My printer of choice is the Ender 3 V3, one of the latest in Creality’s Ender 3 line. So new, in fact, that it doesn’t have a profile in Ultimaker Cura! Fortunately, someone else already looked into this and posted a custom profile that works with the E3v3, saving me from a lot of potential hassle. With the custom profile in use, I had no trouble slicing the icosahedron model and the print was perfect.
Though, as an aside, this wasn’t my actual first print. That title goes to the top-mounting filament arm, a model that came with the USB drive packaged with the printer. It allows the filament spool to be mounted on top of the printer frame, rather than on the side, letting me take back some of the precious desk space I lost setting up the printer in my dorm room.
Or at least, it would be if not for the actual actual first print… which was the same model, but it failed halfway through thanks to UNM temporarily losing power across the whole campus last Thursday.
When power returned and I turned the printer back on, it popped up a message saying that it detected a sudden shutdown and asked if I wanted to resume the print. I was about to press yes when a small wispy line of filament trailing off the print caught my eye. Foolishly, I tried to remove it, only to dislodge the entire print from the bed! It turns out the bumpy, easy-release texture of the bed was more effective than I thought, as the once-heated bed had completely cooled off, so the print was barely stuck to it at all!
It was likely for the better though, as the print being so cool likely would’ve made it difficult for any new filament to stick to the print if I tried to continue it. I’ve heard that resuming paused prints can be risky, and even if a print doesn’t pause, having long round trips per layer can reduce the print’s sturdiness. If I had resumed the print, it likely would’ve failed or turned out much weaker, which is bad news for something that’s meant to support 1kg rolls of filament.
In any case, the second try went without a hitch, and the new filament holder has been working great! I’ve printed out a few other things since, including of course the sample icosahedron. Really the only concern I have with it is that the shorter of the two inward-facing bits is a little too short, as sometimes it moves out of place and I have to readjust the arm. In the near future I’ll see if I can get the non-gcode version of the arm model and tweak it a bit. In the meantime, I’ve been letting the filament rest on its side behind the printer when not in use, to relieve it of stress.
As one last little note, it turns out that the Ender 3 V3 is newer than the Ender 3 V3 KE or the Ender 3 V3 SE. Seriously! They released in 2023, while the ‘standard’ version released in 2024. SE and KE have official Cura profiles registered, while the regular needs you to hunt down a custom profile, as mentioned earlier.