My 3D Printer Needed Maintenance!

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with a side project for the week. Let’s get started!

I wanted an easy post this week, as the past two weeks have been downer endings, and 3D printing has been on by background list for a while. For reference, I have a Monoprice Maker Select Plus I got for Christmas several years ago. Since then, I’ve learned that 3D printing is almost more about maintaining your machine than it is about actually printing things.

I wanted to print up a part I need for a planned project, but no matter what I did, the bed wouldn’t level out for me. The back, right corner kept turning up as too close to the extruder, even when at the end of its adjustment screw.

I reached out to relevant help channels, and someone from the Sweetie Bot Project’s Discord server informed me of new ways my model of printer was a low-end tool/high-end toy. My print bed is warping over time, though I cannot test it with a ruler or triangle because of a bad spot in the middle.

My solution was to find an Allen wrench and raise the Z-stop switch a notch. I leveled the bed again, and I was just barely comfortable enough with a flat test print to try a Benchy. I came back to a failed print. When I got around to servicing it properly, the filament was snapped off – my filament is wet from improper storage over a period of humidity.

I don’t have time to fix it and try again before posting, so this short post again turns into a downer ending. At least I learned a thing or two.

Final Question

If you have a 3D printer, how do you manage how it absorbs humidity?

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