So earlier this week I found an Ender 3v2 at the dump and drug it home. It powers on fine and moves in the z and y axis but not x, I have a stepper motor from an old project that will fit I’m just waiting for a gear that uses set screws vs press fit.
A few days ago my daughter mentioned she wanted to get into 3d printing (coincidentally as I hadn’t told her about the dump printer) so today I bought an Ender 3v1, working, and an Ender 3v3 SE, not working for $80. The v1 is going to my daughter and probably the v2 as well once I’ve replaced the bad stepper and I’ll keep the v3 if I can fix it.
All that said, are there common problems with the v2 that I should look for after the stepper is replaced? I can’t believe that was the only issue that made someone trash it.
The v3 has the nebula smart kit and I guess freezes while booting, I read that I can reflash the firmware to get it working again but would it be worth sourcing an original screen and taking it back to stock?
Edit: another question I have, looking at the nebula kit pictures there is the pad, a camera, flash drive and something else. I don’t have the flash drive for sure and I’m uncertain if the 4th part of the kit is installed or even what it is, how important are those pieces to the kit? Thank you
That’s a hardcore throw into the hobby, e3v1 is one of the least easy to start ones.
I’ll be sure to let my daughter know that, I think she’ll be ok though, she’s a computer science major and has a decent mechanical aptitude.
Ender 3v1 is like a project car. Terrible choice if you just want a reliable daily driver to print models with, but an excellent start if you want your hobby to be more about 3d printers itself, as you have to learn how to troubleshoot, fix, and improve it.
I learned enough to design and build my second printer mostly by myself.
In return it is much more moddable than the “easy” ones.
You don’t need to mod the easy ones, tho
But its fun :3