
Originally Posted by
beeiilll
It certainly is a fun "toy" to tinker with and watch it make "something out of nothing"!
The only thing I would throw in is to take your time when you receive it and go through the machine carefully as you assemble it. Look over ALL the screws and connections to make sure that it is "right". I found that a couple of the electrical terminals in the electronics box were just snug and not tight yesterday when I went over the machine after having it run for a week as a "shakedown" (I had not opened the electronics box up when I first assembled the machine but saw a couple of different videos where they suggested checking it). A lot of great videos on Youtube on doing the assembly of these if you need help and they will give you hints at things that you may not think about, especially the checking the square and alignment of the frame pieces as you assemble it.
It does take a bit of patience doing the assembly and especially the bed trammeling (leveling) part. It is a fine line between the hot end being too close and too far from the bed to get the filament to "stick" correctly. Also, my bed has a slight dip in the middle that I had to cut a sheet of paper under the magnetic base sheet in the center to get it flat, so check it good. I am using the magnetic sheet now but many suggest to get a glass bed plate to keep it flat and help with the filament sticking well for prints.
Once you get it all set up, it is very easy to use the SD card to print out something on the machine. Thingiverse has so many things to print! I would also recommend that you look into some of the recommended "mods" for the Ender 3 (and the Pro) that will "help" with wiring management and some other things although the extruder mod to get a better one is the biggest one I have seen so far and did it to my Pro first thing.
So far I have a bunch of rather funny and interesting plastic "things" sitting on my desk that I have printed out with the machine. Now I am learning the software end of things with TinkerCad and the CURA slicer program and that will take the biggest amount of time.
There are a lot of great folks on here and on Youtube for information and help with these things so you can always find help if you get stuck. Just keep in mind that it is a machine that requires patience and a bit of a "loving touch" to get it to work for you and not against you and you will get great prints on it.
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