When I saw the opener of a thing making a noise and you just hitting it, and then the little "yay" I knew that you were making the videos I needed. After some searching for the safety video, I watched both, and am now going to go on to upgrade my printer. Thank you for being so organized, helpful and thorough.
Thank you so much for the tutorial, and links. I'm a beginner maker, and while I don't have your printer, learning how people fix things has been absolutely invaluable. THANK YOU!
It's crazy to come back and look at these videos years later.... a friend bought a pair of them right after they came out, they're both still printing well, almost daily, with a few mods. The biggest thing he's done is a couple of bearing replacements, and changed them a few years ago to a slightly better board.
A lot of upgrades are not really a game changer, but belt tensioners are, they will make the printer a lot more precise and will solve the most common problems related to inaccuracies.
I got my A8 more than 5 years ago and just found this video. I have 4 important remarks: 1. If you put too much strenght on the belts, you damage the bearings of your steppermotors. This results in stopped movements on the damaged axis and causes shifts in the layers. 2. To improve quality, I installed 2 tread-rods from the top Z-axis to the front X-axis. The stiffness reduces vibrations dramaticly and helped a lot. 3. Flash Marlin - it's worth the effort. 4. Best ( luxory ) decision was to get a raspi and use octoprint. Highly reccommend this ! The A8 isn't as bad as shown in the fist minutes of the video, Z-axis were not correctly installed. With a few $ you can step up the quality of the A8 up to a point where you can even print rc-planes with great accuracy. ( Like I do )
Love your videos, I've had my A8 for almost a month now. Strangely, after assembly, my prints looked like your "after" Benchy. I've added only a circular fan nozzle, T-corner brackets and Z-Axis stabilizers. I started out pretty conservative with printing speed and gradually increased it. Very impressed that it can sit quite happily at 70mm/s. Hope your prints continue to improve!
70mm/s is definitely faster than I've been printing. That's pretty fantastic. I suspect that these printers are shipped with a wide range of quality. Perhaps you won the A8 lottery and got the best parts possible. =)
I realise this video is now over a year old, but I suspect that people will still stumble across it for picking out upgrade parts. The A8, set up properly, out of the box should not be printing with the poor quality shown in this video. Rule #1 in upgrading - never bother upgrading anything until you have it set up properly. This printer is not set up properly, and that is the cause of the print problems shown. The most obvious example of incorrect set up is shown by the 'need' for Z-Axis stabilisers. The threaded Z-Axis bars and sprung connector to the motor have been set too low (the threaded bars are likely touching the motor drive shafts). When positioned correctly, those threaded bars will be tall enough to sit inside the hole in the top acrylic piece (which stabilises them). Simply getting this right will make a huge difference in print quality as the sprung connectors can then do their job of damping the torque and vibration from the Z-Axis motors. Upgrade parts 'can' help, but no upgrade is ever going to correct a poorly set up printer.
I agree, I was gonna write that my bare stock A8 prints way better without any mods done so far. (And as has been said in other comments, some of the mods are counter productive).
I also agree. I actually made the same mistake myself before I realized it and made an adjustment. It was that improvement alone in this video that led to the improvement of his prints from what they first were.
Of all the things I've added to my A8 to make it work better, the only one I'd really recommend isn't even present in this video. Spring centering makes the heat bed geometry much more reliable. Whether you do it with collars or inserts, that alone made 90% of my ghosting disappear.
Actually the Z rods should be free, not in any hole in the acrylic piece at the top, nor restrained by any printed part. www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/6fdu4y/should_the_z_lead_screw_be_fixed_at_the_top_prusa/
@@mazlixek when adjusted correctly the rod will sit in the guide hole at the top of the A8 ... The hole that is there for that very purpose. (I mean, do you really think the design has holes there for the fun of it?) Being in that guide hole does not restrain the Z-Axis rods, it is there to prevent them wobbling when in motion. Wobble on those rods will negatively affect the print quality by transferring through to the print head. You can choose to run them floating out of the frame and set too low in the motor couplers, that is entirely your prerogative. It is only your prints that are suffering because of it. But before you commit to letting Reddit and your own confirmation bias rule your actions, take a look at high grade and commercial 3D printers. See if you can find a single one with floating Z-Axis rods... Then ask whether the A8 is really supposed to have floating Z-Axis rods, even when the design has the locating holes and equipment to have located rods, or whether the units that have them floating, simply have not been set up correctly.
Of all the things you added, I think the axis reinforcements and the tensioners combined, really were mostly responsible for the changes in your print quality. Some good ideas here! Definitely saving this video for when I build my CNC
Hands down, you guys were THE most helpful one stop source for assembly and essential upgrades for my Anet A8. I am not a props* but I am a *maker :) . You have my gratitude. And may the force be with you.
Not sure if I got lucky or you got a dud but I have a bone stock a8 and it prints beautifully. I do plan on adding the mosfets and a little cable clean up but I couldn't be happier with mine I've put well over a thousand meters through mine will little to no issues. It would be interesting to check a good one and a bad one side by side to see where the differences are.
I started out on the stock Anet A8 and I was never really happy with it. The creaky and wobbly frame and the ungodly noise it made no matter how I changed the print settings drove me up the wall. In the end it sat unused and half disassembled in a corner for almost a year. I still wanted to get this sucker working, though. So I sat down one day, had a really hard thinking session. Now, a few months later, the only original parts left are the motors, PSU, heat bed and parts of the wiring harness. I did the AM8 mod, with 2040 aluminum profiles and Hiwin style linear rails. The board now is an MKR 1.4 running Marlin 2.0.5. rocking a set of TMC2130 stepper drivers. The addition of Octoprint is on the way. There was a lot of „If I am doing X, then I may as well go all the way and do Y too, while I‘m at it.“ At this point I am not even sure if this is still the original. Feels like I built a new printer. And now I can sit next to it and not hear a peep. No, this is most definitely not budget friendly. But I now have the printer that I didn’t even know I wanted. If any of you readers are curious now: The AM8 is not an easy upgrade path at all. But absolutely worth it for me.
Z-Axis decoupler, like those found in thing 1858459 remove the coupling of the X axis to the Z axis and allow the lead screws to move a bit while not moving the X axis side-to-side. Side product is being able to lift the carriage by hand to work on the nozzle to clean or change filaments without needing to do so via the controller. I've also found that toothed idler pulleys remove the "wobble" you find in the X/Y dramatically because they're not constantly changing belt tension during movement due to teeth riding on a smooth surface of the other bearings. Also, with Skynet, a GREAT addition is autoleveling. The developer of skynet sells pre-made sensors on his ebay page for fairly cheap, or if you're not afraid of making a voltage divider and soldering into a connector, you can make one yourself pretty easily as well.
As well, the frame braces found at thing 2099154 made a DRASTIC improvement. Even having just one brace (like I had to move to when I did my dual extruder upgrade) makes a hell of a difference. You can speed up your acceleration and jerk settings a bit and not get wobble or singing in the prints with the braces installed. Added bonus of looking awesome.
proper tension in your belts and bed leveling is key. Those frame supports are necessary because the frame will flex if you tension the belts. another thing is extrusion. make sure your printer is extruding at the correct rate. When you extrude 100mm from the printer console 100mm should have extruded on your printer. messuring and marking the filament should help here then just adjust the flow rate to compensate for the inaccuracy. most pla's come with a recommended print and bed temperature. i recommend printing a bench that changes the temperature during the print to see which temperature the filament prints best at. one more thing the nozzle you are using is unfortunately probably the second worst one (after the stock cooler) and often comes off during prints. The semi-circular seems to preform the best overal and mounts more securely . upgrading to skynet is deffinately a good choice
for the heat break fan i just used a small i beleve 10 mm fan i had too bolt one side down and use a twist tie on the other but had no problems out of it ever again. it looks like you are using the same upgrades i am for mine .
I built my first 3D printer and dealt with a lot of these same issues. Exposed mains wiring, sub par parts, hours of adjustments and dialing in settings to get reasonably good results. It was a struggle to get it working well enough to print parts to make it work properly. I enjoyed it and it taught me a lot about 3d printing and that's great if your interest is in 3D printing as a hobby. If your hobby is prop building and the 3d printer is a tool, I'd just find a way to scrounge up the cash to get one that just works. Then you can focus your time and brain power on getting better at designing. My second printer is a PowerSpec Ultra 3D, $700 from Microcenter. I had it working in about 30min and it prints far better quality than my previous printer with dual extrusion to boot. You don't need to spend $2000 to get a decent printer, but it's also not worth saving a few hundred bucks using something that is unsafe. This is by no means a critique on the series, just some advice from someone who's gone down both routes.
Ive never had a 3D printer but the more i watch these videos and what parts i can make, the more i want one. Do you recommend this for beginner? Its not that expensive also.
jw200 Sure, I own one and I recommend it for beginners. And once you run into some basic problems and look them up, how to fix them, you'll be more understanding on how it actually works and you will feel more satisfied with your results. Mine, prints excellent, some of my prints turned out better then more of the expensive printers, you just have to fiddle with it a bit but it is worth it!
Ho, by the way, I saw your intro your props are fabulous!! and you are so lucky to find a partner making all of that with you, I really wish you eternal success and happiness thank you for sharing!!
Strange that my A8 got the same quality as yours after all the upgrades. So far I've been happy with the quality. If it fails it only fails to start the first layer correctly, and I can restart it or just let it be, problem fixes itself by layer 3. I've also found the fine tune eeprom settings and, was able to calibrate it to permit printing the entire hotbed, with the original software. But I can see all the improvements, and so far I've only added an X-axis tensioner (it's a must if you want to relieve tension on Z screws and guides).
I have had my Anet A8 for about a year now and If you want solid prints just spend the money on an e3dv6 (Original) and plan on replacing that original motherboard as it will fry without warning(even when cooled). I'm currently running a Ramps1.4 setup and can say that i'm very happy with the e3dv6 with BLTOUCH sensor. Thanks for the video.
The only thing i replaced is the bearings as they was noisy and got the same as yours, From the looks of it this printer was not built Square/level (correct) even tho you done a good job. Apart from that I print production quality parts. I don't use Cura as it seems to do weird things,like 2 prints were never the same & always getting poor prints. it also has so many settings that just causes complication to other settings. Anyway i use Matter control. its also free and just works perfectly. you can design models inside it, so No cad or tinker stuff needed, also the best thing is you can change quality or other settings as you print, so just say you have a model and the bottom part only needs to be low resolution and the upper parts needs to be Fine quality . so you just change settings when you need to. The best thing that I like is that, at night time as to not loose to much sleep from noise, I change the settings to a lower speed, and so makes it a lot quieter. My Advice would be. Before thinking about spending time and filament on so called upgrade parts to get better print. Is look at the software settings, and in my case Matter Control works fab on my Anet A 8 Just as i wrote this comment i have also designed a MG34 rear gun sight and now printing , all in within 15 mins, just thought to say . Lol The only safety device i had bought was a Remote control RCD plug adaptor, again it is good , as no Mosfet to install and plus it give me direct control to turn on or off without installing an on /off switch.
