I have started buying vinyl with the digital downloads when I find a great album. I feel better doing it this way. Most of my music is not super big name artists.

I know this does not make me look good - but I am a YouTube Premium subscriber. I had Spotify, but they jacked up their family plan rate, and it was only a few bucks cheaper than Premium, then I got the ad-free (without adblockers). I mostly did it to help my kids avoid the toxic ads that are littered into the kid content. The main reason I stick with some of this stuff is for the discovery. Pandora was great, Spotify is ok.

Regardless - the smart playlists, and AI stuff on YouTube music is AWFUL. I cannot put into words how bad it is. Spotify got it right about 1/4-1/2 of the time. YouTube, maybe 1/100. Constantly recommending a country, which I cannot stand. When it isn’t doing country, it recommends hard rock/metal which I also do not listen to. I feel like I need a new way to find music, then I could sever ties with all these trashy subscriptions.

I forgot until looking at your photo that the mini uses a Bowden tube, not direct drive like the MK3S+. Did you replace/switch the nozzle around the time this all started happening? With Bowden tubes, there are a few problems that can arise that you don’t see on direct drive. The end of the Bowden tube (that is inside the extruder/hote end assembly) can get deformed or clogged. If you can check that, you may find an issue. Other than that, when swapping nozzles I always had to put the nozzle in part of the way, then push the Bowden in further, then tighten the nozzle.

My money would be a clogged nozzle. But a better photo (close up) may be helpful. Things I wonder…

Does the filament come out and curl back up during preheat?

Is your heat block messy with residue?

Have you tried a cold pull, or pulling the nozzle and cleaning/replacing it?

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It would be great if Lemmy’s devs implemented loosely based (for fair use) copies of these and gave them for free :)

What is an appimage?

When I first started working with 3d modelling (for 3d printed parts), I followed everyone’s advice and got a trial of Fusion. Luckily, I didn’t use it much and when I came back to it, my trial was over. I did not want to use a hobbyist license, just to have things change - so went looking for FOSS alternatives. OpenScad made my brain hurt, but then I found FreeCAD. Definately hard to learn, and for someone new to CAD design - I am learning very slowly.

I watched a ton of videos, but still struggle. My saving grace was that I found the official discord. The users on the discord server can be super helpful with learing the nuance of the platform. Several times I posted a file and askded for help and had an answer within an hour. In fact, I just submitted a screenshot of my sketch with dimensions and someone went ot the trouble of recreating it and fixing my problem…so I recommend you join the server if you are struggling. Link below:

https://discord.gg/uh85ZRNcfk

Yes and on some printers, that spot where the Bowden tube meets the nozzle is very problematic. You have to loosen the nozzle a bit, push the Bowden tub up against it, then tighten the nozzle the rest of the way

It was awful on my Ender clone, but haven’t had that issue on my Prusa.

I had to dig to find where I got the model from. I suppose I should add the link in case anybody wants to give them kudos or print it for themselves.

It was created by Rocket Pig Games: Printables link

That is a very good question. There aren’t any insane overhangs, just a few tricky spots. I had print he same thing smaller, so I knew it would be okay. I think the file actually mentioned in the notes that you COULD print it without support.

Can I ask what settings you had to hone in?

What printer and hot end?

(this is all specific to Prusa MK3/Prusa Slicer)

I used the default profile that Prusa has for .6 nozzles, and I changed the layer height to be larger. I think I may have actually added a perimeter as well, which slows things down normally. Nothing else changed at all.

You have to change the nozzle size in the printer hardware menu. Then I had to run the first layer calibation. I found out the hard way that that calibration test ALWAYS uses .4 settings. I printed about 10 of them and nothing was turning out, then I made my own, but creating a 75x75 box, that was one layer high. It printed perfectly with minimal z adjustment.

Was it a kit? Had it been printing before you started getting this issue or was this an issue out of the box?

All great points. I thought he was asking if it was worth it to invest more on it. I was simply saying that if money wasn't a limitation, there are great options that are a significant improvement. Some day my MK3 is outdated too. I wouldn't buy one now, but I also am not sure I will buy the MK3.5 kit and spend the time installing it.

That looks like the issue to me as well, good call.

Here is my take. I have an Aquila (Ender 3 v2 clone). I really had to keep that thing tuned in order to get decent prints. I later bought a Prusa MK3S+ which I haven't had to tune at all. I am bummed that the MK4 was released 4 months after I bought my MK3, but thats life.

With the evolution of printing, and the new advances, an ender 3 just cannot compete with quality or speed…unless you put in a lot of upgrades and time/energy. Its a workhorse, but only for those that want to work on it and tune it. There are so many new printers that are faster, more reliable, and have some incredible features like Bambulabs, Mk4, Anker Make, etc. Its really hard to recommend Ender 3s (any of them) anymore.

They accomplish the same thing, but the probe itself is very different.

Taken from a helpful reddit post: *The BLtouch is based on an hall-effect sensor, while the CRtouch has an optical switch. The BLtouch has a plastic and pointy pin, while the CR has a bulkier metal pin.

The CRtouch is slightly more precise than the BLtouch with a lower deviation delta. They both are more sensitive than the minimum stepping distance of 0.025mm that is found most frequently.

The BLtouch is at its fourth (3+1) iteration, while the CRtouch has been released relatively recently. There's a lot of information on the BLtouch available on Antclab's website, while there's pretty much none for the CR.

I would go for the BL for two reasons: the smaller footprint of the probe behaves better on textured surfaces, and beacuse hall-effect sensors aren't subject to drifting when aging (unlike the optical switch in the CR, that technically "wears out" and starts introducing an offset to the measurements).*