

technically the filament is a semi-liquid by the time it goes through the nozzle but over time extended periods of heat will ever so slowly wear the nozzle

yes you don't want to have the teflon tube too tight and flat and a little squirt of silicon spray outside and then whip the excess out and install helps a smooth feed.

overall 3d printers are very cool but rarely a plug and play and require some tinkering and some problem solving

have fun

I'd say bad material or partially clogged nozzle. If it's PLA, crank the heat way up (like 260) and extrude a bunch through it. That usually clears stuck stuff if it's meltable. Otherwise if that doesn't work or it's ABS/PETG, remove the nozzle, turn it upside down using vice grips to hold it and apply a hand mini-torch to it. Any crap should bubble up and fall out.

I use a hardened 0.4 nozzle from Micro Swiss on a E3D V6 hot end and are very satisfied with it, I only print PETG and PC though in a closed sealed and heated chamber, and a lot of that orange regenerable silica gel to keep everything as dry a possible.
Only time Ive had a problem was when switching from PC to PETG, had to heat up the nozzle a bit higher and extrude some filament and everything worked fine again.

Thx man; it’s PETG, so vice grips it is...

You want to go beyond the top range so you get whatever bad stuff is in there out. I don't have the patience for the accupuncture needles. I tried them, but I hate 'em. Always had better, faster results removing the nozzle, heating it with a hand torch while holding it upside down with vice grips. Clear in seconds.

Not a blowtorch! Just a little hand torch like you'd use for creme brulee (or flame-polishing plastics).

Already got one of those! What's creme brulee? (j/k

OK... I'm going to buy a new printer. I hate the Ender 3. Whats everyone printing with? Been looking at the Monoprice Maker Ultimate 2. However Prusa makes a printer with a direct drive extruder and FIVE filament color support.

I just sold all three of my enders. I'm on all anycubic mega-s now (Chuck emery has 5 of them). Nothing theoretically wrong with creality, but there are certainly quality features I don't like about them (plus I got hosed by thermal runaway once I installed 16-bit boards).

Direct drive is only necessary if you're printing rubber material (but direct drive you typically have to print slower to avoid ghosting and salmon skin). Look at any high speed printer like core-xy or Rokstok, they are both bowden tubes.

I had a prusa, not sure I'd go back. For what you're paying, I think the quality should be higher (and less 3d printed components).

Don't fall for the marketing. It is nice, but the 5 filament changer setup is still pretty primitive and is not "Set and forget" - lots of fiddling.

That said, I would have no problem recommending an i3-MK3S. I would not go monoprice. That's more of a lateral move than a big upgrade. The prusa is a big jump from the Ender 3.

Some of the 3D prints they're shipping in Rick and Morty are pretty bad. I'm not sure that's a great recommendation.

I thought that was the PETG parts that were failing? I've been printing parts for a few weeks and they are every bit as good as creality. Quality in prints is not 100% the printer, a lot of it is settings.

The better printers have great firmware that's refined and updated frequently and a library of filament settings in slicers so you can get awesome prints with much less fiddling. In my experience, PETG is way easier to deal with than ABS. All the slicers have pluses and minuses, and I've used 4 or 5 of them (cura, prusaslicer, ideamaker, simplify 3d, etc) but the Prusaslicer is one of the better ones.

And failing is one thing, but SHIPPING Rick and Morty machines with failed, messed up prints is quite another. I've seen a few where I was like, "that's not right.."

Marlin can be installed on pretty much any printer with arduino (unless the board has built in firmware flashing through usb)

I've been really happy with simplify3d. The default settings are decent, but even if you need to adjust things the menus are pretty intuitive.

I've been following both threads and I haven't seen any posts about bad prints. Do you have a link?

I don't think anyone called them out, but pictures people posted of their (? or friends, maybe) R&M machines, messed up prints are visible. One I'm thinking of was the railing to the right of rick's car. It was hosed. Really bad. But no, I don't have a link. Pull up the image gallery and knock yourself out.