There are all sorts of upgrades and modifications, (some of what you did are mods as opposed to upgrades.) for all sorts of printers. OK, so you spent a bit more money and solved some problems. But consider this--The upgrades were already there for the downloading, and I'm pretty sure that you'll find that when you get around to replacing the hot end, or some other critical part--you're going to find the replacement parts you need easily and at fairly low cost. In my case, the "best" mod/upgrades were the ones that let me tighten the belts easily. I've been getting good prints since I added the Y-tensioner and further improvements came from tuning and adjusting heat settings and extrusion speed and such. Tho, even my earliest prints looked better than most of your later prints. (I attribute that to luck.) Finally--The only reason to Skynet firmware is to add the leveling feature. (OK there are a few extra safety features.) And there are various configurations included in the Skynet package for which control panel you're using and whether or not you have a bed sensor. If you use the wrong config.h file, you can make it more difficult to level the bed, or be unable to control your printer. You should be using the version labeled " A8- 5buttonkeypad- no autolevel" Anyway, your Anet vids have been great, and very fair and unbiased.
Thanks for all of these Bill, I've been dealing with an issue where it seems mine extrudes plenty of fill for the raft and then not enough for the main. I'll check the Extruder with a .4mm Thank you so much again for all your and Brit's help over the years.
Punished Props yeah, I was trying to futz with that and thespian and the print speed. There is a 3 way Vin diagram there somewhere. Really liking that I'm learning so much, wishing is dint have to learn it.
It would appear that you've got a lot of Z axis wobble on your printer. I'd check they are straight, cos I bet they're not. Also, where's your auto levelling? That's a must have upgrade. I agree with others about the Bowden upgrade too. An already heavy X carriage is being weighed down with more stuff like the unnecessary cable arm.
I've got 1 in my cart right now, this video has made me extremely rethink that. I don't mind some mods but I'm not trying to buy something I've got to start off by modifying. For 120 it doesn't seem bad but 250 and countless hours of modification seems like a waste. Wish it was a simple answer of worth it or not
Some of your quality issues may have more to do with the speed you are printing, than frame rigidity. You tried slowing it down below 20mm/s? Nice to have good belt tension too. Those Y-axis braces are a must. Mine started to warp badly, esp after hot-boxing it, trying to reduce shrinkage on ABS. My most recent A8 upgrade, an inductive bed sensor, is the BOMB! Just hair spray on bare (60C) aluminum works well for adhesion, with a level bed. After the bed cools, not so hard to remove the print ... a little water can help.
Nice you've done about all of the AnetA8's upgrades for the stock setup. I think you already have the 30A 12V psu, and the on/off socket. I'm still tinkering with mine as well and it has been a journey. I'm printing ABS at 270 degrees with a 85 degrees hotbed and it gives very strong parts. I recommend that you: - update to a newer version of skynet3d, look at their facebook page. (maybe calibrate your extruder e-steps) - buy a polycarbonate print bed sheet, the cheapest 220x220 for cost me around € 3,49. If you ever melt holes in it, it can be fixed with superglue and sanded down.(super glue is also polycarbonate) - use some cardboard and maybe aluminium foil to insulate the bed. - buy an e3d V6 clone bowden setup (€8.09), and extra all metal throats (5pc, € 1,62) so you can print ABS or better. - Some better PTFE tubing for jamming it against the extruder so you could print flexible filament. Maybe a translucent/clear one, it's about € 1,- per meter. - Push fit couplers for the PTFE € 0,29 a piece. If it says it's for 3d printers, it's an 1/8"BSPT / PT (OD:9.5mm). - set of e3d clone nozzles (€ 2,06 for a 8pc, which is a set from 0.2 to 0.5) - Extra thermocouplers 100K ohm NTC 3950 since they can break if you over bend the cables. (€ 0,45 or cheaper) - A better extruder, use MK8 or MK7 gears (€ 0,72 a piece) I recommend a tight extruder - Some bearings for a spoolholder and extruder. Usually 10x 608-2RS or 625-2RS go for € 3,11 or something. - If you want a very sturdy Y axis, buy 1 meter of M6 rod end, and use this thingy ''Y-axis rework for Anet A8by matsekberg'' OR ''Anet A8 Frame Braces w/Y-Axis Belt Tension Rods by LittleMrJ'' optional: - Buy silent fans if you want to. Some set ups use 3x40mm fans. On my own thingyverse I have made a 3x50mm fan one. These fans are € 5,- a piece. - an external micro SD card holder. - A better screen, buy the ''upgraded'' anet screens with the turn button. (€ 11,16) - Print lighter bushing holders to reduce the weight on the X-carriage. Anyway that should be able to give you 60+ mm/s whilst being highly accurate and reaching 270 degrees. Just note that the Anet's hot bed is pretty meh and can reach 100 degrees but it cannot maintain it. 85 degrees was the best it could keep stable for me. I print at 150mm/s to 100mm/s, but it cannot reach that speed with certain shapes. Also my outer wall speed is 60 to compensate for the speed and drooping at 270 degrees with cheap 10 euro per 1kg roll ABS filament from hobbyking. But hey it works and it's pretty fast and stable atm. Maybe you can use what I just typed or anyone else who reads this.
Try working with your print settings more. Do temperature towers and extrution cubes to find the sweet spot. I feel like I have the worst printer and the benchy prints are amazing after a few hours of calibration prints.
Thanks for the video its helps lot. But I want to asks something. Is their any 3d printer that can using a cement and sand material? As this can make it easy to print a baluster and roman columns without using a mould I need help please Sir
I don't know why your prints come out like that. Mine had way better quality out of the box. Also did you check the lead screw couplers? They are supposed to be loosely coupled to the motors. That really helps
I'm getting excellent results with mine since I've check the squareness of the bed with the x axis rails. Also! Safety tip..check the ground connection of the connector going into the heat bed!
Great video!! One thing I might add if you don’t mind is a fan for the power supply it brought the temp down quit a bit and I would imagine prolong the life of the power supply. I would add a picture of mine but I don’t know how
Another consideration is the parameters in your slicer software can make a huge difference. With my A8 printing at 30mm/s alone delivered dramatic results. Still working on other areas but an essential check
Tim Montanus i also get very bad printouts. So frustrating and disappointing. Tried the bed leveling, temp increase decrease. Filament tension. Slower speed. Nothing helps. Prints garbage
It's probably a matter of quality control at the manufacturer. Loose tolerances make for some items that work perfectly and others that don't work at all. Back in the 60's I met a guy with a 650 Triumph who could rev it farther in second gear than others could in 3rd. He got that one perfect one. Heh, it would almost keep up with a 1969 Honda 750.
I've had my Anet A8 for over a year now and it has been printing flawlessly. Not sure how some of you are getting such terrible prints. I've only had those issues the first day before I realized the belts were too loose. After tightening up the X & Y axis belts the quality has been outstanding. The safety issues with the printer... that's another story. Get mosfets and also solder the heated bed connection wires at the very least. Upgrade to Marlin firmware to enable basic thermal runaway protection.
hey great video, with my a8 the biggest differences in print quality made a bowden tube, good and detailed slicing parameters with cura, adjusting the extruding flow and a good leveling of the bed.
Really love your high tech solution to a noisy fan! I thought I was the only one who had to do that. I use a 15 sledge though. Hmm, maybe that's why the fan broke off the mount... I also tried your finger snapping technique. I started snapping my fingers while standing in front of the printer. Nothing happened! What's your secret? Inquiring minds want to know...
Hi. Very nice video. Any chance that you could rebuild the whole from scratch and add all the mods during the assembly (ad filming the whole process) ? That'll be way more practical for newcomers to 3d printing, unless you have better solutions/ideas (like what 3d printers to recommend for serious people that are newcomers to this). Thanks to answer
I bought an A8 after your your original build video and just now finished adding mosfets and a new power supply, and my next step was belt tensioners and frame braces. Quick question, did the rear y-axis frame brace fit correctly at the original size or did you have to scale it? Seems to be some back and forth on this. Also you may want to look up the Hulk frame brace that has had great reviews for stiffening the entire frame (replacing the T brace you printed). So much fun upgrading this machine!
My rear brace fit just fine, but it was very snug. That Hulk frame brace looks cool! Not sure if I'm gonna commit to adding it. I'm nearly done printing my helmet already.
Ok I know this video is super old now and you may have already been told this, but I haven’t seen it in the comments. You need to extend your Z axis couplings! The lead screw end should be flush with the hole in the top of the frame. I’m willing to bet that was causing a bunch of your problems. I have this printer and it took me forever to discover that on my own. It stabilizes the Z axis while also leaving some wobble room for the slop.
Awesome, Bill! That little budget printer's lookin' mighty fine! :D One little piece of advice though for anybody looking to do these upgrades; Browse cable chains on Amazon or eBay before you commit to printing them. They're usually around $10 or less for quite a good length... And while the filament usage is no real concern, printing a bunch of cable chain can be _very_ time-consuming. (Basically a "Weigh it against what your/your printer's time is worth." scenario.)
Heh. :D That's the conclusion _I_ reached when I was looking to wrangle _my_ wiring harness... ;P Of course, being me, I still haven't installed it, and it'll probably end up in the laser cutter instead...because ヽ(ﾟ∀｡)ﾉ :chaos: ヽ(｡∀ﾟ)ﾉ
Yeah, something just doesn't feel right here... I got excellent print results with my A8 straight out of the box with no upgrades. I did use a cordless drill with a very low torque setting to assemble it and make sure the frame did not move. It seems your frame moves A LOT comparatively and I think that might be the primary issue. It does take some force and two hands to bend my frame like that. There are a few small parts that did crack during assembly so take care not to over-torque them. Some people suggest that the z-axis screws have to be perfect, but they don't - mine are 2mm difference and it doesn't affect the quality of the print at all - that's what bed leveling is for! I did end up putting a switch on it because that was just annoying and will have to upgrade the power supply since it has trouble keeping temps when using the heated bed.
