3D Printing Tips & Tricks

Hi All,

I've been printing with CR10's for a few years now, so here's some tricks and tips, of course these are just my opinions so don't treat them as gospel ;)

Hot End Fan / Heat Creep

Ok a common issue with CR10's is heat creep, this is where the filament melts before the nozzle and you'll get crap layers and eventually a total block, one of the main reasons for this on the cr10 is the hot end fans they use, they are total junk

Replace this fan ASAP, don't be temped to go for an expensive ultra quiet fan, you need to check the m3 of airflow, example a lot of people choose the noctua fan, but cheking the spec sheet reveals

its 8.2m3 of airflow, the stock fan is 12m3 ! so this fan won't cure your problem!! get a fan with AT LEAST 12m3

Card Slot

Another common issue is the TF card slot, they are delicate and very easy to break, your first purchase should be an SD card extension, this will save you TF slot and is just much easier to swap cards

Filament

ok, so you're up and running, and you've gone out and bought 10 rolls of multicoloured filament! but each one prints terribly??? whats going on??

Every make of filament is different, even different colours from the same brand are different, you could be printing black pla perfectly, then switch to white on the same brand and its terrible, you've tried calibrating your estep but still its rubbish

How to calibrate your estep

https://letsprint3d.net/how-to-calibrate-the-extruder-steps-ender-3-5-cr-10/

the reason for this is the density of the filament, different colours have different densities so will print totally differently, heres a guide on tuning you're printer for individual filaments

https://e3d-online.dozuki.com/Guide/Flow+rate+(Extrusion+multiplier)+calibration+guide./89

the best advise I can give here is tune your printer for a specific brand and colour, I only use black PLA+ from specturm (unless I can't get it lol)

Cable Management

The cable management on the CR10's isn't great, especially on the CR10 s5, I'd suggest you get extension cables (a must if you're using big rolls of filament), but then you have another issue, the cables can (and will) hit the print, a simple solution, that actually works, is one of those elastic badge holders ;)

Heated Bed and PLA

Basically if you're printing with PLA in normal temperatures (so you don't live in the north pole) you don't need to turn on the heated bed, use decent filament and it won't warp (lots of people will disagree with me here, what can I say?? its not turned on and its all good)

Prints won't stick to bed

This old chestnut!, you've leveled your bed, yet they still won't stick!! I won't go into leveling the bed here, unless people really want me to? but once you have leveled it as per the millions of youtube videos out there, put a bit of blu tack (kids putty type stuff, google it) between each leveling wheel and the bed to stop them moving, also make sure the bed isn't wobbling, if you've had to move knobs a lot then the springs aren't tensioned enough, you'll need to add more washers under the spring.

I've read lots of weird and wonderful things people use to make prints stick, really weird things!! but this is all you need

3DLAC, job done

I want to print BIG things, but keep running out of filament!

trying to print a whole ironman chest in one go but the filament runs out in the middle of the night!!! the simple solution is use bigger rolls! you'll need to do a couple of things first,

Upgrade your extruder! the stock extruder is no where near man enough to pull >1kg rolls so go all metal

I'd recommend this one

https://macewen3d.com/collections/upgrades-for-cr-10/products/mk8-extruder-aluminum-drive-feed-for-cr-10-cr-10-s4-and-cr-10-s5

don't be temped by the $3 aliexpress ones, you get what you pay for, and losing a 3 day print because your cheap extruder has failed would have cost you more then buying this one ;)

next you'll need a bearing filament holder, fortunately thingivese has loads of them https://www.thingiverse.com/ you'll need to get hold of some bearings of course, most use escooter / skate board bearings which are cheap and easy to get hold of, heres one of mine, 4.5kg roll - note you will need extension cables to stop the roll hitting the printer frame!

Spare Parts

Get some! nothing worse then having a printer down for weeks while you're waiting for parts, get spare nozzles, thermistors, heater cartridge, boden tube and the boden tube fittings, they are cheap and consumables, the creality web store delivery pretty quickly but loads of sellers of this standard stuff on aliexpress

Replacement Hotends / direct drive

Another hot topic! I've used microswiss hotends on all my printers for a couple of years, they are infinitely better then stock, but, you need to make sure you've replaced your hot end fan to something decent, and you need to reduce your retraction setting, otherwise you'll clog.

DO NOT be temped to get those cheap clone microswiss of ebay / aliexpress - I've tried them all and they are all total junk

On 2 of my printers I've moved to Bondtech direct drive units, yes they are very expensive, but wow!! they just don't clog, you can print hotter and faster (direct drive basically puts the extruder next to the hot end, no boden tube needed) they took a little bit of messing to get working but once you're up and running those 10 day prints are nothing to worry about

Any Questions? just comment away with any questions