I am glad someone else saw it. With the amount of eyes on those parts throughout the process, it is almost hard to believe that they all gave them their blessing and shipped out on a finished product. 3D printing has its uses, but I don't really think a commercial pinball machine should have 3D printed sculpts in it from the factory. 3D print the master, clean it up, and make resin molds from it. Then pour the parts out of resin.

Thanks for the responses , guys. I've upgraded my Ender3 with Marlin (used an arduino as mentioned, but you can just buy an upgraded board with a boot loader now). I've upgraded to heavy duty bed level springs, printed a bullseye for the fans, got the upgraded bed...

I'm just frustrated with the hundreds of failed prints, constant fiddling, constant underextrusion, having
To relevel the bed ALL the time, etc etc etc. I've never gotten the level of quality I expected from others examples, and I'm just done. Some of that stuff is just part of the deal with printing, but if I can eliminate some of
The issues that would at least help. I'm spending 2,3 hours to get a print even started and half the time it fails part way through.

I'm using Cura - maybe it's time to try another slicer as well.

What kind of failures are you experiencing? Is it mainly bed adhesion problems? What temps and material are you using?

Mainly bed adhesion and underextrusion. I pretty well got the adhesion under control for a while by constantly printing rafts on everything, but then I’d have underextrusion or the nozzle would knock the print off the build plate.

I switched to PETG recently and had pretty good luck there with blue tape, but on longer prints the tape lifts off the build plate (with heat and without heat) and everything is always warped, if it finishes at all.

I started thinking “maybe I need an enclosure...” but later concluded that maybe a printer upgrade is in order. I’ve easily spent $300 all in on this thing and it still is problematic.

I have the prusa Mk3 and can't complain about anything, the one nozzle problem I mentioned and a replacement of the heat bed is what I have encountered so far, they update the firmwares quite often, It was fun to assemble it with the oldest kid too, a bit pricey though.
Set some criterias for what you are looking for, mine was auto leveling, ability to print PC, the textured surface and a quite reliable printer, I belive you have some pieces to compare with
The textured sheet is by far the best print surface I have tried, the pieces sticks well during print and loosens fairly easy, no need for a raft or brim, I only clean it with windex first, it has to be considered as a consumable parts though since the PEI releases after some time.
It was more than two year since I bought the printer so Im sure there are a lot of other good options to choose among now, Ive been looking for a individual dual head printer able to print peek and theese type of high end plastics but it seems to be another price level.

Forgot to respond to this. The Monoprice is a lateral move from an Ender3! That’s a huge surprise given the price difference.

Not surprised re: the 5-filament extruder. I can’t even think of something I’d really need to print in 5 Colors. Less fiddling is what I want, not more.

I’ve heard several recommendations for the i3-MKS, so there’s another one. That may be what I look for.

Well that's disappointing. When I played Scott's prototype I didn't really notice (but maybe he printed the sculpts on his prusa?). If this is truly an issue, I hope they release the STL files so someone can print them with a better process.

I used PEI sheet on all of mine and had no issues. If you are underextruding it could be the nozzle, it could be the gears slipping that push the filament. This is one of the biggest failures of this design. I would recommend either replacing it with this (which has dual gears and a knurl on both):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SY745CF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title

Or even better, get a Titan extruder:
https://www.amazon.com/Upgraded-Extruder-Creality-Anycubic-Geeetech/dp/B087C93GQ3/ref=sr_1_14

You will have to adjust the e-steps for either of these solutions

Okay, here are some of my experiences...and maybe some of them may be able to help you out. My apologies if you already know about these things!

Bed adhesion- get rid of the glass bed if you are using one. The stock magnetic bed seems to work really well for me with PLA. My glass bed was nothing but problems. I run PLA 200-210C at the nozzle, and 60-65C on the bed.