A 3d printer resumes to accurate movement in x y z and this means no skip steps, no loose spring belts, no wobbly axis of movement (the axis itself mounted in the frame and the carriage bearings) and no binding or restricted movement (if axis are sqewed or bent, shot bearings out of lube and with play, or resonance movement with a springy frame and slim axis). After that comes the smoothness of control of the steppers like microsteps, small angle steps, smooth electric control from the driver (something like trinamics, or at least TL smoothers) So the recepie for a good printer is to have a good stiff frame. Extruded aluminum with corner brackets can make a super sturdy frame (some diagonal braces as well). Here you spend a good chunk of money Then you need nice movement on linear bearings like thick round bar axis and good linear bearings. or even linear rails with adjustment gibs to make the fit perfect (you need nice quality to get the straightness level and accurate dimensions and proper hardening) so most cheap china printers have low quality axis (sort of straight, low hardness, crappy bearings that may work but will grind the axis rod in short time and also they use small diameter to make it cheap) Even more important is how the axis is mounted on the frame. Ideally you need angular free play to make the axis self align and not stay in tension, like spherical joints or Heim coupling, or self align bearing blocks. This is to keep the y axis(for example) stay tension free in the frame. Next is critical that you can adjust the position of the ends of the axis to make two axis perfectly parallel and perpendicular to the other axis(for two Y axis or two x axis, or two z axis). So i've made use of some blocks with self align sleeve bearings that are mounted on the frame on slots. I can shim the block to raise or lower and move side to side (even front and back) with the elongated hole mount. The critical part is how to measure the true aligment and have a system of adjusting. For example mount the bed on 3 bearings not 4, make the 3 bearings swivel-able so each can self align on the axis and not put bend stress. Then by moving the bed end to end you can create a set distance between axis so is time to carefuly tighten the axis with the bed mounted and ensuring free movement of the bed. Same for X carriage and Z axis. Then after you have the means to clamp without stressing the axis, to align the axis here you need, and have a bearing that will not force a bend (swivel) in the axis this is the base for a very good printer. After all this hard work you need to mount a way of moving the axis in a tension free fashion. Here there are options with belts (stiff but flexible and does not stress parts much and have minimal backlash),movement screws (like on Z axis on most printers) that have backlash and even antibacklash nuts are not a solution if forces are applied (there ae ways with fixed backlash adjust but the risk is bending the screw if the nuts are nt in perfect aligment), or rack and pinion (it has backlash but with a split gear it can be adjusted to tighten and eliminate backlash), or other fancy recirculating driving nut and screw. After all that care has been taken to have proper axis and frame it would be a shame to skimp on a quality original hotend with precise nozzles and accurate thermistor and good heating, good heat management design (to prevent creep or other issues.. so original E3d or copperhead or other nice hotends). Also good steppers (reliable with no skip steps also torquey and fast with low angle. Also use the appropriate gearbox or pulley diameter to further increase resolution but make sure the steps are not smaller then the minimal play you get on your axis. Also good steppers are a shame to be contolled by cheap choppy drivers so you go trinamics on a good reliable board with lots of functions and easy to implement like duet 3d 32bit, or even 8bit einsy rambo. In the end a good printer has nothing useful from a cheap china printer. If you want minimal equilibrium betwen frame and components quality the you look at Prusa mk3s that has quality original parts in ever regard, a decent AL frame, good control on reliable electronics and steppers, good belts with proper tensioning, good design, and massive comunity. So i got a prusa as my 1st printer. Then i got a cheap A6 Anet that i've improved a lot in the axis and stiffen the frame (from steel.. i'm a decent welder and work with steel.. so i fashined a steel frame and ensured a way to adjust axis positions to account for warps from welding and other stuff.) and got it going sort of ok but still had crappy motors, crappy control, crappy belts, crappy hotend. I'm qeeping my anet a as it is with the limited upgrades and call it a day.. print quality is decent if properly tuned. I will be building a proper diy printers with a steel frame (I can weld and steel is cheap) with overkill axis (at least 20mm round) and true stepper motors and drivers (got some beefy ones from an old CNC.. not great step angle at 3degrees but i can trim it down in a gearbox. They have plenty torque and speed) - sure i will need custom drivers found in CNC machines rather than trinamics drivers. I plan to use a supervolcano e3d (maybe two extruders) and plan to make a mount for a CO2 laser for lasercutting/engraving and why not a CNC 2.5D mill but chips on a 3d printers will be another issue. B the time i'm done i estimate i will go over 2k euro in it.. so i might just find a cheap truce CNC mill and make the adaptations for a 3d printer. it maybe cheaper and sturdy and accurate (as a mill requires) Anyway I'm mechanical engineer by trade and as a sum of the above post is that above all upgrades the major thing is to make sure you have good movement on axis with no tight spots, no bends, no stress in the moving parts to force a bend, no out of parallel axis, tight belts not springy. This will get even the stock cheap printer print rather good.
I have almost all the same printed upgrades on my a8, I set mine on a foam mat to reduce vibrations, Also maybe try printing with different cooling and speeds, this is what improved my quality the most
Try adjusting extruder temps or even a different brand of filament. I have noticed a difference changing from 190 to 200 for pla, ymmv but tinkering with many of the settings can change print quality.
since you are an upgrade expert, i would ask you a help. is it possible to use a small printer electronics to make a bigger printer? for example, tronxy-100 to CR-10 MAX ?
Out of the box this printer was making very good prints for me compared to what you were showing. A big part of print quality comes from your slicer settings...cheapest upgrade is to fine tune them. I would get rid of the "Anti Wobble Upgrade" It's not an upgrade and goes against the idea of the spring coupler at the bottom, the better "upgrade" is to make sure the rods are aligned properly. The A8 can achieve fantastic prints comparable to $1000+ printers without much put into it other than tinker time.
I made none of the changes you made there to my A8, and get much nicer Benchies from it. There seem to be stringing issues with yours. Are the print temperature settings fitting the filament you use? By the way, my A8 gets the best results with the really cheap PLA filaments. I once shelled out loads of money for big brand name stuff. It clogged up the hotend and caused me shitloads of trouble. none of that happens with the cheapo stuff, no fibers, carbon cuttings or fairy dust. Any such filament additives actually weaken the printed objects as well. What I did: I got a board of spruce, some ½" thick, screwed some more wooden bars under it perdendicularly to the spruce board's orientation of grain for stiffness, and glued some small pieces of scrap wood to its top that firmly lock the A8 in place. I can easily pick the printer up from the board if need be, but it can't move in any direction when sitting on it. I also added a 24x24cm pane of glass (None of the borosilcate woo-woo, plain window glass. Well good enough here) to the heat bed. Some clippings of PCB raw material glued to the pane's underside keep it in place. A shallow notch hat to be ground into the underside of the panes to make room for bits of the heat bed connector. Ground with a Dremel-thingy, they took three minutes each. Use a little water to keep the grinding dust in check, glass dust is nasty stuff. Three pieces of window pane cost me a tenner, cut to dimension and edges ground nicely by my local glazier.) There is enough extra travel in the the X and Y-axis to make use of the etxra build area. I didn't encounter issues with the printed objects not sticking so far. As my printer sits in my living room, I only print PLA so far. ABS etc. might be a different story. Oh, and I use glue stick for adhesion. Pritt and Uhu. By the way, if you can get it forget about cyano-acrylic and epoxy for glueing PLA. You want Uhu Allplast. It does a *perfect* job with PLA. None of the superglue stink and mixing and hurry with epoxy either, plus it's cheaper. What with those circular air nozzles: I think they are bogus. You want hot air to be taken *away* from the freshly printed bits. In order to achieve that, you make airflow *across* the hot area, not small eddies that whirl around it. I printed one of those things myself, found it didn't do jack for the print quality, returned to the original one. Does the job. I do plan to build a printer with a bigger working area. That's not because I am unhappy with the Anet A8. I love the bugger. My only real criticism is that it's not too good at using the area it sits on. With its frame covering roughly a 20x20"/50x50cm area, it only makes 22x22cm print area out off the box. That's a rather poor use of space. This mainly inspired my DIY-project, getting that ratio improved.
I got the even cheaper wooden variant, and replaced the whole frame with a welded steel one.This massively improves rigidity and print quality on its own.Files for the parts required to convert to the steel version are on thingiverse.Also belt tensioners,new cooling nozzle and toothed idlers plus upgraded to all metal extruder drive.
Great video Bill! Did you print your x-axis chain assembly before adding there MOSFET? I am about to make this mod but I don't seem to have enough length on the thermistor line to mount it below.
FYI - I had more slack than I thought. I was able to print off a dual-mosfet mount from thingiverse and hook up the hot-end connection w/o issue after rerouting some of my cable collections a little.
what slicer do you use? I found switching from cura to slic3r prusa edition made a huge difference. seemed to get rid of a lot of imperfections. its free too
Hi I have a question, how do you feed the pla through the nozzle, I disassembled the whole fan and ran it through and re assembled it but it still didn’t go through. Can you be able to tell me how it goes through please?
its funny i have not done any upgrades to my anet a8 and the only think I head to do was tighten down the print bed's belt and all my prints have looked really good. But i am thinking of adding some of these upgrades to make the printer look better and to tidy up the cable mess other then that the printed for me has been really good right out of the box.
AHhh yeah I did that all in one go because I was getting frustrated. I recommend doing it anyway. Apparently it helps protect the machine from thermal runaway.
The most significant performance improvement I got out of my Anet A8 was taking all of the core components and turning it into a CoreXY machine. I really don't care that it's "no longer" an A8, I bought the printer for the pricepoint, not the design. You should really measure the diameter of your smooth rods. You were showing the play in the bearings, when I checked my smooth rods they were everything but 8mm, and not actually smooth either. the diameter would vary along the length of the rods by more than 0.1 mm.
The updates look great. I haven't done much to my A8 except the donut exhaust and filament guid. I'm gonna try the oil on the thread bering, frame stabilizer pieces and wire chain next. As for the helmet I'm guessing it might be either iron man or mass effect ✌🤓🤘
Hi, I’m just beginning to try my hand at 3D printing. I have an Anet A8 that I just got put together. Haven’t even plugged it in yet, want to learn all I can about it so I won’t screw it up. My question is, how do I get what it takes to print an object from thingiverse to my printer? I have looked on thingiverses’ web site and looked at all the upgrade stuff they have pictures of but I could not figure out how to get their project information to my printer or my computer so I can print that object. I appreciate any help you might have.
5 років тому
I realize this video is over a year old, but an upgrade everybody needs to do is printing and installing some guides for the bed adjust springs to stay straight. While you're at it, also add some larger knobs to the butterfly nuts of the springs, so it can be easier to adjust them. Also, and inductive bed auto leveling sensor is a must.
