Maybe $100. Almost all of the upgrades were printed. I bought an all metal hotend and a glass bed. I think that’s it. Probably more like $70.

Ew no. I’m still on my ender 3 pro version 1 from 2019. It’s upgraded to the teeth and works great.

There’s no way I’d throw away all that work for a locked down corporate spy machine that uses lots of proprietary, nonstandard parts.

Riker rubbing ketchup in his eyes to keep up with his captain.

I also started using it around that time. And I agree with everything you said except the part where said it’s improved dramatically. It’s improved, yes, but I would call those improvements minimal, not dramatic, especially considering it’s taken five years to accomplish them.

Just so nobody fires up freecad thinking they’re about to get a commercial experience:

FreeCAD sucks. It works. But it sucks. There’s basically no community. Development is fractured and slow. Some workflows that are trivial in solid works are tedious in freecad.

But it works. And it’s foss. If you need something that runs on Linux, it’s the way to go.

I’ve been using super slicer, but it’s a fork of prusa slicer and I’m pretty sure the auto speed feature is a prusa slicer thing.

I have the same setup and with a bigger nozzle I found it useful to use auto speed and max volumetric flow, rather than speed. I found the hotend reaches its flow capacity before speed becomes an issue.

I bought a vacuum sealer for $70

Yeah I read about this all the time and I’ve never had an issue in 4 years. I used to live in a pretty rainy place, too.

Freecad sucks. I use it exclusively and it sucks.

But it’s the only foss option and the only Linux option.

I only use freecad and it sucks. But it’s not infested with corporate bullshit like cloud saves, so it’s automatically better than fusion 360.

Fusion 360 is the middle ground. Beyond that you’re looking at solidworks.

It is just a steep learning curve. Keep grinding. The thing about steep learning curves is that it’s more rewarding when you make progress.

Adding onto this as someone who bought an ender 3 pro years ago and got it printing beautifully within about 6 months.

Yes, you have to have some knowledge and skills, but it is quite possible to get those printers working nicely and reliably. Of course, between the cost of upgrades and the time spent it’s only worth it if you want to learn or practice.

I mean a cursory glance at your own life ought to show you that you do in fact have a life outside of the experiences of some arbitrary person. If you were told you are an NPC, does your lifetime of personal experiences simply vanish?

Even if you were shown proof that you’re a simulation, can you really just let go of your entire existence like that?

I think denial would be a far more common reaction than existential crisis.

Check that the feeding gear on the extruder is properly engaged on the filament.

I had this issue and it turned out the pivot point on the extruder had gotten sticky, so the spring wasn’t compressing the gear onto filament enough to reliably grab it.

All other people are NPCs from the perspective of one person. That’s what “non-player character” means.

You’re the player in your own mind, aren’t you? That makes the rest of us NPCs.

I just don’t see how someone else’s perspective of my autonomy should cause such a crisis in me.

Also check that the bed itself is still flat.

Remember that despite all the software and electronics printers use, they are ultimately hardware, and hardware wears out and breaks sometimes.

My glass bed has warped over time with heat cycles to the point where the center of the bed is a full mm lower than the edges and corners. Every slicer setting in the world can’t fix that. The fix was a new bed, or you could work around it if you have a touch sensor to make a bed mesh, but then the bottom of your parts still won’t be flat.

Trinamic silent stepper drivers make a world of difference. On my printer I swapped the main board for one with silent drivers. Identical hardware as before, 1/10th the noise.

I never believed people before when I read how much of a difference it made. But I’m so glad I did it now.

Noctua fans are also a world of difference.

I guess my question is more directed at those people who are not materialists. To distill it into a philosophical question: why worry about something you cannot know?

Then does it even matter? What’s the point of even considering the question if the end result has no detectable difference either way?