To level the bed, I use a post-it note and just get it so the paper fits and drags a bit when I pull it out. Do this with the bed and nozzle hot. Once you are level, you will need to micro adjust the z axis once the print starts. It took me a while to realize this was most of my problem. Once the printer is heated and the bed starts to move, double click the control handwheel to get into the Z fine adjustment menu. On my machine, I usually go down to about -.250mm. This gives me the proper squish...yours may need more or less. Once I figured that out, things have been 100% better

As for the underextrusion, I am assuming you have done the e-step calibration on the extruder already. Once that is dialed in, if you appear to be underextruding after a short time, you are probably clogging up. One common source of clogging on the ender is the connection between the bowden tube and the nozzle if you are running the stock hot end. Replace the stock PTFE tube with capricorn if you have not already. "Luke's hot end fix" part on thingiverse is a tool for cutting that tube off nice and square. This is super important to help the seal between the bowden tube and the nozzle. If there is any gap there, material will get stuck in the crack and burn, creating clogs. When you change the nozzle, screw the nozzle in all the way, then back it out a turn or two. Push that bowden tube down all the way against the nozzle, then re-tighten the nozzle.

As for Cura, unless you have huge overhangs, check the box to turn the part cooling fan off. This causes tons of warping. I only use rafts when the footprint of the part is too small, because the rafts tend to screw up the finish on the bottom layer.

I think those are most of the key points in getting my Ender to run well. I actually went to a SKR 1.3 with Marlin 2.0 early on because I kept getting bad factory boards from Creality. If the factory board was good, I would have kept it stock. I see a lot of people in the Creality Facebook group fall down the rabbit hole of doing all kinds of mods before they ever get the printer running well. I think in this case, less is more. Get it running well before you mess with it.

EDIT: make sure your spring for the extruder is providing good tension, and get the all metal one if you still have the plastic one. Usually, clicking is related to a clog...but a bunch of people report spring tension problems as well.

The people that say the Ender three is terrible don’t know wtf there doing!!!!

It’s. A rock sold printer that makes outstanding prints. I’ll put my prints against any.

I rarely ever use supports and cleaning up prints takes me a few minutes.

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I’d be happy to talk via zoom on how to help with your printing issues (or maybe even in person). A prusa mini might be a bit of an upgrade if the build volume isn’t a priority, but yeah a monoprice might not be much of one. The major benefit of a prusa is the reliability. I’ve had a mk2 since 2014 and I mostly just hit print. At this point it has been upgraded to a mk2.5s, and it still my most reliable printer. I have 5(!?) others and it is still my first stop unless I need something that the others do that it doesn’t. As far as the 5-filament add-on, I’ve had mine for 2+ years and I still haven’t messed around with attaching it for fear of screwing up the reliability.

Also note, as of a week or two ago, Prusa machines are a 2-3 month wait.

I’ve heard the 3D printed part complaint before, but since Prusa is open source, it does mean that you can upgrade to some of the latest parts for free. I’ve printed off parts in the past, and I should probably run-off a set of the latest to tear down and rebuild my mk2.5s. After 6 years it’s probably time for a complete rebuild. As far as the price, it has been more reliable than all of my other printers (anycubic kossel, cr-10s5,kudo bea,m3d quad,rigidbot,XMachines lorei,sculpto, fabrikator 2), and Prusa has been the only company to offer upgrades to their printers.

I'm not saying it's bad.. out of the box it's awesome (especially for it's price point). But you have to admit:

1. A toothed gear against a bearing is not a great way to push filament through. Prusa (as well as many other printers) use a dual gear with knurl.
2. Plastic wheels tensioned against an 80/20 rail might be cheap but it will wear after a few hundred hours and need replacing. Linear rails is a far better design that will last (and it's more sturdy).
3. Having a single motor raise a z-axis (and letting one side sag) is not ideal
4. You take a gamble when you buy one if your bed is going to be flat. I've been pretty lucky, but I've had 2 friends that had to completely replace the bed because it was SO warped and they pulled their hair out trying to get anything to print larger than a couple inches.