What are you printer settings i am getting very rough prints. I have done almost all of these upgrades so i think it may be my printers settings if you could please share a list i would greatly appreciate it!!!!
I have to ask though, with the amount of time and effort put into this machine so far, are there any lower budget machines that you've worked with that produce similar results (on the upgraded A8) for a similar price? (250-300 usd range?)
I would say look at the Wanhao i3 line. It's around $350 but I've heard it makes for a better base. The truth is at that price range (at this moment in history) any printer is gonna kinda suck. Yes, with enough time and effort (and luck) you can have an awesome printer on the cheap but it honestly isn't quite there yet.
Im not looking for 'on the cheap', im more trying to avoid the excessive amount of time and tinkering bill is having to put into the A8 making sure its not going to self destruct or burn his house down. I figure, I could either by the A8, make these repairs for about that price tag, or buy a printer with a similar price tag(post repairs) and have most of that leg work done for me. I'm good with my hands but I know jack shit about electronics, Not for lack of desire to do so of course.
The problem with cheap printers is there are only so many corners you can cut. They all need a minimum of 4 motors, an extruder (I know they are called a hot end but it's a frick'n extruder. It's where the plastic comes out. The part named extruder is a drive system. /Rant), some brains and a way to make everything move in the proper direction at the proper time (rails, screws, belts whatever). Angus at Makers Muse says the Wanhao is solid and I don't have a good reason to doubt him so I recommended it. Personally I spent my money on an Original Prusa i3 Prusa Mk2S by Joseph Prusa Prusa. I may have left a Prusa out of the previous sentence, there are a lot of them in the name. Everything is a quality component that's been tested before it gets put in the box. It's the template that a ton of kits (including the A8, A6 and Wanhao) are based off of. It isn't cheap at $700 but at least you won't have to wait months to get one like I did. The power supply is already fused, the board is already fused, the connectors have the proper amp spec, over and under heating warnings haven't been disabled in the firmware and the thing prints really well out of the box.
Fair enough, I know 3D printing really is one of those 'you get what you pay for' kinds of deals, but there has to be a point when your returns exceed your investment. Makes little sense to invest in a printer that requires hundreds more dollars in modifications and upkeep when you can buy a higher end system that's far more ready to work right out of the box (within reason of course) I know that's the purpose of Bill's experiments here--find a cost-effective printer that, with some tinkering, can produce reasonably decent prints for a limited budget. of course my dream printer is the form 2, but that's a long ways away. rofl
I also have an A8, but it prints virtually flawlessly with no additions. Of course I have many of the 'things' for the A8, now. You should remove the top Z axis bearing guides... if they don't line up it is because the motor below is not centered. Fix that and the lead screws will be centered all of the time. Keeping the Z axis bearing guides is just going to cause the lead screws to bend in the middle as it prints and you will get lower quality/offsets/stress. The noise that you heard before applying oil was likely the due to the misalignment of the motor/lead screws..
Can you share your pla settings ? My prints on my a8 are always spongy and the demos that came with the printer are beautiful and hard shell that tell me it’s my settings
Great video thank you for sharing your skills. I wonder if you could share your cura settings for this printer. I'm using cura 2.6.1 now and wish to print some of those upgrades. (I had a difficult time updating cura and I'm not satisfied with the print results) Thank you for those usefull advices
On a cost factor as to your upgrade. Would you consider “tool and filament” and upgrade factor considering tools are something you do or don’t have and can be used in other needs as well which should also share the expense of them and the filament is an expendable commodity completely and should not be considered a factor of the device as again; it is expendable and would be purchased regardless of the type of unit purchased. Also in regards to the safety concerns addressed with additional equipment; that could be considered to be a personal issue or choice given that some individuals (for example) remove devices such as guards for table saw and grinders to just name a couple off the top of my head. Not that they should be removed mind you just it is a personal choice and option. That being given I would belay to Category “total” and call if “optional but recommend upgrade total when it comes to the safety items”. With that being said, the total would now stand at or around $215 which is still not s bad pride. Just my opinion sir.
If I'm not mistaken then the initial plan was to mention what it would cost IN TOTAL to get the A8 up and running. So when you have to buy tools to accomplish this, then you have to add these costs to the total amount. Yes I do know that these tools can also be used for other project BUT you cannot spread the payment for the tools. Example: If you have to spend $50,00 on tools in order to get the A8 up and running, then it will cost you $215,00 ($165,00 + $50,00) in total before you can accomplish this.
belt tensioners by far make the biggest improvement to print quality out of any of the upgrades they should be printed first. I started printing in ABS so i didn't need to upgrade my fan nozzle right away so i was able to get a lot of the frame stiffeners made.
i dont know where to document my life except for youtube comments i guess. anyway, printing the wire chain stuff, the first 4 banger was 9.1 grams, the second was 9.2 grams, just finished the third and it was 8.9 grams. thx for the link man, just built printer now working on the upgrades in spare time.
If you want to have better bed adherence, get a sheet on PEI and install it over the heated bed. It sticks like crazy when hot and pops right off when it cools down.
When you run out of blue tape. :) www.amazon.com/Gizmo-Dorks-Printer-Surface-Polyetherimide/dp/B01KBGJU5S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503497811&sr=8-1&keywords=PEI It's really wonderful, I wouldn't go back to tape....ever. :)
I own a Tevo Tarantual and I am happy with it. It cost me 180€ and i did literally two upgrades 1st a dual fan filament cooling and an ajustable Z-Endswitch and it prints like a dream. But i can not understand why a printer from the same pricerange prints not as close as good as mine does even though i spend just like 2 hours adjusting Settings an printing Upgrades
Without all this upgrades, my Anet A8 do the same job, i only replaced the Y carriage by an aluminium frame because it was bended and i added a new glass plate from anycubic to cancel warping.
Iirc you're in the Seattle area, if I'm right, go to Tacoma Screw for nuts and bolts. They have a Seattle location, Tacoma, and some others I believe. You can get whatever you need and at insanely better prices than Lowes. It's also a great store for tools.
I can't understand why such poor print quality, even after upgrades. My A8 printed it's first print (PLA and ABS) better than Bill's post-upgrade prints. Must be a physical problem with the nozzle, or possibly something loose somewhere? But I couldn't imagine how, after all the rebuilds. E3D V6 (or clone) would do wonders.
Hi PPA, why my Anet A8 with board v1.7 (she had a 1.5 but it was replaced because it die) when is heating up, no matter the temp thet you stablish for printing she never goes to the temp goal and stay always 5º behind and like this the printer doesn´t start... I have to feed directly the 12 V in the mosfet to heat up to the stablish temp.... can you help me?
Make sure to join the Facebook group for the printer and read up on the process. and ask questions if needed.. the instructions are passable but there are several things you can do while building to improve the machine (such as flipping the print bed tray, ensuring the front acrylic print bed plate is the right way around, and finally installing the Z-threaded rods in right). Also make sure those belts are tight! Biggest improvement to print quality has been making sure they are tight. You will have a lot of fun building it!
Good advice! I bought one after watching Bill put his together live on stream. Price point seemed good, difficulty seemed low, & I intend to do the same sort of things Bill plans with his. So it was a nice surprise after the purchase to see how huge & supportive the community is for the A8! LOTS of informative & friendly users in the Facebook group, lots of UA-cam videos out there on upgrading & repairing things too!
Suddsky s it ended up printing about as good as my monoprice select, for a bit less money with the upgrades. Imo you should just save yourself the time and just buy a better printer
When I saw the opener of a thing making a noise and you just hitting it, and then the little "yay" I knew that you were making the videos I needed. After some searching for the safety video, I watched both, and am now going to go on to upgrade my printer.
Thank you for being so organized, helpful and thorough.
You are so welcome!
Thank you so much for the tutorial, and links. I'm a beginner maker, and while I don't have your printer, learning how people fix things has been absolutely invaluable. THANK YOU!
You're welcome!
It's crazy to come back and look at these videos years later.... a friend bought a pair of them right after they came out, they're both still printing well, almost daily, with a few mods. The biggest thing he's done is a couple of bearing replacements, and changed them a few years ago to a slightly better board.
My bench was always makeing amazing prints since day 1. I have a feeling you did not tighten the belts enough when you bought it
A lot of upgrades are not really a game changer, but belt tensioners are, they will make the printer a lot more precise and will solve the most common problems related to inaccuracies.
Thanks for sharing!
I got my A8 more than 5 years ago and just found this video. I have 4 important remarks:
1. If you put too much strenght on the belts, you damage the bearings of your steppermotors.
This results in stopped movements on the damaged axis and causes shifts in the layers.
2. To improve quality, I installed 2 tread-rods from the top Z-axis to the front X-axis.
The stiffness reduces vibrations dramaticly and helped a lot.
3. Flash Marlin - it's worth the effort.
4. Best ( luxory ) decision was to get a raspi and use octoprint. Highly reccommend this !
The A8 isn't as bad as shown in the fist minutes of the video, Z-axis were not correctly installed.
With a few $ you can step up the quality of the A8 up to a point where you can even print rc-planes with great accuracy. ( Like I do )
Love your videos, I've had my A8 for almost a month now. Strangely, after assembly, my prints looked like your "after" Benchy. I've added only a circular fan nozzle, T-corner brackets and Z-Axis stabilizers. I started out pretty conservative with printing speed and gradually increased it. Very impressed that it can sit quite happily at 70mm/s. Hope your prints continue to improve!
70mm/s is definitely faster than I've been printing. That's pretty fantastic. I suspect that these printers are shipped with a wide range of quality. Perhaps you won the A8 lottery and got the best parts possible. =)
Haha, maybe! Putting it on a vibration-dampening surface also helps a lot with little glitches.
Good luck and cheers from a fellow Seattle maker!
I realise this video is now over a year old, but I suspect that people will still stumble across it for picking out upgrade parts. The A8, set up properly, out of the box should not be printing with the poor quality shown in this video. Rule #1 in upgrading - never bother upgrading anything until you have it set up properly. This printer is not set up properly, and that is the cause of the print problems shown.
The most obvious example of incorrect set up is shown by the 'need' for Z-Axis stabilisers. The threaded Z-Axis bars and sprung connector to the motor have been set too low (the threaded bars are likely touching the motor drive shafts). When positioned correctly, those threaded bars will be tall enough to sit inside the hole in the top acrylic piece (which stabilises them). Simply getting this right will make a huge difference in print quality as the sprung connectors can then do their job of damping the torque and vibration from the Z-Axis motors.
Upgrade parts 'can' help, but no upgrade is ever going to correct a poorly set up printer.
I agree, I was gonna write that my bare stock A8 prints way better without any mods done so far. (And as has been said in other comments, some of the mods are counter productive).
I also agree. I actually made the same mistake myself before I realized it and made an adjustment. It was that improvement alone in this video that led to the improvement of his prints from what they first were.
Of all the things I've added to my A8 to make it work better, the only one I'd really recommend isn't even present in this video.
Spring centering makes the heat bed geometry much more reliable. Whether you do it with collars or inserts, that alone made 90% of my ghosting disappear.
Actually the Z rods should be free, not in any hole in the acrylic piece at the top, nor restrained by any printed part. www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/6fdu4y/should_the_z_lead_screw_be_fixed_at_the_top_prusa/
@@mazlixek when adjusted correctly the rod will sit in the guide hole at the top of the A8 ... The hole that is there for that very purpose. (I mean, do you really think the design has holes there for the fun of it?)
Being in that guide hole does not restrain the Z-Axis rods, it is there to prevent them wobbling when in motion. Wobble on those rods will negatively affect the print quality by transferring through to the print head.
You can choose to run them floating out of the frame and set too low in the motor couplers, that is entirely your prerogative. It is only your prints that are suffering because of it.
But before you commit to letting Reddit and your own confirmation bias rule your actions, take a look at high grade and commercial 3D printers. See if you can find a single one with floating Z-Axis rods... Then ask whether the A8 is really supposed to have floating Z-Axis rods, even when the design has the locating holes and equipment to have located rods, or whether the units that have them floating, simply have not been set up correctly.
Of all the things you added, I think the axis reinforcements and the tensioners combined, really were mostly responsible for the changes in your print quality.
Some good ideas here! Definitely saving this video for when I build my CNC
It would seem that the belt tension is a big one on most people's lists. I think I could tighten up the X-Axis on mine even more than it is now.
Correct belt tension has made the biggest improvement on my A8. I'll be upgrading to a bowden soon. Print quality right now is outstanding.
Hello, superb video!!!!BRAVO!! Small question: how to solve the problem of dimension in X and Y? I have 25mm x25mm instead of 20mm.. Thanks in advance
Hands down, you guys were THE most helpful one stop source for assembly and essential upgrades for my Anet A8.
I am not a props* but I am a *maker :) . You have my gratitude. And may the force be with you.
You're welcome. =)
Love your Hyperion T-shirt bro!! Takes me back to the good ol' Borderlands days.
Catch a riiiiiide!
Not sure if I got lucky or you got a dud but I have a bone stock a8 and it prints beautifully. I do plan on adding the mosfets and a little cable clean up but I couldn't be happier with mine I've put well over a thousand meters through mine will little to no issues. It would be interesting to check a good one and a bad one side by side to see where the differences are.
I've heard that from several other people. I got the runt of the litter.
I started out on the stock Anet A8 and I was never really happy with it. The creaky and wobbly frame and the ungodly noise it made no matter how I changed the print settings drove me up the wall.
In the end it sat unused and half disassembled in a corner for almost a year. I still wanted to get this sucker working, though.
So I sat down one day, had a really hard thinking session. Now, a few months later, the only original parts left are the motors, PSU, heat bed and parts of the wiring harness.
I did the AM8 mod, with 2040 aluminum profiles and Hiwin style linear rails. The board now is an MKR 1.4 running Marlin 2.0.5. rocking a set of TMC2130 stepper drivers. The addition of Octoprint is on the way. There was a lot of „If I am doing X, then I may as well go all the way and do Y too, while I‘m at it.“
At this point I am not even sure if this is still the original. Feels like I built a new printer. And now I can sit next to it and not hear a peep.
No, this is most definitely not budget friendly. But I now have the printer that I didn’t even know I wanted. If any of you readers are curious now: The AM8 is not an easy upgrade path at all. But absolutely worth it for me.
Z-Axis decoupler, like those found in thing 1858459 remove the coupling of the X axis to the Z axis and allow the lead screws to move a bit while not moving the X axis side-to-side. Side product is being able to lift the carriage by hand to work on the nozzle to clean or change filaments without needing to do so via the controller.
I've also found that toothed idler pulleys remove the "wobble" you find in the X/Y dramatically because they're not constantly changing belt tension during movement due to teeth riding on a smooth surface of the other bearings.
Also, with Skynet, a GREAT addition is autoleveling. The developer of skynet sells pre-made sensors on his ebay page for fairly cheap, or if you're not afraid of making a voltage divider and soldering into a connector, you can make one yourself pretty easily as well.
As well, the frame braces found at thing 2099154 made a DRASTIC improvement. Even having just one brace (like I had to move to when I did my dual extruder upgrade) makes a hell of a difference. You can speed up your acceleration and jerk settings a bit and not get wobble or singing in the prints with the braces installed. Added bonus of looking awesome.
proper tension in your belts and bed leveling is key. Those frame supports are necessary because the frame will flex if you tension the belts. another thing is extrusion. make sure your printer is extruding at the correct rate. When you extrude 100mm from the printer console 100mm should have extruded on your printer. messuring and marking the filament should help here then just adjust the flow rate to compensate for the inaccuracy.
most pla's come with a recommended print and bed temperature. i recommend printing a bench that changes the temperature during the print to see which temperature the filament prints best at.
one more thing the nozzle you are using is unfortunately probably the second worst one (after the stock cooler) and often comes off during prints. The semi-circular seems to preform the best overal and mounts more securely
. upgrading to skynet is deffinately a good choice
for the heat break fan i just used a small i beleve 10 mm fan i had too bolt one side down and use a twist tie on the other but had no problems out of it ever again. it looks like you are using the same upgrades i am for mine .
I built my first 3D printer and dealt with a lot of these same issues. Exposed mains wiring, sub par parts, hours of adjustments and dialing in settings to get reasonably good results. It was a struggle to get it working well enough to print parts to make it work properly. I enjoyed it and it taught me a lot about 3d printing and that's great if your interest is in 3D printing as a hobby.
If your hobby is prop building and the 3d printer is a tool, I'd just find a way to scrounge up the cash to get one that just works. Then you can focus your time and brain power on getting better at designing. My second printer is a PowerSpec Ultra 3D, $700 from Microcenter. I had it working in about 30min and it prints far better quality than my previous printer with dual extrusion to boot. You don't need to spend $2000 to get a decent printer, but it's also not worth saving a few hundred bucks using something that is unsafe.
This is by no means a critique on the series, just some advice from someone who's gone down both routes.
Great advice, thanks for sharing.
Ive never had a 3D printer but the more i watch these videos and what parts i can make, the more i want one.
Do you recommend this for beginner? Its not that expensive also.
jw200 Sure, I own one and I recommend it for beginners. And once you run into some basic problems and look them up, how to fix them, you'll be more understanding on how it actually works and you will feel more satisfied with your results. Mine, prints excellent, some of my prints turned out better then more of the expensive printers, you just have to fiddle with it a bit but it is worth it!
Thank you for your understandable English. I'm stupid russian pupil and you're one of few bloggers that i can watch) thank you
So glad you're able to enjoy our videos!
Ho, by the way, I saw your intro your props are fabulous!! and you are so lucky to find a partner making all of that with you, I really wish you eternal success and happiness thank you for sharing!!
Strange that my A8 got the same quality as yours after all the upgrades. So far I've been happy with the quality. If it fails it only fails to start the first layer correctly, and I can restart it or just let it be, problem fixes itself by layer 3. I've also found the fine tune eeprom settings and, was able to calibrate it to permit printing the entire hotbed, with the original software. But I can see all the improvements, and so far I've only added an X-axis tensioner (it's a must if you want to relieve tension on Z screws and guides).
I have had my Anet A8 for about a year now and If you want solid prints just spend the money on an e3dv6 (Original) and plan on replacing that original motherboard as it will fry without warning(even when cooled). I'm currently running a Ramps1.4 setup and can say that i'm very happy with the e3dv6 with BLTOUCH sensor. Thanks for the video.
I'd replace the mainboard just for the extra IO, so I can finally have things like a probe, or the ability to turn off the power supply.
The only thing i replaced is the bearings as they was noisy and got the same as yours,
From the looks of it this printer was not built Square/level (correct) even tho you done a good job.
Apart from that I print production quality parts.
I don't use Cura as it seems to do weird things,like 2 prints were never the same & always getting poor prints. it also has so many settings that just causes complication to other settings.
Anyway i use Matter control. its also free and just works perfectly. you can design models inside it, so No cad or tinker stuff needed, also the best thing is you can change quality or other settings as you print,
so just say you have a model and the bottom part only needs to be low resolution and the upper parts needs to be Fine quality .
so you just change settings when you need to.
The best thing that I like is that, at night time as to not loose to much sleep from noise, I change the settings to a lower speed, and so makes it a lot quieter.
My Advice would be. Before thinking about spending time and filament on so called upgrade parts to get better print. Is look at the software settings, and in my case Matter Control works fab on my Anet A 8
Just as i wrote this comment i have also designed a MG34 rear gun sight and now printing , all in within 15 mins,
just thought to say . Lol
The only safety device i had bought was a Remote control RCD plug adaptor, again it is good , as no Mosfet to install and plus it give me direct control to turn on or off without installing an on /off switch.
There are all sorts of upgrades and modifications, (some of what you did are mods as opposed to upgrades.) for all sorts of printers. OK, so you spent a bit more money and solved some problems. But consider this--The upgrades were already there for the downloading, and I'm pretty sure that you'll find that when you get around to replacing the hot end, or some other critical part--you're going to find the replacement parts you need easily and at fairly low cost.
In my case, the "best" mod/upgrades were the ones that let me tighten the belts easily. I've been getting good prints since I added the Y-tensioner and further improvements came from tuning and adjusting heat settings and extrusion speed and such. Tho, even my earliest prints looked better than most of your later prints. (I attribute that to luck.)
Finally--The only reason to Skynet firmware is to add the leveling feature. (OK there are a few extra safety features.) And there are various configurations included in the Skynet package for which control panel you're using and whether or not you have a bed sensor. If you use the wrong config.h file, you can make it more difficult to level the bed, or be unable to control your printer. You should be using the version labeled " A8- 5buttonkeypad- no autolevel"
Anyway, your Anet vids have been great, and very fair and unbiased.
+DancesWithRobots Cool! Yeah I wanted Skynet for the thermal runaway safety feature. Belt tension seems to be the best upgrade so far.
Thanks for all of these Bill, I've been dealing with an issue where it seems mine extrudes plenty of fill for the raft and then not enough for the main. I'll check the Extruder with a .4mm
Thank you so much again for all your and Brit's help over the years.
You're welcome! You may need to check the "estep calibration". I've never done it myself, but it's been recommended to me several times.
