Ezra Harris

Tag: Tech

  • Changing the LCD Configuration in Marlin

    When updating my firmware on my 3D Printer (the ender 3), I recently ran into an issue when using a modified version of Jyers marlin. I realized that the screen configuration was of another type of LCD. So when I tried to flash it, the LCD screen would appear blank. After a lot of googling, I found a blog post by Crosslink describing how he is changing his Ender 3 V2‘s printer LCD to a smaller and older version of the screen. The LCD on the newer Ender 3 V2‘s are vertical, and the LCD I have is horizontal, for example, in the image below:

    screen comparison

    In crosslink’s tutorial on how he changed out his screen, he showed how to change his marlin firmware to accept the different style screen. You had to enable the screen type to be #define CR10_STOCKDISPLAY instead of using the #define DWIN_CREALITY_LCD, which was the setting to allow the config for the Ender 3 V2’s display. Then you need to change a setting required to flash the firmware.

    And after that, I compiled the code in Visual Studio Code (with the PlatformIO plugin installed) and was able to successfully flash it onto my 3D Printer. There are more tweaks to the firmware I need to make for all of my hardware to work. But a huge thanks to Crosslink for his post! (Link to it here) he goes in-depth on why he switched to the older display and explains the process in great detail. He also has a Youtube video on it here:

    crosslink youtube video/tutorial

    Learn how i changed my screen’s boot screen here: blog.ezraharris.com/customizing-my-3d-printer-boot-screen/

  • Pros and Cons of an Ender 3 3D Printer

    One of the most popular 3D printers on the market is a Creality printer called the Ender 3. I have owned an Ender 3 for the past two years, and here are my thoughts on the pros and cons of owning one:

    Pros:

    • It’s cheap: this is a typical 3D printer because it’s cheap, only $200, which, compared to its competitors, like Prusa and Makerbot’s printers, is an accessible price for beginners just entering the 3D printing space.
    • Great for beginners: With the cheapness and the ability for it to be taken apart quickly and put back together. It does come disassembled. It’s a great learning experience for newer beginners just coming into 3D printing. Since it’s a popular printer, there are hundreds of guides and tutorials on almost any topic about this printer.
    • Upgradability: Since its popularity, many 3rd party brands have offered upgrades to this printer. For example, the BL touch, which in my opinion, is one of the best upgrades that this printer needs, the BL touch auto levels the bed, so there is no need to fine-tune the hotbed manually anymore, which is a hassle. Even Creality offers their own upgrades, they offer an upgraded silent stepper board that improves the sound, and they also sell a CR Touch (their version of the BL touch).

    Cons:

    • Cheap Quality: since this is cheap and straight from China, the parts and pieces are not of the best quality, and I found myself upgrading almost every single aspect of this printer to make it better, and after upgrading all of the small things like a new motherboard and a BL touch, adds up over time. I’ve spent at least an additional $200 on upgrades for my printer.
    • The Noise: Buying a new motherboard was a HUGE change from the printer’s noise when printing. It is rather loud with the standard motherboard. Which for some isn’t an issue as you can move it into another room or buy an enclosure for it. But even with the motors making almost no noise, there is still the fan’s noise, specifically the extruder fan and the power supply fan. Both are pretty loud, which you can also upgrade with Noctua’s silent series fans.

    Final Thoughts:

    Should you buy the Ender 3 in 2022? No, but I believe that if you are set on buying a cheaper printer, I would save money and go for the Creality Ender 3 pro, or the Creality Ender 3 V2, or the Ender 3 max. which has all of the base upgrades you need at a slightly higher price. I would also recommend the Prusa i3 MK3s+ edition if you want the more expensive 3D printers, since it has a vast community, and the owner is based in the Czech Republic and is seemingly going for quality rather than cheap and quick parts. Unlike what Creality3D produces. I also wrote about how I upgraded my Ender 3 with many upgrades here

    Products mentioned in this post:

    Prusa i3 MK3s+

    Creality Ender 3

    Ender 3 pro

    Ender 3 max

    Ender 3 V2

    BL touch

    CR Touch

    Ender 3 Silent Motherboard Upgrade 4.2.7

  • First Successful Print On My New Printer!

    Yesterday I finally got a successful print-off on my new printer, the cr-10 s5, after many weeks of troubleshooting and learning how this printer works. I realized that the problem was that I had made these mistakes which led to clicking on the extruder motor. I got a print to successfully finish and not have any issues.

    • I didn’t disable retraction / lower the settings since the Bondtech DDX combined with the SE mosquito head didn’t need retraction or barely needed it.
    • Set the temperatures too hot for my specific hotend, I set them to be 220-240, but I needed to lower it to 200 at least with PLA.
    • Used PLA with this hotend. In general, PLA isn’t bad for this hotend, but I needed to change a lot of settings to get it not to clog due to the hotend being longer than the stock Creality hotend I’m used to.
    • The extruder fan was not properly connected to the mainboard more about that here: https://blog.ezraharris.com/extruder-and-blower-fan-issues-on-my-new-3d-printer/

    Mostly my mistakes had to do with the settings I had put into Cura not taking into account the DDX configuration or the new hotend that I hadn’t dealt with before.

  • Customizing my 3D Printer Boot Screen

    When working on my printer yesterday, I had to change the firmware to accommodate the new bl touch, and I wanted to update my Marlin version to a newer one. Marlin is the flavor of code that a lot of 3d printer firmware runs on. So I used firmware from TH3D Studio for my specific printer (the cr-10 s5.). They gave straightforward and clear instructions on how to flash it onto the motherboard.

    For flashing it, I use a program called Visual Studio Code combined with a plugin called PlatformIO, which uses the USB port to flash onto another machine like the Arduino or, in my case, the 3d printer board.

    When configuring the settings in the code, I noticed a file called “bootscreen.h,” so I was curious and clicked on it. Commented out were instructions if I wanted to set up my own custom boot screen. Naturally, I clicked on the link for the guide and fell down an exciting rabbit hole of people customizing their own boot screen. You grab the image you want (about 128×64 pixels) and change it to black and white, then use marlin’s official converter to convert the image into code. Which then you can copy and paste into the bootscreen.h configuration file. When following the steps, I tried to think up what photo or logo I wanted to put on my bootscreen. I then got a very random notification of something I was following, which at this time was the Elon Musk buying Twitter, and I thought I might as well put an image of Elon musk on my boot screen for no reason at all other than to be humorous. This was the image I chose since it was black and white and easier to tell when less detailed on the cheap 3D printer screen:

    Elon musk (not mine)

    Here is what the final result looks like on my printer: (taken from my Instagram)

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