Hey I wanted to say you make wonderful videos and they help me very much but I was curious the teaching tech sign in the background have you done a video for that and how to make that as I would love to see how 3D printing integrates with electronics with that sign
I just finished printing and installing this. Great case. I was concerned with air flow but now that it's all setup the electronics are cooler than before. Thank you for the great design!
Fantastic additions to the Ender 3!!! I'm definitely thinking I'll be upgrading the board and using these parts. That looks so much nicer than factory!!!
I've always been critical of upgrading something to the point where you are replacing it but this is probably the best and most practical upgrade I've seen. I wouldn't be surprised if Creality either contact you or rip this design. Very pro.
You sir are not just a great educator, but a fine engineer as well. Well done. Since you have a second unmodified Ender 3, might I suggest a comparison between the two showing the thermal performance of your case vs the stock one.
I've watched several of your videos on the Ender 3 series, some over my head technically, and I wanted to say 'Thank You'. You have been so informative and helpful. Kudos to you for all the hard work you've done for the 3D printing community. Excellent work and thanks again.
This looks brilliant! I I can't count the times I've flipped the printer over to access the MKS board that I installed. I love the way you've fit the Raspberry Pi in with the other electronics.
Amazing, Once again, you have solved a major issue for me. I have an Ender 3. Between the BL touch Pin 27 adapter, the raspberry PI and now the latest...the buck converter for the Noctua, I have run out of places for things. This will absolutely be the next project. Thanks.
WOW, that looks great but for one thing. I'd keep an eye on the heat of the stepper drivers, think you'll find the fan is pulling more air right next to it through the Pi hole (pun sorta intended ;) ) as air, like water, will always flow with least resistance and that is always the closest location to vent. Other wise it looks awesome! Oh, seems there is some room behind the board, what about a blower style fan that blows in and directly along the stepper fins...?
About two weeks ago I upgraded my Ender3 to the BigTree Tech SKR 1.3 board and I was saying to myself what a horrible design to have to flip this thing over to work on the board. Kicking it around about printing out the new boxes. Thanks Michael. I do like the SKR with TMC 2208's in UART mode, really easy to configure other than the ultra fine soldering.
I just printed the project and will be installing it Tomorrow. I think you've done a wonderful job in putting it all together. The only thing that I feel should go hand-in-hand with this mod is a new set of cables. The original ones are just too long and clutter the case too much. But it's nothing, that a day with a crimping tool would not fix :) Thank you for this great mod!
So this is probably my 3rd time watching this video at 3 different levels of interest. When you first published it, I was but an avid lurker interested in 3D printing, I watched it again to realize that I love how much the community enjoys modding their printers, and I too have that bug. Today I watched this as a suggestion after watching you upgrade to the direct drive mod and I have a SKR E3 Mini 32 bit board ordered from ali express that I'm waiting on. I think I am still going to print these parts because after having modded my printer to use a 5V Noctua fan (using the same 5v pins on the ICSP header that everyone uses for the BL Touch), now the loudest fan is the 4010 on the board, which I might as well put in the back of the machine :D Basically, your channel is awesome and that's what I appreciates about you.
After watching so many of your videos over the past 2 years: Big thanks for taking the time and effort! Helped me a lot with my first 3D printer (Ender 3) and still does :-) Thanks for being objective about the topics, good background info research and providing good starting points for my own decisions!
Two notes about the "old" Ender 3: The y-axis stepper motor has a different mounting than yours, so plugging in the cable is really hard. The cable for the stop switch (z-axis) is very short, so I had to switch with the y-cable -> With the v4.7.2 replacement or original Melzi board.
This is one of the most amazing mods for Ender 3 in my opinion! I'm only a bit concerned about the possibility of insufficient efficiency of the fan to cool down some hotter stepsticks like TMC2100 and now there's no camera cable for the Pi but other than that it's just great!
You can get much longer camera cables for the RPi. If concerned about the internal temps, add a temp sensor on each side and connect them to the RPi, then ssh into the RPi to check their status. Plus, of course, have the RPi send you an alarm if they get over-temp.
this was my concern aswell so i adapted the lid and installed a 2nd noctua fan to work in tandum force airflow ive had some 200 hour prints have have yet to suffer from any blemishes caused by stepper drivers over heating
I dunno if anyone has pointed this out or had a similar problem with factory board but everything fit just like designed except the factory z-stop wire is too short to reach the board no matter which way you try to pull it through, a simple fix was to swap the Y stop wire and the Z stop since the Y stop has extra length that isn't needed anymore since the electronics are in the back. Everything else is great through. Keep up the awesome work.
Yet another awesome video, this will make things so much easier to access, upgrade and many other minds will have little tweaks too. Only part that seems a little bit fiddly is the power connections once the board is fixed down
mike306dt My MKS Gen L works much better after I added a capacitor to the 5 V rail. That was enough to knock back a lot of the noise, and get the temperature sensing to work more effectively. There are still occasional spurious ‘heating failures’ thrown up, so it isn’t a 100% solution yet. I used a 2200 uF capacitor, attached to the 5 V block in the corner. The other terminals in that block I used to run a 5 V case fan, which may be one source of noise on that rail.
I also had a ton of luck by desoldering the 22uf cap from the original creality board and using it to replace the garbage one on the MKS board. My temps got rock solid again after doing that. And the best part is its free just need to know how to work with smd parts. The MKS board has the wrong type of cap on it from the factory on the output side of the voltage regulator.
@@boggisthecat Thanks so much for taking the time to reply, I did try a 5v capacitor (low ESR Panasonic at 1200uf iirc) but it still twitched around somewhat!