Punished Props yeah, I was trying to futz with that and thespian and the print speed. There is a 3 way Vin diagram there somewhere. Really liking that I'm learning so much, wishing is dint have to learn it.
It would appear that you've got a lot of Z axis wobble on your printer. I'd check they are straight, cos I bet they're not. Also, where's your auto levelling? That's a must have upgrade. I agree with others about the Bowden upgrade too. An already heavy X carriage is being weighed down with more stuff like the unnecessary cable arm.
Hey Bill after watching your videos in jumping in to 3D printing and ordered a anet A6 hopefully my experience is as good as yours
That's exciting. Happy printing! =D
I've got 1 in my cart right now, this video has made me extremely rethink that. I don't mind some mods but I'm not trying to buy something I've got to start off by modifying. For 120 it doesn't seem bad but 250 and countless hours of modification seems like a waste. Wish it was a simple answer of worth it or not
It's been a while since I made these videos and since then dozens of these machines have caught fire. I would recommend *not* buying one.
Some of your quality issues may have more to do with the speed you are printing, than frame rigidity. You tried slowing it down below 20mm/s? Nice to have good belt tension too. Those Y-axis braces are a must. Mine started to warp badly, esp after hot-boxing it, trying to reduce shrinkage on ABS. My most recent A8 upgrade, an inductive bed sensor, is the BOMB! Just hair spray on bare (60C) aluminum works well for adhesion, with a level bed. After the bed cools, not so hard to remove the print ... a little water can help.
Nice you've done about all of the AnetA8's upgrades for the stock setup. I think you already have the 30A 12V psu, and the on/off socket.
I'm still tinkering with mine as well and it has been a journey. I'm printing ABS at 270 degrees with a 85 degrees hotbed and it gives very strong parts.
I recommend that you:
- update to a newer version of skynet3d, look at their facebook page. (maybe calibrate your extruder e-steps)
- buy a polycarbonate print bed sheet, the cheapest 220x220 for cost me around € 3,49. If you ever melt holes in it, it can be fixed with superglue and sanded down.(super glue is also polycarbonate)
- use some cardboard and maybe aluminium foil to insulate the bed.
- buy an e3d V6 clone bowden setup (€8.09), and extra all metal throats (5pc, € 1,62) so you can print ABS or better.
- Some better PTFE tubing for jamming it against the extruder so you could print flexible filament. Maybe a translucent/clear one, it's about € 1,- per meter.
- Push fit couplers for the PTFE € 0,29 a piece. If it says it's for 3d printers, it's an 1/8"BSPT / PT (OD:9.5mm).
- set of e3d clone nozzles (€ 2,06 for a 8pc, which is a set from 0.2 to 0.5)
- Extra thermocouplers 100K ohm NTC 3950 since they can break if you over bend the cables. (€ 0,45 or cheaper)
- A better extruder, use MK8 or MK7 gears (€ 0,72 a piece) I recommend a tight extruder
- Some bearings for a spoolholder and extruder. Usually 10x 608-2RS or 625-2RS go for € 3,11 or something.
- If you want a very sturdy Y axis, buy 1 meter of M6 rod end, and use this thingy ''Y-axis rework for Anet A8by matsekberg'' OR ''Anet A8 Frame Braces w/Y-Axis Belt Tension Rods by LittleMrJ''
optional:
- Buy silent fans if you want to. Some set ups use 3x40mm fans. On my own thingyverse I have made a 3x50mm fan one. These fans are € 5,- a piece.
- an external micro SD card holder.
- A better screen, buy the ''upgraded'' anet screens with the turn button. (€ 11,16)
- Print lighter bushing holders to reduce the weight on the X-carriage.
Anyway that should be able to give you 60+ mm/s whilst being highly accurate and reaching 270 degrees. Just note that the Anet's hot bed is pretty meh and can reach 100 degrees but it cannot maintain it. 85 degrees was the best it could keep stable for me. I print at 150mm/s to 100mm/s, but it cannot reach that speed with certain shapes.
Also my outer wall speed is 60 to compensate for the speed and drooping at 270 degrees with cheap 10 euro per 1kg roll ABS filament from hobbyking.
But hey it works and it's pretty fast and stable atm.
Maybe you can use what I just typed or anyone else who reads this.
Thanks for the tips!
Try working with your print settings more. Do temperature towers and extrution cubes to find the sweet spot. I feel like I have the worst printer and the benchy prints are amazing after a few hours of calibration prints.
Thanks for the video its helps lot.
But I want to asks something. Is their any 3d printer that can using a cement and sand material? As this can make it easy to print a baluster and roman columns without using a mould I need help please Sir
I don't know why your prints come out like that. Mine had way better quality out of the box. Also did you check the lead screw couplers? They are supposed to be loosely coupled to the motors. That really helps
Very helpful video. Thanks for the parts list for a beginner. It takes time to find the parts the first time. Again thank you. Job well done.
I'm getting excellent results with mine since I've check the squareness of the bed with the x axis rails. Also! Safety tip..check the ground connection of the connector going into the heat bed!
Great tips, thanks!
Man watching this video is making me so excited for my cr 10 that's coming next week!
I bet you're SUPER STOKED!
Punished Props let's put it this way for the next week I'm gonna be watching out my window like a sniper waiting for the FedEx guy.
I feel pretty lucky to have my Anet A8 print awesome right off the bat, and only got better after my upgrades.
Great video!! One thing I might add if you don’t mind is a fan for the power supply it brought the temp down quit a bit and I would imagine prolong the life of the power supply. I would add a picture of mine but I don’t know how
Another consideration is the parameters in your slicer software can make a huge difference. With my A8 printing at 30mm/s alone delivered dramatic results. Still working on other areas but an essential check
Good to know!
Interesting. When I try to print that slow, quality starts to suffer.
great video, id say not all the upgrades are needed but good to have and def adding mosfet is a must!
how the freakin hell do you manage to get so terrible prints with that machine? my benchis has been almost flawless from day 1 with cheapo filament
Yeah same without any upgrades it printed better than this thing with upgrades
Tim Montanus i also get very bad printouts.
So frustrating and disappointing.
Tried the bed leveling, temp increase decrease. Filament tension. Slower speed.
Nothing helps. Prints garbage
It's probably a matter of quality control at the manufacturer. Loose tolerances make for some items that work perfectly and others that don't work at all. Back in the 60's I met a guy with a 650 Triumph who could rev it farther in second gear than others could in 3rd. He got that one perfect one. Heh, it would almost keep up with a 1969 Honda 750.
My a8 worked fine from the start at 100mm/s movement speed and cheep filament
I've had my Anet A8 for over a year now and it has been printing flawlessly. Not sure how some of you are getting such terrible prints. I've only had those issues the first day before I realized the belts were too loose. After tightening up the X & Y axis belts the quality has been outstanding. The safety issues with the printer... that's another story. Get mosfets and also solder the heated bed connection wires at the very least. Upgrade to Marlin firmware to enable basic thermal runaway protection.
hey great video, with my a8 the biggest differences in print quality made a bowden tube, good and detailed slicing parameters with cura, adjusting the extruding flow and a good leveling of the bed.
Really love your high tech solution to a noisy fan! I thought I was the only one who had to do that. I use a 15 sledge though. Hmm, maybe that's why the fan broke off the mount...
I also tried your finger snapping technique. I started snapping my fingers while standing in front of the printer. Nothing happened! What's your secret? Inquiring minds want to know...
Ah yeah I had to go to Hogwarts for like 4 years to learn that finger snapping technique.
I have the same problem with the fan as you had in the first few seconds, any way to fix it?
Hi. Very nice video. Any chance that you could rebuild the whole from scratch and add all the mods during the assembly (ad filming the whole process) ? That'll be way more practical for newcomers to 3d printing, unless you have better solutions/ideas (like what 3d printers to recommend for serious people that are newcomers to this).
Thanks to answer
So would you say the tensioner bracket thingies were the only upgrade to the printer that resulted in better resolution?
It's hard to say exactly, but they certainly seemed to make the biggest difference.
I bought an A8 after your your original build video and just now finished adding mosfets and a new power supply, and my next step was belt tensioners and frame braces. Quick question, did the rear y-axis frame brace fit correctly at the original size or did you have to scale it? Seems to be some back and forth on this.
Also you may want to look up the Hulk frame brace that has had great reviews for stiffening the entire frame (replacing the T brace you printed). So much fun upgrading this machine!
My rear brace fit just fine, but it was very snug.
That Hulk frame brace looks cool! Not sure if I'm gonna commit to adding it. I'm nearly done printing my helmet already.
The joy of this printer is you can always add it later! Thanks!
Ok I know this video is super old now and you may have already been told this, but I haven’t seen it in the comments. You need to extend your Z axis couplings! The lead screw end should be flush with the hole in the top of the frame. I’m willing to bet that was causing a bunch of your problems. I have this printer and it took me forever to discover that on my own. It stabilizes the Z axis while also leaving some wobble room for the slop.
Awesome, Bill! That little budget printer's lookin' mighty fine! :D One little piece of advice though for anybody looking to do these upgrades; Browse cable chains on Amazon or eBay before you commit to printing them. They're usually around $10 or less for quite a good length... And while the filament usage is no real concern, printing a bunch of cable chain can be _very_ time-consuming. (Basically a "Weigh it against what your/your printer's time is worth." scenario.)
Well geez. I should have just bought some! HA! =)
Heh. :D That's the conclusion _I_ reached when I was looking to wrangle _my_ wiring harness... ;P Of course, being me, I still haven't installed it, and it'll probably end up in the laser cutter instead...because ヽ(ﾟ∀｡)ﾉ :chaos: ヽ(｡∀ﾟ)ﾉ
Yeah, something just doesn't feel right here... I got excellent print results with my A8 straight out of the box with no upgrades. I did use a cordless drill with a very low torque setting to assemble it and make sure the frame did not move. It seems your frame moves A LOT comparatively and I think that might be the primary issue. It does take some force and two hands to bend my frame like that. There are a few small parts that did crack during assembly so take care not to over-torque them. Some people suggest that the z-axis screws have to be perfect, but they don't - mine are 2mm difference and it doesn't affect the quality of the print at all - that's what bed leveling is for! I did end up putting a switch on it because that was just annoying and will have to upgrade the power supply since it has trouble keeping temps when using the heated bed.
The heated bed itself is low powered. Source: use an ATX power supply.
