Well, I made a commitment today. After a couple of years on an Ender 3 Pro which is totally a ship of Theseus now, I’m building a #Voron 2.4 r2. Wish me luck! It was either that or a Switch and some games.
This is the next (big) step into getting a little more serious about project work with my kids. I hope it pays off for us 😅
Good luck! I am about 2 months into my 2.4 R2 build. My kids are younger and life is busy, so I’m lucky to get an hour or two every few days to chip away at it. I have everything but my panels on and wiring is done, so I should be powering it up soon.
The build is pretty straightforward. The only real gotcha that I ran into was missing the occasional printed part and not paying enough attention when grabbing 16T and 20T pullies. My generic cable chains were too short, but other than that all the parts fit exactly as intended.
You made the right choice. I have a Switch, and it’s great for a handheld - or was in 2017. There are a lot more gaming handheld options now. I’m very satisfied with my Steam Deck.
The level of satisfaction you’ll get from your Voron can’t be touched by the Switch though.
I’m 100% retro and linux gaming, but I don’t need to force my kids down the road I’m on. I just share what I love and hope they choose it for themselves so we have common interests. So far, surprisingly, they both love NES / SNES and that’s thanks to Nintendo developing the same franchises for decades, for better or worse.
I don’t really game on the go other than mindless android games. If I did, steam deck makes way more sense. For the kids I keep thinking Switch mainly because they already love the Wii, and all their friends have Switches, so it’s a social vocabulary thing.
Surely you’re right about the satisfaction part. I need to make sure the kids are part of it, maybe choosing models and building, painting, etc with me. They are pretty young but once they get a little better spatial awareness and reading skills, python and freecad are not out of the question! They play minecraft already, so we’re off to a good start I think.
totally a ship of Theseus
I wonder how many printers are unmodified? We are a demographic of tinkerers, lol.
Good luck and have fun!
So I use an Ender 3 Pro and have a broken 5Pro in my shop; what is causing the move for you?
Not so much a move as an addition. And there are a few reasons.
One, I like projects where the outcome is a useful tool, but the project aspect itself is a significant part of my motivation.
The reason for the Voron being that project is that it will be a WAY faster and more competent tool than my ender, which was a prohibitive limitation especially for larger prints. A failure at hour 23 of a 24 hour print sucks, but the same print failing at hour 3:45 of 4 hours is way easier to accept. At that point the loss of filament matters more than the lost time in my eyes.
Also Voron2 has a much better design than ender 3 pro for exotic filaments, making ABS / ASA / nylon more approachable. Better tuning options, compensation (lower / less moving mass), bigger plate, taller build volume.
The bigger plate is significant for things like ergo mechanical keyboard chassis. I’m a Dactyl Manuform user and builder, and the ender 3 pro can only print one half at a time and takes more than a full day each half. Voron should be able to knock out two halves at once inside of a work day, and do so with better quality to boot.
The ender still has a place, particularly with the mods I have on it. Specifically, TPU can’t benefit from the speed of Voron, so there’s no reason not to print it on ender. Also it never hurts to have a tuned, working machine if you have to take one offline for maintenance.
Thank you, that’s a great explanation. I don’t have time for a new machine right now (I’m only printing minis) but that’s on my radar if I do.
I’d like to hear how you do minis on fdm. I’m planning pressing resin into service for that and a couple other things, but if you have a good workflow for minis on fdm, I have friends who want them and fdm can do it way way faster than resin at the trade off resolution.
I’m just doing them on an Ender3 with PLA, as long as the filament is dry and the heat is tuned I can batch them for monster of the week or what have you. Using a paint to fill gaps and strengthen the form helps.
So long as you like to tinker, the Voron 2.4 is an amazing machine. Don’t worry, there is an end to the tinkering with the Voron - I’m not saying it’s unreliable, I’m just saying it’s definitely a project.
Once you actually have it all built and tuned in though, it’s a rock solid machine, and you’ll have a greater understanding of the general principles behind 3d printing.