I bought the MK2 and it was rock solid for a year.. then one night it got a jam and the motor literally pulled the printer in the air. Printer was never the same no matter what I did. I also didn't like how complicated it was to zero out the bed (maybe it's gotten better). I also don't like this notion of bed leveling compensation. You're basically saying "I'm ok with the bottom of my part being warped, so long as the rest of the part gets printed to be compensated for it". The best way to resolve it is to simply start with a flat base.

They have been pretty good about upgrades, though if I was going to get the latest I would probably just sell mine and buy a new printer.

This. #1 is a huge issue for me, as I've tried multiple ways to increase the tension on the filament (for a while it was underextruding because the gear wasn't gripping enough), and it still tears into the filament sometimes - slippage still happens

I also have an extremely warped bed. I bought the replacement glass bed, but now the coating is starting to wear off. I tried flipping it to the glass side, but it's still warped.

Wow, thanks! I'd love to take you up on that. I do sometimes make fairly large prints (printed a full size Legend of Zelda Master Sword for my son, which came out pretty well) so I do like the increased build volume. But really, just... anything successfully printing is a chore now. Good to know about the Prusas. I'm sure they aren't perfect either, but I've consistently heard good things about them. I bought the Ender 3 initially because I wasn't sure if I would want to spend the time doing printing (over the last 2 years clearly I am into it), but most of the time the big benefit is "it's cheap! And you can dial it in to get AWESOME prints!" But that takes tens or hundreds of hours, and lots of people never get it quite right. The warped bed is a particular annoyance.

Where did you get that enclosure? That looks great. The Ender3 seems to be capable of some amazing stuff, but the QC doesn't seem to be there, so if you get a dud, it's a major hassle to deal with.

Thanks for all this advice - I will try the post-it note - I'd been using just a regular piece of paper, and a folded one if printing PETG. (Do you ever print with PETG? When it works, it's great. Stronger than ABS, better heat resistance than PLA)

And when you are talking about the magnetic bed - do you mean the aluminum bed, or the original mat the printer ships with?

Good tip about the micro-adjustment. I will try that.

Yes, I've done the e-step calibration with a set of digital calipers. I have replaced the stock tube, did Luke's hot end fix, re-seated the Bowden multiple times over the past 2 years. Spring has been replaced, and I added the little nub to increase the tension. I had really bad clicking because initially the spring wasn't creating enough tension and the little gear just couldn't push enough through.

I will look at turning the cooling fan off - I do use Cura. And yes, I hate using rafts but it's been the most reliable way to go.

Thanks for the tips!

I built the enclosure myself. All steel and tempered glass. I also use a fire suppressant just in case. I run it all day with out issue.

Yes the feeder can be better , yes linear rails are better and some come with a bad bed.

I go over ever nut and bolt before running and upgrade a few things also. Maybe have 200 in it and it’s made me thousands. I also have an ender 2 that most likely has 4/5k hours on it

When they go bad toss theM and buy new model. They are that cheap.

I have not done much with PETG yet, although I have 3 rolls of it here that I ordered by accident. One of these days, I will get to it! I hear you don't want to squish that as much as PLA, and it is more susceptible to moisture contamination.

Just the factory magnetic sheet. If you have a significant belly in it, you can fold pieces of aluminum foil and place it between the bed and the heating element. Use a straightedge to check your progress.

If you haven't been doing this...this may be exactly what solves your adhesion problem. Took me a long time to figure out, but it changed everything. You will have to do it on each print, but there is a z-offset plugin you can download into Cura. That would allow you to build that offset in when you slice. Using the Post-it, I usually set it around -.250 to -.350 for good results. I stopped a print on the first layer the other day, and I couldn't peel it off the mat. Tried scraping it and everything. I wound up just printing over it, and it came right off again when the print finished. Didn't have any effect on the finished part.

I printed this last night...this surface was against the bed. I could never get this smooth of a surface on the first layer before I figured out the proper amount of Z offset manipulation.

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I forgot about the sound level difference between the MK3S and the Ender3. HUGE difference in sound levels, one of the best things about getting rid of the Ender3 (which was the first 3d printer I tried).

Prusa MK3s is a great printer for the price, and very feature rich.