A 3d printer resumes to accurate movement in x y z and this means no skip steps, no loose spring belts, no wobbly axis of movement (the axis itself mounted in the frame and the carriage bearings) and no binding or restricted movement (if axis are sqewed or bent, shot bearings out of lube and with play, or resonance movement with a springy frame and slim axis). After that comes the smoothness of control of the steppers like microsteps, small angle steps, smooth electric control from the driver (something like trinamics, or at least TL smoothers)
So the recepie for a good printer is to have a good stiff frame. Extruded aluminum with corner brackets can make a super sturdy frame (some diagonal braces as well). Here you spend a good chunk of money
Then you need nice movement on linear bearings like thick round bar axis and good linear bearings. or even linear rails with adjustment gibs to make the fit perfect (you need nice quality to get the straightness level and accurate dimensions and proper hardening) so most cheap china printers have low quality axis (sort of straight, low hardness, crappy bearings that may work but will grind the axis rod in short time and also they use small diameter to make it cheap)
Even more important is how the axis is mounted on the frame. Ideally you need angular free play to make the axis self align and not stay in tension, like spherical joints or Heim coupling, or self align bearing blocks. This is to keep the y axis(for example) stay tension free in the frame.
Next is critical that you can adjust the position of the ends of the axis to make two axis perfectly parallel and perpendicular to the other axis(for two Y axis or two x axis, or two z axis). So i've made use of some blocks with self align sleeve bearings that are mounted on the frame on slots. I can shim the block to raise or lower and move side to side (even front and back) with the elongated hole mount.
The critical part is how to measure the true aligment and have a system of adjusting. For example mount the bed on 3 bearings not 4, make the 3 bearings swivel-able so each can self align on the axis and not put bend stress. Then by moving the bed end to end you can create a set distance between axis so is time to carefuly tighten the axis with the bed mounted and ensuring free movement of the bed.
Same for X carriage and Z axis.
Then after you have the means to clamp without stressing the axis, to align the axis here you need, and have a bearing that will not force a bend (swivel) in the axis this is the base for a very good printer. After all this hard work you need to mount a way of moving the axis in a tension free fashion. Here there are options with belts (stiff but flexible and does not stress parts much and have minimal backlash),movement screws (like on Z axis on most printers) that have backlash and even antibacklash nuts are not a solution if forces are applied (there ae ways with fixed backlash adjust but the risk is bending the screw if the nuts are nt in perfect aligment), or rack and pinion (it has backlash but with a split gear it can be adjusted to tighten and eliminate backlash), or other fancy recirculating driving nut and screw.
After all that care has been taken to have proper axis and frame it would be a shame to skimp on a quality original hotend with precise nozzles and accurate thermistor and good heating, good heat management design (to prevent creep or other issues.. so original E3d or copperhead or other nice hotends). Also good steppers (reliable with no skip steps also torquey and fast with low angle. Also use the appropriate gearbox or pulley diameter to further increase resolution but make sure the steps are not smaller then the minimal play you get on your axis.
Also good steppers are a shame to be contolled by cheap choppy drivers so you go trinamics on a good reliable board with lots of functions and easy to implement like duet 3d 32bit, or even 8bit einsy rambo.
In the end a good printer has nothing useful from a cheap china printer. If you want minimal equilibrium betwen frame and components quality the you look at Prusa mk3s that has quality original parts in ever regard, a decent AL frame, good control on reliable electronics and steppers, good belts with proper tensioning, good design, and massive comunity. So i got a prusa as my 1st printer.
Then i got a cheap A6 Anet that i've improved a lot in the axis and stiffen the frame (from steel.. i'm a decent welder and work with steel.. so i fashined a steel frame and ensured a way to adjust axis positions to account for warps from welding and other stuff.) and got it going sort of ok but still had crappy motors, crappy control, crappy belts, crappy hotend. I'm qeeping my anet a as it is with the limited upgrades and call it a day.. print quality is decent if properly tuned.
I will be building a proper diy printers with a steel frame (I can weld and steel is cheap) with overkill axis (at least 20mm round) and true stepper motors and drivers (got some beefy ones from an old CNC.. not great step angle at 3degrees but i can trim it down in a gearbox. They have plenty torque and speed) - sure i will need custom drivers found in CNC machines rather than trinamics drivers. I plan to use a supervolcano e3d (maybe two extruders) and plan to make a mount for a CO2 laser for lasercutting/engraving and why not a CNC 2.5D mill but chips on a 3d printers will be another issue. B the time i'm done i estimate i will go over 2k euro in it.. so i might just find a cheap truce CNC mill and make the adaptations for a 3d printer. it maybe cheaper and sturdy and accurate (as a mill requires)
Anyway I'm mechanical engineer by trade and as a sum of the above post is that above all upgrades the major thing is to make sure you have good movement on axis with no tight spots, no bends, no stress in the moving parts to force a bend, no out of parallel axis, tight belts not springy. This will get even the stock cheap printer print rather good.
I want to print some (a lot) interlocking floor tiles to cover a large room. Would that be cost effective?
I have almost all the same printed upgrades on my a8, I set mine on a foam mat to reduce vibrations, Also maybe try printing with different cooling and speeds, this is what improved my quality the most
Yay foam! I'll be tinkering with print settings in the next video.
Try adjusting extruder temps or even a different brand of filament. I have noticed a difference changing from 190 to 200 for pla, ymmv but tinkering with many of the settings can change print quality.
+Ian Ide Yeah I'll cover that in the next video.
since you are an upgrade expert, i would ask you a help. is it possible to use a small printer electronics to make a bigger printer? for example, tronxy-100 to CR-10 MAX ?
Hmmm I'm not sure, that's not something I've ever tried to do
You're the best, man! I'm already tuning up my printer! Thanks a lot for this! :D it's all i needed!
Fantastic!
Out of the box this printer was making very good prints for me compared to what you were showing. A big part of print quality comes from your slicer settings...cheapest upgrade is to fine tune them. I would get rid of the "Anti Wobble Upgrade" It's not an upgrade and goes against the idea of the spring coupler at the bottom, the better "upgrade" is to make sure the rods are aligned properly. The A8 can achieve fantastic prints comparable to $1000+ printers without much put into it other than tinker time.
I made none of the changes you made there to my A8, and get much nicer Benchies from it. There seem to be stringing issues with yours. Are the print temperature settings fitting the filament you use? By the way, my A8 gets the best results with the really cheap PLA filaments. I once shelled out loads of money for big brand name stuff. It clogged up the hotend and caused me shitloads of trouble. none of that happens with the cheapo stuff, no fibers, carbon cuttings or fairy dust. Any such filament additives actually weaken the printed objects as well.
What I did:
I got a board of spruce, some ½" thick, screwed some more wooden bars under it perdendicularly to the spruce board's orientation of grain for stiffness, and glued some small pieces of scrap wood to its top that firmly lock the A8 in place. I can easily pick the printer up from the board if need be, but it can't move in any direction when sitting on it.
I also added a 24x24cm pane of glass (None of the borosilcate woo-woo, plain window glass. Well good enough here) to the heat bed. Some clippings of PCB raw material glued to the pane's underside keep it in place. A shallow notch hat to be ground into the underside of the panes to make room for bits of the heat bed connector. Ground with a Dremel-thingy, they took three minutes each. Use a little water to keep the grinding dust in check, glass dust is nasty stuff. Three pieces of window pane cost me a tenner, cut to dimension and edges ground nicely by my local glazier.) There is enough extra travel in the the X and Y-axis to make use of the etxra build area. I didn't encounter issues with the printed objects not sticking so far. As my printer sits in my living room, I only print PLA so far. ABS etc. might be a different story. Oh, and I use glue stick for adhesion. Pritt and Uhu. By the way, if you can get it forget about cyano-acrylic and epoxy for glueing PLA. You want Uhu Allplast. It does a *perfect* job with PLA. None of the superglue stink and mixing and hurry with epoxy either, plus it's cheaper.
What with those circular air nozzles: I think they are bogus. You want hot air to be taken *away* from the freshly printed bits. In order to achieve that, you make airflow *across* the hot area, not small eddies that whirl around it. I printed one of those things myself, found it didn't do jack for the print quality, returned to the original one. Does the job.
I do plan to build a printer with a bigger working area. That's not because I am unhappy with the Anet A8. I love the bugger. My only real criticism is that it's not too good at using the area it sits on. With its frame covering roughly a 20x20"/50x50cm area, it only makes 22x22cm print area out off the box. That's a rather poor use of space. This mainly inspired my DIY-project, getting that ratio improved.
I got the even cheaper wooden variant, and replaced the whole frame with a welded steel one.This massively improves rigidity and print quality on its own.Files for the parts required to convert to the steel version are on thingiverse.Also belt tensioners,new cooling nozzle and toothed idlers plus upgraded to all metal extruder drive.
Oh neat!
Great video Bill! Did you print your x-axis chain assembly before adding there MOSFET? I am about to make this mod but I don't seem to have enough length on the thermistor line to mount it below.
I'll be honest, I don't recall which order I installed the upgrades.
Punished Props pity, great instructions though, much appreciated
FYI - I had more slack than I thought. I was able to print off a dual-mosfet mount from thingiverse and hook up the hot-end connection w/o issue after rerouting some of my cable collections a little.
what slicer do you use? I found switching from cura to slic3r prusa edition made a huge difference. seemed to get rid of a lot of imperfections. its free too
So far I've been using Cura.
Hi Bill I hope you will reconsider the auto bed leveler, i'd really like to see how that works.
Sorry I won't be doing that.
Hi I have a question, how do you feed the pla through the nozzle, I disassembled the whole fan and ran it through and re assembled it but it still didn’t go through. Can you be able to tell me how it goes through please?
its funny i have not done any upgrades to my anet a8 and the only think I head to do was tighten down the print bed's belt and all my prints have looked really good. But i am thinking of adding some of these upgrades to make the printer look better and to tidy up the cable mess other then that the printed for me has been really good right out of the box.
Great video! Wish the firmware upgrade had been a separate step so you could see if that made any impact on print quality.
AHhh yeah I did that all in one go because I was getting frustrated. I recommend doing it anyway. Apparently it helps protect the machine from thermal runaway.
Just finished my first Mando bucket on my Anet A8. Used netfabb to cut it up. My guess is a pilot helmet ??
Awesome. Technically a pilot helmet, but what vehicle does this pilot drive?
Punished Props Tank trooper it is 😀 checkout @project_burt on ig she just finished her armor with a 3d printed helmet.
sir i build a similar printer but my print is not good.the part is soft and easy to break.what should i do
Add that auto bed leveling sensor. It's awesome for getting that solid first layer. Thanks for sharing and happy printing :)
The most significant performance improvement I got out of my Anet A8 was taking all of the core components and turning it into a CoreXY machine. I really don't care that it's "no longer" an A8, I bought the printer for the pricepoint, not the design.
