It's a CAD World: My First Month with a 3D Printer

I have been wanting a 3D printer for a number of years now but wasn't sure how much use I would get out of it, so it remained a "wish list" item. Then recently, we realized that it could be used to make 3D stencils for my wife's furniture refinishing business. Initially, I was looking at smaller printers, but since my wife wanted to make decent-sized stencils, we needed a larger printer. I started looking for affordable printers, with a larger printable area, and good reviews.

After several months of research, I landed on the Creality CR-10 S5. It has a 500 mm x 500 mm x 500 mm build area. It was within our budget and had many good reviews on Amazon and YouTube. So I ordered it and it took about two weeks to arrive because the printer was out of stock when I went to order it.

I was very excited the day it arrived. I knew it would take a week or two to learn all the intricacies of the printer and get it tuned for easy use. That was a little bit of an understatement. It only took about 15 minutes to assemble and get working. However, it took a bit of time for me to figure it out. There are plenty of places to learn about how to 3D print, but I was confident in this being an easy machine to use that I didn't bother watching those videos and just jumped right in. It took me about a day to get a completed good print.

My first issue was bed leveling. The first problem is that I didn't bother leveling it properly. I was too excited to print and I didn't quite understand the process, so I half-heartedly leveled the bed. Once I learned how to do it properly, I developed a pretty good system and now I check my bed for levelness several times a week. I have seen several users highly recommend the BLTouch auto-bed leveling system. I am a little intimidated by the process of installing that, so I am holding off at the moment. I feel that I have a pretty good system and have the bed in a good situation. I can say that the table I had the printer on originally was not a good table. It was older and I think I was fighting bed levelness issues because the table was not truly level itself. I switched to a different table and my bed leveling issues were not as bad.

Bed adhesion was also a problem right away. This printer came with a tempered glass bed. I thought that was great because I have read about people costly have to change build plates. My mistake here was that I thought that the glass was designed for the filament to stick to automatically. After just a few minutes of research, I discovered that I was wrong. You need to do something to the bed to help the filament stick. I chose glue sticks, mostly because we already had that in the house. Those have worked more often than not. I have had a few projects that still don't stick well in the corners. However, this printer has a large print area and I am not sure if the outer corners are getting hot enough. I have read about people using hair spray, so I tried that and it didn't work as well as the glue sticks. I also tried covering the bed with masking tape. That didn't work well for me. So I think I will stick with the glue sticks.

One issue that I feel I finally have resolved is the issue of the proper bed to nozzle distance. It also plays a part in my bed adhesion issues. I was following the advice I have seen online of sliding a piece of paper under the nozzle and when it slides freely then I have proper spacing. I was still having some slight adhesion issues after doing that. What I tried this past week that seemed to make a difference is that I would still use the piece of paper. However, I adjusted the bed to the point where I could feel the paper catching a little. Also, I could see the nozzle scar the paper just a little. I had done that in the past and the nozzle was so close to the bed that my first layer was not the right thickness. So to compensate, I just used the settings in the printer to then move the nozzle up 0.1 mm. Since my layer height was 0.2 mm, it is essentially a half step. This has helped immensely. In previous prints, I would find that the first layer was inconsistent, some spots would be the full layer height, and others spots would be only a partial thickness. My last two prints had a very consistent first layer.

I know that this sounds as if this has been a challenging month, and in ways it was. My emotional state would fluctuate from ecstatic that my prints were going well to feeling like I made a mistake buying a printer. Sometimes that was during the same print. I really have enjoyed having the printer and feel like I have learned a lot. If you are going to buy, or have just bought your first printer, hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes.

I can also say, that I have learned that fine-tuning your printer can be as unique as people's taste in food or music. What works great for me may not work well for you. I tried to find optimal settings for bed and nozzle temperatures. As I tried to replicate those, I found that I have had to run mine a little hotter than some recommended settings. Maybe as I get more confident, I will start adjusting those down. I have already started to tweak my normal bed temperature down because I was trying to compensate for bed leveling and adhesion issues.

I do plan on sharing some more lessons I learn as I go about doing more 3D printing, but for now, here are some pictures of my failures and successes.