@@Potatogambit I don't think my soldering skills are good enough to remove that little tiny one - that or I don't have the confidence to do so! I'm surprised TT didn't have the same issue - but I did wonder whether he has the Mean Well psu which in theory could be a lot less noisy than the stock ender 3 (non pro) version? Thanks for your reply, I may look at doing this mod after I've found something else to learn on!
mike306dt If you have an oscilloscope and a few capacitance values you can try different combinations to draw down the various frequencies. Unfortunately these are just cheap boards with some poor quality components, so what worked for me may not work for you. (Also, my 5 V fan doubtless changes the noise profile.) Some people reported putting two 1000 uF caps on the 5 V rail in the corner and at the servo output 5 V pin. I’m dubious that this would make much difference, but if you have two 1200 uF or similar then you could attach a second in parallel initially, or on one of the servo 5 V pins.
A great mod Michael. I don't have a n Ender 3 but I love watching your mod videos. They have helped me a lot with the upgrades for my Anet E10. I currently have my E10 installed on a Ikea lack table with all the electronics underneath, but I don't like the fact that I have to tear the whole thing apart to work on it, so I'm looking at doing something similar to for it. Thanks for sharing
Superb design. You could also use some of space in front to mount the screen to reduce the printer's footprint. Watching your parts slide into place was extremely satisfying, haha.
I stand by what I commented below. The only issue that came up was that I couldn't plug the y-axis stepper back in on my regular Ender 3 with the motor oriented as stock. I ended up rotating the motor 90 degrees, so the plug now faces back rather than down. This way I also won't need to unplug it again to move the boards out, if that's needed. Thanks again for this great mod.
Good tip. . . put your build plate in the freezer to remove stubborn parts. It works great, and by removing the build plate from the printer when you remove your parts you're not exerting any pressure on the bed, which can throw off the levelling! Also a good tip, If you're going to be printing any tight fitting precision parts, then I strongly recommend that you first square off the frame of your printer. OK, so I purchased my second E3V2 3D printer a couple of weeks ago. My first printer was a major source of frustrations at times, and especially up until 2 weeks ago. But, it gave me a heads up as to what to expect after printing on an E3V2 3D printer 24/7 for 7 months. I'd had extruder problems, under-extrusion problems, bed-levelling problems. You name it, I probably had the problem. The lever on the stock extruder of my older first printer also cracked, and I replaced it with an aluminum one. In my opinion, these types of extruders, both plastic and metal, are flawed in design. They are inadequate for feeding filament to the hot end, and especially at lower temperatures. So even PLA can become a problem to print. In any case, they do not seem to be 100% compatible with Creality's stock hot end. As with anything else I do, I attempted to find that sweet spot where everything works smoothly and perfectly. To solve the under-extrusion problem, I'd tried slowing down print speed and making the hot end hotter, but neither of these things helped me to eliminate the clicking sounds coming from these types of extruders. In theory, slowing down the print speed should have given the filament enough time to melt. If so, the extruder would not have had to force the filament through to the hot end. But this was not the case, and the solution was far from obvious. It should also have kept the extruder gear from grinding down on the filament, because when the filament is melted properly the extruder does not consistently bite down on the same segment of filament. After I got fed up of experimenting with these things, and realizing that these weren't working, I switched to Creality's direct drive. This shortened the travel length between extruder and hot end, and reduced drag on the filament caused by friction in the long Bowden tube. I had to reduce retraction down to 1.5mm and my prints are printing perfectly. Enough about the printer feed system. Next, these printers also lack X-axis gantry support on the right side of the printer. Auto bed-levelling devices only help with bed surface irregularities. These do not level the bed, so all that hype on the internet is actually misleading. It's not a bed-levelling device at all! It's an irregular bed surface compensation sensor which uses a mesh pattern to raise or lower the Z-axis depending on the depth of the bed from the sensor's tip, and indirectly, the hot end nozzle. The lack of X-axis gantry support causes the gantry to sag on the right side. I'd removed and disassembled the gantry in an attempt to raise it slightly, but that didn't do very much. You might not think this matters, but on their own that single brass nut and lead screw are not enough to support the extra weight on the right side of the gantry. I'd had major bed-levelling issues and I believe that this was because of the sagging gantry. So, I added a second lead screw to the right side of both of my printers at a cost just under $200 CAD. The screws must be synced together, otherwise it can lead to other problems. This is easy to do. I left the setscrew (grub screw to some of you) that fastens the lead screw to the coupler loose on both sides of the printer. I turned the couplers to move the gantry up as high as I needed it to, so that I could use gravity and physics to align the teeth on the screws. Then, I used the Move>Z axis, and dropped the gantry as low as needed to sync the screws together. When this was done, all I needed to do was fasten the lead screw to the coupler with the setscrew. I raised and lowered the gantry several times to make sure there weren't any problems. I didn't get it on the first try. I had to try a couple of times before everything worked smoothly, and without locking up the stepper motors. This not only added gantry right side support, but once adjusted, it also keeps the gantry perpendicular with the frame side extrusion. It also makes it easier to level the bed. In theory, if the gantry is perpendicular to the frame side extrusions I can level the bed so that it is parallel with the gantry. A good way to test this is to print a square part. The part should be perfectly square or as close to it as is possible, and not a skewed version of it. And last, but not least, I replaced the recommended stronger yellowish-colored bed springs for more rigid silicone mounts. Neither the stock springs or suggested yellowish-colored springs make any bit of difference at maintaining the bed level once it's been adjusted. Vibrations can easily unscrew those knobs and throw off the levelling. The silicone mounts made a huge difference. For example, I've had my new printer setup as described above. It's been printing 24/7 for 2 weeks without having to be relevelled. My older printer has been setup this way for only a few days, but it too has not needed to be relevelled. I remember having to relevel the bed on my older printer every couple of days with the stock springs. The yellowish-colored springs kept the bed level a day or so longer. But neither of these kept my bed level and printing 24/7 for 2 weeks time! Oh, and I've started my 3rd week of printing. All I've had to tweak is the Z-offset by about 0.1mm, but my bed has remained consistently level for all this time. Now that my older printer is set up this way, all the problems I'd had with it are completely gone. My second, newer printer hasn't had any problems yet, and I think I've solved the issues I'd had with these few simple recommendations.