You should really measure the diameter of your smooth rods. You were showing the play in the bearings, when I checked my smooth rods they were everything but 8mm, and not actually smooth either. the diameter would vary along the length of the rods by more than 0.1 mm.
The updates look great. I haven't done much to my A8 except the donut exhaust and filament guid. I'm gonna try the oil on the thread bering, frame stabilizer pieces and wire chain next. As for the helmet I'm guessing it might be either iron man or mass effect ✌🤓🤘
+RedSin Designs Both good guesses, but nope!
Hi, I’m just beginning to try my hand at 3D printing. I have an Anet A8 that I just got put together. Haven’t even plugged it in yet, want to learn all I can about it so I won’t screw it up. My question is, how do I get what it takes to print an object from thingiverse to my printer? I have looked on thingiverses’ web site and looked at all the upgrade stuff they have pictures of but I could not figure out how to get their project information to my printer or my computer so I can print that object. I appreciate any help you might have.
I realize this video is over a year old, but an upgrade everybody needs to do is printing and installing some guides for the bed adjust springs to stay straight. While you're at it, also add some larger knobs to the butterfly nuts of the springs, so it can be easier to adjust them.
Also, and inductive bed auto leveling sensor is a must.
Hello Bill, what software do you use for 3D printing?
For this project I'll be modeling the pieces in Fusion 360 and slicing the models in Cura.
What are you printer settings i am getting very rough prints. I have done almost all of these upgrades so i think it may be my printers settings if you could please share a list i would greatly appreciate it!!!!
I'll go over that in the next video.
Matter of curiosity fulfillment.... have you ever seen any maker upgrade any make or model of 3d printer with a PC liquid cooling system ?
I have to ask though, with the amount of time and effort put into this machine so far, are there any lower budget machines that you've worked with that produce similar results (on the upgraded A8) for a similar price? (250-300 usd range?)
This is the only low budget machine that I"ve used, so I can't really compare.
I would say look at the Wanhao i3 line. It's around $350 but I've heard it makes for a better base. The truth is at that price range (at this moment in history) any printer is gonna kinda suck. Yes, with enough time and effort (and luck) you can have an awesome printer on the cheap but it honestly isn't quite there yet.
Im not looking for 'on the cheap', im more trying to avoid the excessive amount of time and tinkering bill is having to put into the A8 making sure its not going to self destruct or burn his house down. I figure, I could either by the A8, make these repairs for about that price tag, or buy a printer with a similar price tag(post repairs) and have most of that leg work done for me.
I'm good with my hands but I know jack shit about electronics, Not for lack of desire to do so of course.
The problem with cheap printers is there are only so many corners you can cut. They all need a minimum of 4 motors, an extruder (I know they are called a hot end but it's a frick'n extruder. It's where the plastic comes out. The part named extruder is a drive system. /Rant), some brains and a way to make everything move in the proper direction at the proper time (rails, screws, belts whatever). Angus at Makers Muse says the Wanhao is solid and I don't have a good reason to doubt him so I recommended it.
Personally I spent my money on an Original Prusa i3 Prusa Mk2S by Joseph Prusa Prusa. I may have left a Prusa out of the previous sentence, there are a lot of them in the name. Everything is a quality component that's been tested before it gets put in the box. It's the template that a ton of kits (including the A8, A6 and Wanhao) are based off of. It isn't cheap at $700 but at least you won't have to wait months to get one like I did. The power supply is already fused, the board is already fused, the connectors have the proper amp spec, over and under heating warnings haven't been disabled in the firmware and the thing prints really well out of the box.
Fair enough, I know 3D printing really is one of those 'you get what you pay for' kinds of deals, but there has to be a point when your returns exceed your investment. Makes little sense to invest in a printer that requires hundreds more dollars in modifications and upkeep when you can buy a higher end system that's far more ready to work right out of the box (within reason of course)
I know that's the purpose of Bill's experiments here--find a cost-effective printer that, with some tinkering, can produce reasonably decent prints for a limited budget.
of course my dream printer is the form 2, but that's a long ways away. rofl
I also have an A8, but it prints virtually flawlessly with no additions. Of course I have many of the 'things' for the A8, now.
You should remove the top Z axis bearing guides... if they don't line up it is because the motor below is not centered. Fix that and the lead screws will be centered all of the time. Keeping the Z axis bearing guides is just going to cause the lead screws to bend in the middle as it prints and you will get lower quality/offsets/stress. The noise that you heard before applying oil was likely the due to the misalignment of the motor/lead screws..
That is a super interesting point. I'll have to tinker with centering the motors. Thanks for the heads up. =D
My A8 printed very nice too, out of the box. Your piece must be somehow defective. Anyway, I like your X-chain mount piece.
Can you share your pla settings ? My prints on my a8 are always spongy and the demos that came with the printer are beautiful and hard shell that tell me it’s my settings
RCisco Open your printer config file and change the filament from 3 mm to 1.75 mm.
Can you please put the files in the discription of this video for the improvements
Great video thank you for sharing your skills.
I wonder if you could share your cura settings for this printer.
I'm using cura 2.6.1 now and wish to print some of those upgrades.
(I had a difficult time updating cura and I'm not satisfied with the print results)
Thank you for those usefull advices
My Cura settings are in this video: ua-cam.com/video/8DPUVGWFYFs/v-deo.html
Punished Props Thank you, I missed it when I browse your other videos, sorry
Great video Bill 👍
I'm seriously looking at getting an A8. Looks like fun.
If you enjoy tinkering with a 3D printer to get it to work properly, than yes, it's super fun. =)
Hi Bill.
I have ordered a Anet A8. Can you make an list with parts that you bought?
+bbjb86 They upgrade parts are listed in the description of this video and my safety video.
On a cost factor as to your upgrade. Would you consider “tool and filament” and upgrade factor considering tools are something you do or don’t have and can be used in other needs as well which should also share the expense of them and the filament is an expendable commodity completely and should not be considered a factor of the device as again; it is expendable and would be purchased regardless of the type of unit purchased. Also in regards to the safety concerns addressed with additional equipment; that could be considered to be a personal issue or choice given that some individuals (for example) remove devices such as guards for table saw and grinders to just name a couple off the top of my head. Not that they should be removed mind you just it is a personal choice and option. That being given I would belay to Category “total” and call if “optional but recommend upgrade total when it comes to the safety items”. With that being said, the total would now stand at or around $215 which is still not s bad pride. Just my opinion sir.
If I'm not mistaken then the initial plan was to mention what it would cost IN TOTAL to get the A8 up and running. So when you have to buy tools to accomplish this, then you have to add these costs to the total amount. Yes I do know that these tools can also be used for other project BUT you cannot spread the payment for the tools.
Example: If you have to spend $50,00 on tools in order to get the A8 up and running, then it will cost you $215,00 ($165,00 + $50,00) in total before you can accomplish this.
belt tensioners by far make the biggest improvement to print quality out of any of the upgrades they should be printed first. I started printing in ABS so i didn't need to upgrade my fan nozzle right away so i was able to get a lot of the frame stiffeners made.
are you print abs or pla items?
"and to avoid similar issues *snaps* I assembled it with magic" --- Subscribed.
+NinjaGamer_S Ha! Thanks. =D
i dont know where to document my life except for youtube comments i guess. anyway, printing the wire chain stuff, the first 4 banger was 9.1 grams, the second was 9.2 grams, just finished the third and it was 8.9 grams. thx for the link man, just built printer now working on the upgrades in spare time.
If you want to have better bed adherence, get a sheet on PEI and install it over the heated bed. It sticks like crazy when hot and pops right off when it cools down.
Good tip. Gonna stick with blue tape for now, but that would be a good addition in the future.
When you run out of blue tape. :) www.amazon.com/Gizmo-Dorks-Printer-Surface-Polyetherimide/dp/B01KBGJU5S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503497811&sr=8-1&keywords=PEI It's really wonderful, I wouldn't go back to tape....ever. :)
I own a Tevo Tarantual and I am happy with it. It cost me 180€ and i did literally two upgrades 1st a dual fan filament cooling and an ajustable Z-Endswitch and it prints like a dream. But i can not understand why a printer from the same pricerange prints not as close as good as mine does even though i spend just like 2 hours adjusting Settings an printing Upgrades
Without all this upgrades, my Anet A8 do the same job, i only replaced the Y carriage by an aluminium frame because it was bended and i added a new glass plate from anycubic to cancel warping.
Super cool upgrades! But how is it possible to get such bad prints?!
Iirc you're in the Seattle area, if I'm right, go to Tacoma Screw for nuts and bolts. They have a Seattle location, Tacoma, and some others I believe. You can get whatever you need and at insanely better prices than Lowes. It's also a great store for tools.
+Joshua Ogden Yeah that place is awesome! It's about 30 mins north of me.
I love Tacoma Screw
Good job of responding to comments
It's what I do! =D
I can't understand why such poor print quality, even after upgrades. My A8 printed it's first print (PLA and ABS) better than Bill's post-upgrade prints. Must be a physical problem with the nozzle, or possibly something loose somewhere? But I couldn't imagine how, after all the rebuilds. E3D V6 (or clone) would do wonders.
Are you still using cura for the printer
Yes I am. More on that in the next video.
your t shirt capture me. now you have a new follower from italy
Hi PPA, why my Anet A8 with board v1.7 (she had a 1.5 but it was replaced because it die) when is heating up, no matter the temp thet you stablish for printing she never goes to the temp goal and stay always 5º behind and like this the printer doesn´t start... I have to feed directly the 12 V in the mosfet to heat up to the stablish temp.... can you help me?
This weekend I'm going to start building my printer.
Make sure to join the Facebook group for the printer and read up on the process. and ask questions if needed.. the instructions are passable but there are several things you can do while building to improve the machine (such as flipping the print bed tray, ensuring the front acrylic print bed plate is the right way around, and finally installing the Z-threaded rods in right). Also make sure those belts are tight! Biggest improvement to print quality has been making sure they are tight.
You will have a lot of fun building it!
Good advice! I bought one after watching Bill put his together live on stream. Price point seemed good, difficulty seemed low, & I intend to do the same sort of things Bill plans with his. So it was a nice surprise after the purchase to see how huge & supportive the community is for the A8! LOTS of informative & friendly users in the Facebook group, lots of UA-cam videos out there on upgrading & repairing things too!
Suddsky s it ended up printing about as good as my monoprice select, for a bit less money with the upgrades. Imo you should just save yourself the time and just buy a better printer
At the very beginning, this fan sound is familiar to everyone. What is it and how to fix without having to knock?