3d

Upgrading Marlin firmware on the Ender 3 Pro

by

Part 4 of my New Years’ 2024 upgrade posts series …

Upgrading my Ender 3 Pro with the newer 32-bit mainboard means I can now more easily upgrade the firmware. I considered trying out Klipper, but since Marlin is what I’m used to (the original 8-bit board was running Creality’s version based on Marlin v1.1.9), I decided to get my feet wet using that first. The firmware on the new board was based on v2.0.8.2 (from August 2022) but the latest release was v2.1.2.1 so I figured that would be a good first upgrade to attempt.

Read more

Upgrading some Ender 3 Pro hardware

by

For Part 3 of my latest round of upgrades to kick off 2024, I also made some hardware changes to my Ender 3 Pro 3D printer for the first time since getting it back in 2021:

Yeah, just a few things. 🙂 I completed these changes around the same time as the upgrades to my HomeTroller and Debian Bullseye, but wanted to wait a bit before posting so I had more time to play around with the results and I’m pretty pleased!

Read more

OctoPrint and the OctoPi

by

Now that I’m semi-comfortable with the 3D printing process for my Ender 3 Pro (download/create model, slice STL in Cura, save GCode to micro SD card, put micro SD card in printer, print model), I wanted to eliminate the “sneakernet” step of manually shuffling the SD card between my PC and the printer and enable some more monitoring options (eliminating another sneakernet connection: walking back into the office every now and then to check on the printer!).

Enter OctoPrint: “the snappy web interface for your 3D printer that allows you to control and monitor all aspects of your printer and print jobs, right from within any browser on your network. It runs basically everywhere, from a Raspberry Pi to your gaming rig, can be easily extended thanks to a powerful plugin system, and is Free and Open Source Software.” Specifically, I’m using the Raspberry Pi-enabled version, OctoPi.

Read more

Creality Ender 3 Pro 3D printer

by

Ender 3 ProI have a new hobby!

For Christmas, my wife and daughter surprised me with a 3D printer, the (SainSmart-branded) Creality Ender-3 Pro. It was a well-timed gift since we were stuck at home for the holidays and winter break so I had a whole week to immerse myself in a brand new area of tech, learning about new acronyms (FDM, PTFE, PLA, TPU), terminology, filaments, web sites, and, of course, printing stuff!

Where to start?

Read more