The speed of your machine is limited to the performance of its slowest component. For the Ender 3 and any other bed slinger that would be the bed. So test how fast you can move the bed and that’s where your ceiling is. Also note that acceleration is just as important as speed for fast movements. Use this calculator to determine what speed your print move will actually reach. For instance the example of 180mm/s @3k accel means a print move will only ever reach that speed at a straight line distance of 11mm or more.
My best advise for speed gains for an Ender 3 is to find your fastest, reliable speed and acceleration for Y and then use slicer settings to see where you can save time. Things like only printing infill every 2 layers can speed up a print without changing anything on your printer.
A direct drive in your case wouldn’t affect speed in a positive way. You’d be adding more weight to the carriage putting more stress on the X motor. A bowden setup is much lighter if that is what your Ender has installed. Direct drives are nice but don’t expect any speed improvement.
Replacing a PTFE lined hotend with an all metal hotend allows you to print at higher temperatures. However, higher temp materials normally require enclosures as they are adversely affected by cold ambient temps and drafts. If you plan on only printing materials like PLA and PETG, there is really no need upgrade to all metal.
So, I say this as someone who, even with 4+ years of experience under my belt, still have much to learn about 3D printing…my understanding regarding temperature and PLA / PETG is that at extremes, printing hotter can, within a particular range, enable faster printing without outstripping the ability of the hot end to deliver material at the speed the nozzle is moving. CNC Kitchen has done a lot of testing on this front, in terms of the amount of material that can be extruded at a given nozzle diameter and speed.
This is just one of the many topics in 3D printing that make me wish I could work on stuff like this full-time, as it’s a lot harder to learn and keep track of the many variables involved when you’re doing projects every few weeks or months, rather than working and tweaking on a day-to-day basis.
Extruder? Or hot-end? One of the first things I generally do on any Ender 3 is replace the plastic extruder with a metal one, for better durability. My hot-end is stock apart from swapping out the stock shroud and blower for the Bullseye or mini Satsana. The Bullseye have given me great bridging and performance, but I love the fact that the mini Satsana is much simpler and faster to print.
Yes. You are right. You will get better flow at higher temps in general. For instance average printing temp for ABS is around 245°C. But for with very fast machine I’ll print at 260°C to avoid “cold core” extrusions. Same for larger nozzles.
PLA prints around 210°C and PETG 230°C I think? PLA I don’t think you’d ever get close to hitting the limit of a PTFE tube. It’s plausible to get PETG up to 250°C maybe? But I’d imagine that situation would never occur with the speeds of a stock Ender unless you’re using a large diameter nozzle and juicing the Ender for all it’s worth.
I’m not against the metal hotend per se. But in this situation I’m not sure it’s necessary.
So ya replacing the extruder is way may important as tge stock ender 3 one is crap and breaks. Its not that you’ll melt the ptfe but its prone to backing out, it does get nasty and need to be trimmed over time etc. An all metal HE just is less to worry about and maintenance.
Last update to this thread was Jan 11. I find myself still only using the CNC a few times a year.
But! Due to recent events, I find myself printing a new Kobalt router mount. I’m also going to try to use the machine to CNC cut some parts for my Kayak build I’m working on.
