The past weeks I had some external pressure that the printer was too noisy. I could not print during the day because of it, and I could not print during the night because of it either. So, I've been doing some research on how to silence it down. ...And since I was 'at it', I also looked for a way to improve the quality. I've ended up with a number of hardware bits bought or printed.
Hardware
New motherboard
I've read that having new stepper drivers is the way for having a quieter printer. For this, I've bought a SKR 1.4 motherboard and a bunch of TMC2209 stepper motor drivers.
Preparing the motherboard (jumpers) for the process is easy. You can even test it with no drivers installed, via USB. Placing the drivers on the MB is also trivial: attach the heatsink + push the driver bit so the pins go in the right places on hte motherboard.
Replacing the motherboards looks daunting, because there are a lot of cables and the cable management in Ender3 is non-existent :)
Compiling the Marlin firmware will be fun I think.
New extruder
During my investigations, I've also read that having a direct drive is much better (particularly for retractions). So, I've gotten a Trianglelabs BMG-style extruder:
Mounting instructions are easy. You can just replace the factory extruder, or you can move all mechanism in a direct drive mode.
BL Touch
I've also decided to get a BL touch clone:
I'm curious to see if it'll work properly when I start printing :)
PS: Yes, I know I should support the original maker.
The Hero Me mod
This is by far the most exciting thing in the whole operation. The complexity of the mod and the care in design are amazing!
Speed drive for Hero Me
I've also prinded the speed drive for Heo Me. This will allow me to install the extruder mechanism in a direct-drive configuration.
OctoPrint
I've added OctoPrint o na raspberry pi for this printer, s I can do everything via an UI rather than messing around with the sd card.
Rear case
I like the idea of cleaning up things and the rear case does exactly that.
Now, I only have to build and assemble everything.
Resources
HTH,
Member discussion: