I am new to 3D printing, I am not new to 3D models or software coding, been dabbling in that for nearly 30 plus years… Ouch that is aging me. But I love this new toy… it’s hard because I have many other projects and all I want to do is print, I love the CTC… it works great. I do have to adjust the left nozzle and hard to find information on it. But the right nozzle keeps on printing no matter what I through at it. The last two days is the first rest the poor printer has gotten Since I started printing.
6 Likes
I also have a ctc which I got through ctc’s eBay store on sale for $500! Truly an unbeatable deal. As-it-comes the printer is top notch and I was up and printing in about an hour. I recently did some upgrades you might like to consider. Pretty much all of them are in thingiverse: z-axis preloaders, y-axis pillow block bearings, some led light strip holders, filament cooling duct, glass bed (just from Home Depot and cut to size) , and arm stiffeners on ebay. With all these upgrades, the printer is now outputting incredibly accurate objects, and most of the upgrades were free.
1 Like
You made a great choice.
Im the CTC rep for USA.
Contact me if you have any issues.
Chris, it’s awesome to see how involved you all at CTC are with your customer base. If I ever need assistance with my printer I will be sure to contact you.
1 Like
Are you printing in ABS? Surprising to see it working without mods. Mine has threaded thermal barriers and cooling bar, with spring loaded drive mounts and spring-less belt tensioners combined with a cooling fan. Couldn’t print a thing out of the box but now it prints better then a rep2x which is what I basically turned it into. If you need to adjust the nozzles there are tiny hex screws on the cooling bar. The easiest way to make them even is to loosen both screws for both nozzles and let them fall on the build plate while it’s at home axis. Then you can tighten them.
It’s a very good deal, but “as-it-comes” is absolutely not top notch and I would bet my entire forex account that you were not up and printing (successfully) in one hour. Most of those mods are useless at worst, and have minimum effect at best. The glass bed with hairspray is a necessity, but if you want this thing to actually print PLA it needs threaded thermal barriers AND a cooling fan AND spring loaded extruders. In addition, spring-less belt tensioners will allow for faster and more accurate printing. It is not capable of printing in PLA as it’s advertised, but it’s a great deal and the mods are cheap (they just take a while to source and ship) if you are willing to experiment.
ABS is the only way to print.
A Hood/Enclosure kit makes it easy.
To adjust nozzles:
Simply pull the fan off (When cold and unloaded)
Find your small Allen Wrench. On the aluminum block is a small hex key.
Lossen the hex key, adjust nozzle, and re-tighten hex key.
Re-Install Fan.
We suggest www.P3-D.com Aluminum bed arms.
With some small mods, CTC printers are .05mm capable.
Sorry to burst your bubble Robert, but yes I was up and printing within an hour of opening the box. Please pay up. Only thing that took any amount of time was downloading the software. I am also an engineer, so maybe that presents an advantage for myself; however I see no reason another person couldn’t do it as well. While the prints were not initially perfect, they were quite near accurate (y-axis side of prints were approx 0.4mm off), and all that needed to have perfect dimensional accuracy was a quick adjustment of the Y-axis motor belt due to a small amount of lag that was inducing the 0.4mm inaccuracy. I think pretty much everything you listed is actually non-necessary, as I am printing in both PLA and ABS without any thermal barriers, or even a print cooling fan as of yet (haven’t installed it yet). Also I’m using blue-painters tape over my glass bed, which works just fine for both ABS and PLA.
1 Like
No matter, for me it’s been fun… and a great birthday gift. I have printed lots and have learned from mistakes and too many supports. But I am getting it and love it. It is easy to print in the first hour because they have a 3xg image ready to go and print and she goes out pretty much perfect. Nothing like anything I produced. Wanted to thank for the tip on hair spray (indirect) I am having problem with prints moving… it’s like the surface is glazed, either replace tape every time or come up with something else… hairspray! good idea
I have been printing with PLA, have not tried ABS. I have found that the print will work much better if you keep the material at the same room temperature as the printer. I have had breaks or mush. I still to excited so as I get a new color I want to try it. Found it works better if I am patient and wait
Thanks you I will look into these upgrades!
2 Likes
Ps. thanks your your tips
Maybe I just had bad luck, or maybe mine had some defects. Took me a long time to dig it out, but I learned that thermal barriers (you have one too) with ptfe don’t tend to work quite as well, so I switched to all metal thermal barriers. Do you get any clogs? Everything I listed was necessary, at least for me anyway, as I don’t get clogs at all anymore or any other issues, and I was aiming for reliability. How long have you had it?
Cant say I’ve ever had a clog as of yet, perhaps just good luck on my side. Happy to hear you got your printer working for you though. What sort of print temperatures are you using? The only time I’ve had an issue was when I leveled the print bed too close to the extruder, and there was no room for the filament to squeeze out, so it was clicking for the first layer (as the teeth of the extruder tried to force the filament through with no avail), and only putting down a super-thin layer of ABS, however as soon as it began the second layer, it was no longer clicking. I then re-leveled the print bed to give a couple thousandths more clearance, and now it is perfect. The only issues I can currently think of causing that would have been some kind of factory defect, or maybe a thermocouple that was slightly out of place.
1 Like
Yeah Hairspray; that’s the best way! Aquanet unscented. Clean glass unslimy soap or plain water. Windex will make your glass slippery, and so will moisturizing soaps, so don’t use that. Your stuff will never move again. That’s great that you’re enjoying it and getting the hang of it. I modded mine so that I CANT mess up lol. I can change the settings to whatever and still comes out nice.
@RobertPaul
This is my first print done 1 hour after unboxing the printer.
8-Bit Heart. Notice this is printed on the tape that the printer came with.
PM me with your forex account. 
This printer is good. To make it great it needs a few things. First would be for ABS an active post extruder fan.
I’m using this, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:537918, and made a night and day difference in printing. I had to level my bed every freaking time I printed. I just yesterday put on the arm stiffeners and I have printed 4 items back to back with no leveling. Aluminum warps so I also got a glass bed and printed off some corner holders to hold it in place. Get tempered glass otherwise it will crack after being heated up/down a number of times. Maybe put tap on the bottoms too, it’s a little safer if you use a mirror or some other cheap glass.
1 Like
Very nice.
A hood kit is essential to ABS printing, large and flat.
What happened was the original thermal barrier tubes (those tubes that connect to the nozzles) were threaded and so was the cooling bar so that they can thread in. The point for this is that the threading creates a huge surface area for the heat inside the thermal tube to dissipate, because you want to have a small transition zone and you want the plastic cooler in the tube. The thermal tubes that are threaded are hard to adjust (bunch of screwing), so to make it easier, some replicator knock off brands decided to use hex screws instead, to hold the thermal barrier tubes in the cooling bar. This way you can simply loosen up, adjust nozzle height, and tighten. Because it’s not threaded, the inside of the tube is very hot, and it causes the plastic to grip too much, as well as causing it to melt too soon, making a gooey weak mess inside the tube that won’t push easily. To make the plastic grip less, they added those ptfe tubes inside the barrier tubes, and it works alright sometimes, but you will encounter issues sooner or later. So even though the ptfe tube allows the plastic to slip easier, the inside of that barrier tube is way too hot, and that makerbot hotend was not designed to work like that. There are also other chemicals in the ptfe tube that slowly decompose at a relatively low temp (I think it was around 240-250 sometimes lower), so it limits what materials you can print with. Note that the ptfe itself doesn’t decompose, but other stuff in the ptfe. The ptfe itself is good for a bit higher temps but still not high enough to print with anything other than abs or pla. Another thing that happens is since the ptfe tube has to be jammed into the nozzle, this will make the ptfe tube ever so slightly bend inside the thermal tube as it’s jammed into the nozzle, and it will create tiny spaces where the tube and the metal don’t press evenly all the way around, making the inside of the tube have non-homologous temperatures, giving rise to a bunch of other issues. These problems with the CTC are all over the net, and are why so many have issues with this printer, but with a little modding you can make it print perfectly.
The nozzles are known as a wear item. The belts are also wear items. They eventually (wear) out.
Change to some p3-D nozzles. High-Lubricity.
Also, some teflon tape on that hex key would work if its a problem for you. Over-tightening is the most common problem for this issue.
That’s pretty good, PLA or ABS? When I first got mine, all it would do is click all day and air print, and the printed part would get too hot and melt or collapse due to the ambient heat coming from the hotends. The cooling fan helped with this, and silicon insulating sleeves around the hotend made it even better. For ABS, I thought you do not want to have the active cooling fan on, as it can and most likely will mess up the print. Rapid cooling is what causes warping, so you don’t want it to cool instantly the way you would want PLA to cool. Cooling fans are mostly for PLA.
1 Like