thats a neat and tidy way to do this, it looks easy to access too... I took a different approach, as I wasnt keen on flipping the machine upside down to tinker with it, I used the original tin box but moved the electronics box fan to the front after carefully cutting a hole for it, covering the original hole by re-positioning the sticker on the lid, then printed an internal mount for the gen L , as well as a spacer for the lid to give me a bit extra height for the heatsinks of the 2130's, unfortunately this leaves no room for anything extra inside, so I got my extra bits on printed brackets at the rear of the printer, not the neatest solution - so I may have a look at this - thanks again for sharing
Absolutely fantastic job with this all-in-1 design. I have purchased Skr v1.3 and I will be setting up and installing soon. I must print your all-in-1 box first!
This is so good thank you for taking the time to make this! With the SKR 1.3 you can use the second serial to talk to the raspberry pi (Octoprint) with a couple of jumper wires. I can't wait to print this and fit it. Thanks again!
I'd say you want to look at moving the fan to a vertical mount, pushing out the back, rather than down onto the workspace, the intakes are fine where they are.
And I just got done designing a full case like that for the front. Never thought of moving it to the rear. I'm kinda partial to mine since it doesn't require cramming wires into a short case and allows for better airflow. Thanks for the great videos and innovative ideas.
@@RonnieLaugen Sorry I take the summer off from 3D printing and stuff to do summer activities and I didn't see your comment. Back at it. Still haven't finalized the design as the fan isn't fitting. Don't know if it's my design or my printer. I'm still new at the Thingiverse stuff so I will try to figure out how to upload it. I draw in autocad, not sure what file type you need/want. User name PE_RN. hopefully soon.
Just did this, loved my EZR and glad you did the legwork making it fit with the DD kit. Thanks for designing the spacing bracket piece. Love your channel!
Hey Michael I think you should place the fan in the middle of the case and maybe design some kind of duct that shoots the heat out the back not the bottom since the air ports are also in the bottom it may suck back in hot air. Plus the location of the fan and the 2 holes you have on top of case for wires will force the fan to pull more from those areas so you may have a bigger issue in the main board side due to heating and poor air circulation.
Nice solution. Along with relays for power switching and so on that you're planning, it would be interesting to fit some thermal sensors on critical components and connect to the Pi for monitoring, to see how well the cooling works out.
This is awesome!!! And now I have another modification to make instead of printing things I actually wanted the printer for in the first place 🤣 Any plans to create a 2 drawer design for the empty left space?
Fantastic build. I ran into one issue. Running the SKR Mini E3 2.0. My Z Stop cable was not long enough. I swapped cables for the Z and Y stop. Problem Solved!
Awesome video yet again. I love your videos you do such a good job with them, very good summary at the beginning and then perfect level of detail and a great wrap up. I've done a lot of the modifications you've described including this one on all of my enders and they went so smoothly. For the commenter who said you need to get paid I totally agreed which is why everyone who appreciates your hard work should become a patron supporter like I did. Keep up the excellent work!!!!!
Love the design of this and will probably be printing it myself for when my EZBoard Lite from TH3D arrives, but like a few other people I'm concerned the cooling might prove insufficient. Would love to see some tests versus the stock solution, and tests without a Raspberry Pi (tape the hole closed) and see if it's even a concern. Not doubting your expertise, it'd just be great for everyone's peace of mind!
This is the best and well thought enclosure i have seen for the Ender 3 Pro. What concerns me is with the TMC2130 on the SKR 1.3 maybe there isn't enough cooling.
For those without the Raspberry Pi, the hole supporting it needs to be closed so that air flow comes from across the board and not from that hole. Perhaps an improvement would be a removable hole plug that can close that opening until/unless it is needed. If it is not closed, there is a risk of too much heat from the mainboard.
Can you please do an analysis of the temperatures inside of that case? It doesn't appear that the fan is big enough, and I also am skeptical of the airflow design. I may very well be wrong..but it sure would be damn interesting to see the numbers! Thanks for this awesome video!
I'll be honest I like the design and then again I dont. You have the holes where your wires come out from so due to that I'm sure it wont have a good air flow in the main board slot. There should be some kind of heating issue.
Michael, greta idea for a rear box. One little thing, I would have put the new 3d printed end cap at the rear and used one of the original rear end caps at the front to tidy things up. Then you would have no unsightly screws showing.
Fantastic setup, except that, at least on my standard (not pro) Ender 3, the "Z" endstop cable is too short to reach! I'm trying to solder up a replacement one now. Thank you so much for these videos, they are great.
I haven't seen anyone double-stack the 40mm extrusions that the gantry bolts to to essentially double the vertical space under the printer, not to mention allowing more horizontal space to allow you to easily mount the PSU under there as well. You could also still print the tool drawers that are so handy.
I am thinking, along with others, a cooling fan should be added directly above the steppers. Perhaps even 2 small cooling fans. Keeping the steppers cool would definitely improve performance and I think also increase lifespan. There should be no issue adding a fan to the top of the case lid, lots of clearance.12V can be pulled from the buck converter, but it may be a better idea to run2 12v fans in series to achieve a 24v load. Just an idea.
Installed this on an Ender 3 Pro with the Creality 4.2.2 board, but my Z limit wire was a bit short, so I had to build an extension cord. If you're about to install this, you may want to check your wires before you start moving everything. Overall, it's a great mod that makes it a lot easier to access the boards.
I had the same issue where my z ends too wire was too short. I just swapped it with the y ends too wire, since that one was too long after moving the electronics to the rear. Worked out perfectly!
Ha! That was very timely. Lately I've been considering making exactly that so I can fit drawers at the front space - with your MKS Gen L case I couldn't get a drawer to fit there due to the USB cable getting in the way.
I like it. The 1 improvement I see is that since the heat rises, it would be nice if the fan either blew up, or to avoid the holes at the top, maybe make the fan mount at an angle to fit vertically, but blowing out the back. Not sure if you have room for this but seems it would be an improvement. Nice design! Enjoying your videos!
This is amazing Michael, excellent job, as usual. I actually was having similar issues flipping the printer upside down to check on stuff. I look forward to your new guide!
I finally got to try this out, and have made some progress. Slightly modified the stock board enclosure to fit the fan in it in place of tl smoothers, but beyond that everything went in as I would have expected. Few problems that I ran into that might be important (In my case, I am using the Stock ender 3 board as of writing this) - The Z-Axis End Stop Wire is at least 3 inches too short to reach the z-switch from the new enclosure, I am getting longer wires to remedy this - The Y-Axis Stepper Motor on my Ender 3 appears to be closer to the enclosure than Teaching Tech's, close enough in fact that the connector for the Motor is directly above the drawer. I had to snip off some of the enclosure (and will do so for the lid as well) to get it to fit right. - The front I/O Wall is too thick to viably use the Micro SD that comes with stock, so I recommend modifying the design to make it thinner, or getting a Micro-SD to SD Converter to use Regarding the motor, why is this? Did Teaching Tech modify the printer to have an extended Y-Motor, or did Creality modify the design a bit sometime after this video was released into the printer I have now? Edit: I now realize he has an ender 3 pro, is that the main difference? Good luck on all your printing endeavors
Why didn't you just clock the motor one turn so the connector came out the back? I know this is an old comment on an old video but just got around to this mod on my original E3 and that is how I handled it. No modification of the case at all.
Very very very good make.....give yourself a pat on the back..... I would make the boxes deeper because the New Raspberry Pi comes with 4GB and runs hot therefore the need of a fan should one go this route. Make the four legs out of nice wood or print to make the height under the printer more to allow the deep tray to slip under..... thanks for your ideas.
Yep. That's much better. On a separate note, I have been binge watching and going nuts on eBay etc. and i have a shiny new MKS Gen V1.4 on the way instead of the Gen L. I was supposed to be ordering. Am I screwed? ( Ender 3)
Question; How did you power the raspberry pi ? The buck converter is used for the fan and the mini usb on the raspberry pi is a tad close to be used otherwise.
just found this one,impressive, one thing i would have liked to have seen for the genL setup would have been the addition if wanted to use either the 2.8 or the 3.2 tft
That electronics case should be stock! You need to get paid man 👍👍👍
Regular Guy Mountain Biking this!!!
Become a Patreon! www.patreon.com/teachingtech
Hey I wanted to say you make wonderful videos and they help me very much but I was curious the teaching tech sign in the background have you done a video for that and how to make that as I would love to see how 3D printing integrates with electronics with that sign
idk tho, no direct cooling on a stepper motor drivers ehhh.
We meet again...
I just finished printing and installing this. Great case. I was concerned with air flow but now that it's all setup the electronics are cooler than before. Thank you for the great design!
Fantastic additions to the Ender 3!!! I'm definitely thinking I'll be upgrading the board and using these parts. That looks so much nicer than factory!!!
Thanks
That has got to be one of the cleanest looking Ender 3's I've ever seen
You and Chep are becoming my only 3D printer channels I go to for help. Thanks! Oh and the DD3 kit is no longer available.
I've always been critical of upgrading something to the point where you are replacing it but this is probably the best and most practical upgrade I've seen. I wouldn't be surprised if Creality either contact you or rip this design. Very pro.
You sir are not just a great educator, but a fine engineer as well. Well done. Since you have a second unmodified Ender 3, might I suggest a comparison between the two showing the thermal performance of your case vs the stock one.
I've watched several of your videos on the Ender 3 series, some over my head technically, and I wanted to say 'Thank You'. You have been so informative and helpful. Kudos to you for all the hard work you've done for the 3D printing community. Excellent work and thanks again.
This looks brilliant! I I can't count the times I've flipped the printer over to access the MKS board that I installed. I love the way you've fit the Raspberry Pi in with the other electronics.
Amazing, Once again, you have solved a major issue for me. I have an Ender 3. Between the BL touch Pin 27 adapter, the raspberry PI and now the latest...the buck converter for the Noctua, I have run out of places for things. This will absolutely be the next project. Thanks.
Thank you for that great design of the rear cases. The fits perfectly. I install it with the skr 1.3 on my ender 3. Very good video!
Thanks for the information. I have a Ender 3 still in the box. It's many years old since it's 2023 now. I need space to set it up.
WOW, that looks great but for one thing. I'd keep an eye on the heat of the stepper drivers, think you'll find the fan is pulling more air right next to it through the Pi hole (pun sorta intended ;) ) as air, like water, will always flow with least resistance and that is always the closest location to vent. Other wise it looks awesome! Oh, seems there is some room behind the board, what about a blower style fan that blows in and directly along the stepper fins...?
I don't know why I've never discovered your channel before now, I can't stop watching your videos.. keep up the great content.
I would suggest adding a fan on top of the right lead to cool drivers and main board...
^...with a 90 degree duct for airflow to prevent debris from falling into the hole.
@@AGeekNamedRoss Feel like were going in circles with this improvement now.
Struth Michael, we owe you so much for the helpful videos. You really have enabled us luddites a chance to better understand 3D printing.
About two weeks ago I upgraded my Ender3 to the BigTree Tech SKR 1.3 board and I was saying to myself what a horrible design to have to flip this thing over to work on the board. Kicking it around about printing out the new boxes. Thanks Michael. I do like the SKR with TMC 2208's in UART mode, really easy to configure other than the ultra fine soldering.
I just printed the project and will be installing it Tomorrow. I think you've done a wonderful job in putting it all together. The only thing that I feel should go hand-in-hand with this mod is a new set of cables. The original ones are just too long and clutter the case too much. But it's nothing, that a day with a crimping tool would not fix :) Thank you for this great mod!
When I saw the thumbnail: "nah, I'm not going to upgrade my printer any further"
After watching the video: "THIS IS SO COOL I NEED THIS"
So this is probably my 3rd time watching this video at 3 different levels of interest. When you first published it, I was but an avid lurker interested in 3D printing, I watched it again to realize that I love how much the community enjoys modding their printers, and I too have that bug. Today I watched this as a suggestion after watching you upgrade to the direct drive mod and I have a SKR E3 Mini 32 bit board ordered from ali express that I'm waiting on. I think I am still going to print these parts because after having modded my printer to use a 5V Noctua fan (using the same 5v pins on the ICSP header that everyone uses for the BL Touch), now the loudest fan is the 4010 on the board, which I might as well put in the back of the machine :D Basically, your channel is awesome and that's what I appreciates about you.
how is that skr e3 mini going?
@@pieter-6385 I absolutely love this board. I am running Marlin 2.0.1 and it is quiet af. Definitely suggest printing a direct drive mod as well.
After watching so many of your videos over the past 2 years: Big thanks for taking the time and effort! Helped me a lot with my first 3D printer (Ender 3) and still does :-)
Thanks for being objective about the topics, good background info research and providing good starting points for my own decisions!
Two notes about the "old" Ender 3:
The y-axis stepper motor has a different mounting than yours, so plugging in the cable is really hard.
The cable for the stop switch (z-axis) is very short, so I had to switch with the y-cable
-> With the v4.7.2 replacement or original Melzi board.
This is one of the most amazing mods for Ender 3 in my opinion! I'm only a bit concerned about the possibility of insufficient efficiency of the fan to cool down some hotter stepsticks like TMC2100 and now there's no camera cable for the Pi but other than that it's just great!
You can get much longer camera cables for the RPi. If concerned about the internal temps, add a temp sensor on each side and connect them to the RPi, then ssh into the RPi to check their status. Plus, of course, have the RPi send you an alarm if they get over-temp.
this was my concern aswell so i adapted the lid and installed a 2nd noctua fan to work in tandum force airflow ive had some 200 hour prints have have yet to suffer from any blemishes caused by stepper drivers over heating
clarestevens2 have you got the stl for that bud
I dunno if anyone has pointed this out or had a similar problem with factory board but everything fit just like designed except the factory z-stop wire is too short to reach the board no matter which way you try to pull it through, a simple fix was to swap the Y stop wire and the Z stop since the Y stop has extra length that isn't needed anymore since the electronics are in the back. Everything else is great through. Keep up the awesome work.
Finally a decent case for my SKR. Thanks for putting this together Michael I cant wait to print it. :)
which one do you have?
Yet another awesome video, this will make things so much easier to access, upgrade and many other minds will have little tweaks too. Only part that seems a little bit fiddly is the power connections once the board is fixed down
Really looking forward to the SKR video - hopefully it offers better temperature stability than the main rival!
mike306dt
My MKS Gen L works much better after I added a capacitor to the 5 V rail. That was enough to knock back a lot of the noise, and get the temperature sensing to work more effectively. There are still occasional spurious ‘heating failures’ thrown up, so it isn’t a 100% solution yet.
I used a 2200 uF capacitor, attached to the 5 V block in the corner. The other terminals in that block I used to run a 5 V case fan, which may be one source of noise on that rail.
I also had a ton of luck by desoldering the 22uf cap from the original creality board and using it to replace the garbage one on the MKS board. My temps got rock solid again after doing that. And the best part is its free just need to know how to work with smd parts. The MKS board has the wrong type of cap on it from the factory on the output side of the voltage regulator.
@@boggisthecat Thanks so much for taking the time to reply, I did try a 5v capacitor (low ESR Panasonic at 1200uf iirc) but it still twitched around somewhat!
@@Potatogambit I don't think my soldering skills are good enough to remove that little tiny one - that or I don't have the confidence to do so! I'm surprised TT didn't have the same issue - but I did wonder whether he has the Mean Well psu which in theory could be a lot less noisy than the stock ender 3 (non pro) version?
Thanks for your reply, I may look at doing this mod after I've found something else to learn on!
mike306dt
If you have an oscilloscope and a few capacitance values you can try different combinations to draw down the various frequencies. Unfortunately these are just cheap boards with some poor quality components, so what worked for me may not work for you. (Also, my 5 V fan doubtless changes the noise profile.)
Some people reported putting two 1000 uF caps on the 5 V rail in the corner and at the servo output 5 V pin. I’m dubious that this would make much difference, but if you have two 1200 uF or similar then you could attach a second in parallel initially, or on one of the servo 5 V pins.
A great mod Michael. I don't have a n Ender 3 but I love watching your mod videos. They have helped me a lot with the upgrades for my Anet E10. I currently have my E10 installed on a Ikea lack table with all the electronics underneath, but I don't like the fact that I have to tear the whole thing apart to work on it, so I'm looking at doing something similar to for it. Thanks for sharing
Superb design. You could also use some of space in front to mount the screen to reduce the printer's footprint. Watching your parts slide into place was extremely satisfying, haha.
This was almost going to be delayed but fortunately the final design iteration fitted together perfectly. I was pleased.
WOW!!!!! that's all I got. ........'Thank you so much for your hard and detailed work!
Cheers Mike!
I stand by what I commented below. The only issue that came up was that I couldn't plug the y-axis stepper back in on my regular Ender 3 with the motor oriented as stock. I ended up rotating the motor 90 degrees, so the plug now faces back rather than down. This way I also won't need to unplug it again to move the boards out, if that's needed. Thanks again for this great mod.
Your creative solutions and easy to follow guides are awesome. You are awesome.
Good tip. . . put your build plate in the freezer to remove stubborn parts. It works great, and by removing the build plate from the printer when you remove your parts you're not exerting any pressure on the bed, which can throw off the levelling! Also a good tip, If you're going to be printing any tight fitting precision parts, then I strongly recommend that you first square off the frame of your printer.
OK, so I purchased my second E3V2 3D printer a couple of weeks ago. My first printer was a major source of frustrations at times, and especially up until 2 weeks ago. But, it gave me a heads up as to what to expect after printing on an E3V2 3D printer 24/7 for 7 months. I'd had extruder problems, under-extrusion problems, bed-levelling problems. You name it, I probably had the problem. The lever on the stock extruder of my older first printer also cracked, and I replaced it with an aluminum one. In my opinion, these types of extruders, both plastic and metal, are flawed in design. They are inadequate for feeding filament to the hot end, and especially at lower temperatures. So even PLA can become a problem to print. In any case, they do not seem to be 100% compatible with Creality's stock hot end.
As with anything else I do, I attempted to find that sweet spot where everything works smoothly and perfectly. To solve the under-extrusion problem, I'd tried slowing down print speed and making the hot end hotter, but neither of these things helped me to eliminate the clicking sounds coming from these types of extruders. In theory, slowing down the print speed should have given the filament enough time to melt. If so, the extruder would not have had to force the filament through to the hot end. But this was not the case, and the solution was far from obvious. It should also have kept the extruder gear from grinding down on the filament, because when the filament is melted properly the extruder does not consistently bite down on the same segment of filament. After I got fed up of experimenting with these things, and realizing that these weren't working, I switched to Creality's direct drive. This shortened the travel length between extruder and hot end, and reduced drag on the filament caused by friction in the long Bowden tube. I had to reduce retraction down to 1.5mm and my prints are printing perfectly. Enough about the printer feed system.
Next, these printers also lack X-axis gantry support on the right side of the printer. Auto bed-levelling devices only help with bed surface irregularities. These do not level the bed, so all that hype on the internet is actually misleading. It's not a bed-levelling device at all! It's an irregular bed surface compensation sensor which uses a mesh pattern to raise or lower the Z-axis depending on the depth of the bed from the sensor's tip, and indirectly, the hot end nozzle. The lack of X-axis gantry support causes the gantry to sag on the right side. I'd removed and disassembled the gantry in an attempt to raise it slightly, but that didn't do very much. You might not think this matters, but on their own that single brass nut and lead screw are not enough to support the extra weight on the right side of the gantry. I'd had major bed-levelling issues and I believe that this was because of the sagging gantry. So, I added a second lead screw to the right side of both of my printers at a cost just under $200 CAD. The screws must be synced together, otherwise it can lead to other problems. This is easy to do. I left the setscrew (grub screw to some of you) that fastens the lead screw to the coupler loose on both sides of the printer. I turned the couplers to move the gantry up as high as I needed it to, so that I could use gravity and physics to align the teeth on the screws. Then, I used the Move>Z axis, and dropped the gantry as low as needed to sync the screws together. When this was done, all I needed to do was fasten the lead screw to the coupler with the setscrew. I raised and lowered the gantry several times to make sure there weren't any problems. I didn't get it on the first try. I had to try a couple of times before everything worked smoothly, and without locking up the stepper motors. This not only added gantry right side support, but once adjusted, it also keeps the gantry perpendicular with the frame side extrusion. It also makes it easier to level the bed. In theory, if the gantry is perpendicular to the frame side extrusions I can level the bed so that it is parallel with the gantry. A good way to test this is to print a square part. The part should be perfectly square or as close to it as is possible, and not a skewed version of it.
And last, but not least, I replaced the recommended stronger yellowish-colored bed springs for more rigid silicone mounts. Neither the stock springs or suggested yellowish-colored springs make any bit of difference at maintaining the bed level once it's been adjusted. Vibrations can easily unscrew those knobs and throw off the levelling. The silicone mounts made a huge difference. For example, I've had my new printer setup as described above. It's been printing 24/7 for 2 weeks without having to be relevelled. My older printer has been setup this way for only a few days, but it too has not needed to be relevelled. I remember having to relevel the bed on my older printer every couple of days with the stock springs. The yellowish-colored springs kept the bed level a day or so longer. But neither of these kept my bed level and printing 24/7 for 2 weeks time! Oh, and I've started my 3rd week of printing. All I've had to tweak is the Z-offset by about 0.1mm, but my bed has remained consistently level for all this time.
Now that my older printer is set up this way, all the problems I'd had with it are completely gone. My second, newer printer hasn't had any problems yet, and I think I've solved the issues I'd had with these few simple recommendations.
the only thing it needs now is a mounting point for that cable chain everyone uses!
There's a remix for that ;)
@@Neerie79 STL ?
thats a neat and tidy way to do this, it looks easy to access too... I took a different approach, as I wasnt keen on flipping the machine upside down to tinker with it, I used the original tin box but moved the electronics box fan to the front after carefully cutting a hole for it, covering the original hole by re-positioning the sticker on the lid, then printed an internal mount for the gen L , as well as a spacer for the lid to give me a bit extra height for the heatsinks of the 2130's, unfortunately this leaves no room for anything extra inside, so I got my extra bits on printed brackets at the rear of the printer, not the neatest solution - so I may have a look at this - thanks again for sharing
What a coincidence! I just started designing my own rear mounted case a few days ago and now almost got it completly working...
Absolutely fantastic job with this all-in-1 design. I have purchased Skr v1.3 and I will be setting up and installing soon. I must print your all-in-1 box first!
HOLY CRAP! Why aren't you on the Ender design team dude? This is gorgeous!
This is so good thank you for taking the time to make this! With the SKR 1.3 you can use the second serial to talk to the raspberry pi (Octoprint) with a couple of jumper wires. I can't wait to print this and fit it. Thanks again!
I'd say you want to look at moving the fan to a vertical mount, pushing out the back, rather than down onto the workspace, the intakes are fine where they are.
And I just got done designing a full case like that for the front. Never thought of moving it to the rear. I'm kinda partial to mine since it doesn't require cramming wires into a short case and allows for better airflow. Thanks for the great videos and innovative ideas.
Would love an stl from you if you upload it anywhere - Im a bit concerned with the airflow in this one as well.
@@RonnieLaugen Sorry I take the summer off from 3D printing and stuff to do summer activities and I didn't see your comment. Back at it. Still haven't finalized the design as the fan isn't fitting. Don't know if it's my design or my printer. I'm still new at the Thingiverse stuff so I will try to figure out how to upload it. I draw in autocad, not sure what file type you need/want. User name PE_RN. hopefully soon.
Just got a Ender3, was looking for exactly this. Thank you for what you are doing.
Just did this, loved my EZR and glad you did the legwork making it fit with the DD kit. Thanks for designing the spacing bracket piece. Love your channel!
Ordered the TH3D EZBoard as a replacement for the standard, printing this now so its all ready when the new board arrives, great design
Hey Michael I think you should place the fan in the middle of the case and maybe design some kind of duct that shoots the heat out the back not the bottom since the air ports are also in the bottom it may suck back in hot air. Plus the location of the fan and the 2 holes you have on top of case for wires will force the fan to pull more from those areas so you may have a bigger issue in the main board side due to heating and poor air circulation.
Hi! Great mod.. One question though, where did you find the STL for the zip tie holder on the Z motor? Can't find it anywhere
Great work but it really looks like the case could use more cooling and airflow. Could you give us the temps you're getting inside the case?
Nice solution.
Along with relays for power switching and so on that you're planning, it would be interesting to fit some thermal sensors on critical components and connect to the Pi for monitoring, to see how well the cooling works out.
This is awesome!!! And now I have another modification to make instead of printing things I actually wanted the printer for in the first place 🤣
Any plans to create a 2 drawer design for the empty left space?
This should fit for the SKR 1.4 too, guess I found the perfect case for my Ender 3 Pro electronics
Thank you
Love the case mod. Can't wait for the SKR1.3 VID
Wow this is an amazing project here. I printed the 2 rear pieces and they fit Amazing.
I’m waiting to see a video on the Zesty Nimble. Great work and designing as always.
They are out of stock but when this is fixed, my Ender 5 will get one.
Teaching Tech I’m waiting on mine right now, hopefully it will arrive by July. They’re waiting for flex shafts and more gears.
Good Stuff. LOVE THE DESIGN!!! I just got an Ender 3. I'm learning as I go. Love your channel as well!!! Thanks for posting.
This is super awesome Michael. I was looking for a different solution for my MKS and I think this is it. Fantastic job!
Fantastic build. I ran into one issue. Running the SKR Mini E3 2.0. My Z Stop cable was not long enough. I swapped cables for the Z and Y stop. Problem Solved!
You should print some storage cabinets to fill the space in the front
This is super impressive! It's such a better design than stock - I know what I'm printing this weekend!
Awesome video yet again. I love your videos you do such a good job with them, very good summary at the beginning and then perfect level of detail and a great wrap up. I've done a lot of the modifications you've described including this one on all of my enders and they went so smoothly. For the commenter who said you need to get paid I totally agreed which is why everyone who appreciates your hard work should become a patron supporter like I did. Keep up the excellent work!!!!!
That's great, now I can add another drawer to the front to store more tools n stuff in
If you have an ender 3 pro I made one up already. www.thingiverse.com/thing:3708057
Magnificent. Pimping out my ender 3 pro with this for sure.
Love the design of this and will probably be printing it myself for when my EZBoard Lite from TH3D arrives, but like a few other people I'm concerned the cooling might prove insufficient. Would love to see some tests versus the stock solution, and tests without a Raspberry Pi (tape the hole closed) and see if it's even a concern. Not doubting your expertise, it'd just be great for everyone's peace of mind!
This is the best and well thought enclosure i have seen for the Ender 3 Pro.
What concerns me is with the TMC2130 on the SKR 1.3 maybe there isn't enough cooling.
true.. even the stock gets too hot simetimes - espacially in summer :/
For those without the Raspberry Pi, the hole supporting it needs to be closed so that air flow comes from across the board and not from that hole. Perhaps an improvement would be a removable hole plug that can close that opening until/unless it is needed. If it is not closed, there is a risk of too much heat from the mainboard.
Jeez dude - you earned a like and subscribe. lots of work in the design, print and the schematics. Thank you
Can you please do an analysis of the temperatures inside of that case?
It doesn't appear that the fan is big enough, and I also am skeptical of the airflow design.
I may very well be wrong..but it sure would be damn interesting to see the numbers!
Thanks for this awesome video!
I'll be honest I like the design and then again I dont. You have the holes where your wires come out from so due to that I'm sure it wont have a good air flow in the main board slot. There should be some kind of heating issue.
Michael, greta idea for a rear box.
One little thing, I would have put the new 3d printed end cap at the rear and used one of the original rear end caps at the front to tidy things up. Then you would have no unsightly screws showing.
Looks great but needs a cover for the giant cutout in the extrusion under the bed
What a great mod for the E3. Well done, Michael.
Fantastic setup, except that, at least on my standard (not pro) Ender 3, the "Z" endstop cable is too short to reach! I'm trying to solder up a replacement one now. Thank you so much for these videos, they are great.
I haven't seen anyone double-stack the 40mm extrusions that the gantry bolts to to essentially double the vertical space under the printer, not to mention allowing more horizontal space to allow you to easily mount the PSU under there as well. You could also still print the tool drawers that are so handy.
I am thinking, along with others, a cooling fan should be added directly above the steppers. Perhaps even 2 small cooling fans. Keeping the steppers cool would definitely improve performance and I think also increase lifespan. There should be no issue adding a fan to the top of the case lid, lots of clearance.12V can be pulled from the buck converter, but it may be a better idea to run2 12v fans in series to achieve a 24v load. Just an idea.
This is hella smart. Great job. I'm definitely doing this with mine.
Installed this on an Ender 3 Pro with the Creality 4.2.2 board, but my Z limit wire was a bit short, so I had to build an extension cord. If you're about to install this, you may want to check your wires before you start moving everything. Overall, it's a great mod that makes it a lot easier to access the boards.
I had the same issue where my z ends too wire was too short. I just swapped it with the y ends too wire, since that one was too long after moving the electronics to the rear. Worked out perfectly!
Ha! That was very timely. Lately I've been considering making exactly that so I can fit drawers at the front space - with your MKS Gen L case I couldn't get a drawer to fit there due to the USB cable getting in the way.
I've had my EZR setup as direct drive for months now. I made my own mount for it. Works great! Wish I could post pictures on here.
you can upload pictures to site like IMGUR and then just post your link here :)
I like it. The 1 improvement I see is that since the heat rises, it would be nice if the fan either blew up, or to avoid the holes at the top, maybe make the fan mount at an angle to fit vertically, but blowing out the back. Not sure if you have room for this but seems it would be an improvement. Nice design! Enjoying your videos!
There's a remix with that exact angled fan by the way.
@@talldonkey Oh, good to know, thanks! I hadn't checked the files yet.
I would love to see you install an E3D Cyclops with an MKS Gen L and TMC2130s.
This is amazing Michael, excellent job, as usual. I actually was having similar issues flipping the printer upside down to check on stuff. I look forward to your new guide!
I love this Thanks man. I can confirm that the 27 pin does not fit on a 3 pro.
FANTASTIC!!! - A very well thought out mod, thanks for sharing.
Damn I love your channel :)
Thank you for everything you do for the 3d printing community!
Wonderful solution!!! I was searching for something like this!!! Now I can clean all the electronics cable nest under my printer 😋
I finally got to try this out, and have made some progress. Slightly modified the stock board enclosure to fit the fan in it in place of tl smoothers, but beyond that everything went in as I would have expected.
Few problems that I ran into that might be important (In my case, I am using the Stock ender 3 board as of writing this)
- The Z-Axis End Stop Wire is at least 3 inches too short to reach the z-switch from the new enclosure, I am getting longer wires to remedy this
- The Y-Axis Stepper Motor on my Ender 3 appears to be closer to the enclosure than Teaching Tech's, close enough in fact that the connector for the Motor is directly above the drawer. I had to snip off some of the enclosure (and will do so for the lid as well) to get it to fit right.
- The front I/O Wall is too thick to viably use the Micro SD that comes with stock, so I recommend modifying the design to make it thinner, or getting a Micro-SD to SD Converter to use
Regarding the motor, why is this? Did Teaching Tech modify the printer to have an extended Y-Motor, or did Creality modify the design a bit sometime after this video was released into the printer I have now?
Edit: I now realize he has an ender 3 pro, is that the main difference?
Good luck on all your printing endeavors
Why didn't you just clock the motor one turn so the connector came out the back? I know this is an old comment on an old video but just got around to this mod on my original E3 and that is how I handled it. No modification of the case at all.
Wow. Really good job. I had the same issues with the case in front, but now much better. Thanks!
Good job on the design of the case, Michael. Much nicer than that hinged thing you came up with before
After you get done with all the testing and mods, you should make a video about what all you would recommend doing, and a brief overview of the setup?
Very very very good make.....give yourself a pat on the back..... I would make the boxes deeper because the New Raspberry Pi comes with 4GB and runs hot therefore the need of a fan should one go this route. Make the four legs out of nice wood or print to make the height under the printer more to allow the deep tray to slip under..... thanks for your ideas.
Very elegant solution Michael, well done!
Great job Michael. Thanks for sharing and best wishes.
Yep. That's much better. On a separate note, I have been binge watching and going nuts on eBay etc. and i have a shiny new MKS Gen V1.4 on the way instead of the Gen L. I was supposed to be ordering. Am I screwed? ( Ender 3)
Very similar boards but the mounting holes are different. Like my old case, people will remix to suit more boards.
This is an awesome mod, thanks for sharing!
Question; How did you power the raspberry pi ? The buck converter is used for the fan and the mini usb on the raspberry pi is a tad close to be used otherwise.
Wow, this is lovely. Now I know what I’m printing tomorrow
I got rid of the stock plastic parts and replaced with aluminum. Inserting filament is a lot easier with the metal piece for me.
Wow! Really clever design! Cheers!
In case you were wondering, the relay which he is using is KY-019
I would like you to add ferrules to the power cables, so much safer
Freeking Brilliant..thanks for sharing your efforts Michael.
just found this one,impressive, one thing i would have liked to have seen for the genL setup would have been the addition if wanted to use either the 2.8 or the 3.2 tft
you make some of the best parts for ender 3, tyvm