extruder

Attention over time

7-day rolling share of analyzed posts/comments mentioning this entity · 90 daily points ending 2026-10-16

Final complete day: 2026-10-16. Attention was 0.7% — this entity appeared in 80 of 12,303 analyzed posts/comments in the seven days ending that day (113 mentions).

Each point is a seven-day rolling window of complete UTC days; a point is comparable only when at least 100 analyzed posts or comments fall inside it. A day with no analyzed records counts as zero; missing coverage is marked and never shown as zero. The series ends at the latest complete analyzed day — it never extends into the current incomplete day. How attention is measured.

Recent mentions

1. 2026-10-16 21:36 UTCPost

   Smaller prints are super stringy and fragile? - Hi, needed to get a logo printed for tommorow but ive been having issues all day with my printer (Flashforge AD5X). My prints are always super fragile, build up around the extruder and have strands of filament webbed across the plate. Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this?

2. 2026-10-16 18:53 UTCPost

   How Transferrable is a Main Board? - One of my current projects is getting my Creality Ender 5 Plus into a working state. My troubleshooting has led me to the mainboard being my main problem with the machine; so I’m looking into getting it swapped out for something newer and (hopefully) functional. The short question: ***I have rather easy access to / can get a Snapmaker U1 main board brand new; would this be something that is workable with a functionally barebones Ender 5 Plus?*** **Picture 1:** my Ender 5’s current configuration. **Picture 2:** the Snapmaker U1 board I’m looking to transplant. # Background I purchased the Ender 5 Plus as an open-box printer kit from a local Micro Center at a discount maybe 7-8 years ago (time is a weird soup). I already run an Ender 3 (base model), and I figured this would be pretty similar as a secondary machine for larger prints. Well, the Ender 5 has never been in a workable state since I bought it. Every time I try to get into it, I’m met with a brick wall that causes it to not *work*. The primary point of issue and contention has been the BLTouch (now CRTouch) module included - something that I don’t have on my Ender 3, ~~and want nothing to do with ever again~~. Here are some other threads I’ve started trying to address and diagnose this specific issue: \> (5 years ago) On Setting up the BLTouch and Z-Axis \> (2 years ago) Using the BLTouch as a Z-Axis Limit Switch \> (2 years ago) Trying to Address the Behavior of the BLTouch as a Limit Switch (and relevant crosspost) The short of the issue and situation is that the BLTouch included with the printer is designed to serve as a Z-Axis stop, in addition to probing the build plate to give a readout on how level it is… and it just doesn’t, as shown in this video that I shared in one of the previous posts. I’ve been treating the Ender 5 as something of my “hobby printer” in the same way that some guys have project cars that they continue building and tinkering with forevermore… but as a part of that, *I really just want to see it work, and successfully print* ***something***. # Troubleshooting \- **Adjusting the grub screw** at the top of the BLTouch was what allowed it to release and drop the probe, as shown in the video. So, success… in that it doesn’t remain static the entire time (as it did when I first got the printer), but it still doesn’t perform its intended function. \- **Fixing the wiring** for the BLTouch was the second piece of the puzzle that allows it to work in its current limited (and still overall non-functional) capacity. I have also checked all of the **wiring and connections** between the functional components - all plugs are fully seated and plugged in. \- **Unplugging the BLTouch** and running the machine without it straight up didn’t work. \- **Adding additional information to the GCode** in the slicer to set/address a Z-Axis height made no changes to the machine’s operation; similar to **flashing different softwares to the mainboard**, from Creality, Klipper, and Insanity Automation - no change to the printer’s self-destructive tendancies. \- Adjusting settings and information in **Aux Levelling** made no changes to the functionality of the machine - it simply initiated auto-homing, leading to the bed to crash into the extruder. \- I have 4 **SD Cards** for my printers. None of them triggered any new or unique behaviors when attempting prints. The same went for **plugging my computer directly into the machine** and trying to print a GCode file from the computer without relying on intermediary storage. \- I **bought a new BLTouch**/CRTouch unit, and replaced the one on my printer, to see if it would change anything regarding the printer’s behavior. It did not. # The Pitch, Plan, and (Known) Problems So, despite everything, I’m not interested in throwing in the towel and writing this machine off as a lost cause. It seems to me that the biggest issue with the BLTouch is software-oriented, and… I’ve got no clue how to solve it more than what I’ve already tried. So… the idea of just swapping out a new board. My initial thought here was to just take the brains of my Ender 3, and put it in the bigger frame… but that printer has *coincidentally* started giving me issues, not reading SD cards, and stopping after an hour of printing while plugged into my computer. The Ender 3 swap would be *perfect* because that machine has a separate Z-limit switch that I could just flip upside and transplant onto the 5. Problem solved! I’d still need a daughter board, since the Ender 5 has two Z-Axis motors and the Ender 3 board only has one Z-Axis output… but that’s a small potato problem by comparison. So, yesterday I journeyed to a local Micro Center to look into what main boards they had available - to see if there is something similar to the Ender 3 board that I could supplant into the body of the Ender 5 (and if it worked, perhaps give the 3 a second wind later on down the road). Talking with the manager for their 3D printing department, he told me that they don’t get a lot of main boards and replacement parts to the store due to availability and supply chain nonsense (paraphrasing a bit), only having the Snapmaker U1 board as an available option. Pitching him on the transplant idea, he seemed tenuous to give an enthsiastic recommendation (fair), and recommended looking to salvage another board from a Creality machine on the secondhand market (not a bad idea, and something I’ve been looking into over the past couple years - it’s just that my area doesn’t have much of a 3D printing culture, or much in the way of salvageable parts available). I’ve also looked at Voron machines, of which they have a couple that are functionally/mechanically similar to the 5 that I’m working on; and their main boards are Raspberry Pis with daughter boards for stepper motor controllers. Seems functional, but also like diving into *a whole ‘nother thing* that I’m less comfortable with as not-a-great-programmer. **So, I’m turning to Reddit**, for both a second opinion, as a sanity check, and to see if there is something I should be keeping my eyes out for if I go for the Snapmaker board. It looks like I’ll still need to look into the daughter board to split the Z-Axis motor controls, that I’d need if I transplanted the Ender 3 board… but aside from that… ***does it seem like this plan would work?*** What would you recommend I do? Thanks so much in advance.

3. 2026-10-16 18:46 UTCComment

   It's not worth a ton, but I wouldn't junk it either. Just sell it cheap (like enough to be worth your time but not much more than that so $50-$100 or so) and someone will probably bite at some point. I would for that if it was local to me. I would at least try to list it for a while cheap and see if someone wants it before I paid for haul away. Why, it's a good platform to build a modern heated chamber printer out of. Do you have to be willing to gut the entire electronics stack in it and rewire it and do substantial upgrades to it, you totally do, so it's going to be a low interest item, but someone that likes to mod and build printers will eventually want it. Put a good hotend and extruder, replace the controller board, put a modern bed probe on it and its a pretty solid machine that can run high temp filaments.

4. 2026-10-16 18:39 UTCComment

   If you command 100mm and the extruder is only moving 70, then you need to adjust your e-steps so that the extruder moves the correct distance.

5. 2026-10-16 18:35 UTCComment

   A 3d printer *is* a CNC machine, it just happens to have an extruder instead of a spindle. The motor drivers are quite underpowered so you'll only be able to drive small motors, and that means you can only make a very small/weak/slow CNC mill/router with them. If you want to drive bigger motors, you need bigger drivers.