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Ender 3 Pro Review
This is my review on the Ender 3 Pro.
This isn’t exactly something I’ve done on this blog before, so this is more or less just my thoughts on the printer after having used it for a few years now.
tl;dr
Good starting platform, bad piece of equipment.
The Good
The Ender 3 was/is the most popular hobbyist 3D printer (at least at the time I purchased mine).
This means that:
- Content Creators make videos on using the Ender 3
- Ever website about 3D printing has an article or two on the Ender 3
- Forums have many posts about the Ender 3 specifically
- Developers make mods for it
- Many STL file sets are sized to fit the Ender 3 (not that other printers don’t have the same build volume but I think the number of Ender 3’s out there drove that number)
This is why I bought mine. If you have an issue, google it and you’ll fine someone else with the same problem. Want to upgrade, there’s a parts kit for that (and video tutorials on how to set it up).
You are never without information on this 3D printer.
That said..
The Bad
Out of the box the Ender 3 will work just fine (at least it did for me). But you will quick run into issues.
- The stock springs under the print bed are garbage.
- There’s no auto-leveling
This means, In my opinion, you MUST make two upgrades: Replacing stock springs and adding a BLTouch sensor (and firmware update to support).
Not having these upgrades really slowed me down when I was getting into 3D printing (not that I knew it at the time).
And next, my favorite issue: Layer shifting.
I mean what can I say?
- Dealing with Layer shift - Part 1
- Dealing with Layer shift - Part 2
- Dealing with Layer shift - Part 3
If I buy a tool or a piece of equipment, I expect it to work. I don’t want to have to immediately upgrade it, or mod it or spend hours debugging it. You read stories about people using glue sticks and hairspray to get bed adhesion or people designing damping feet for their printers. The root issue is the printer itself.
And while the culture around it might be to DIY solutions, I don’t think it should be about making the printer work, it should be about making it better.
Recommendation
Maybe. In terms of sheer amounts of information available then yes (and that’s why I got mine). As a piece of equipment I’d say get something that is more likely to work out of the box.