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Been looking at the Creality CR10 mini. It has a large enough build space to make my console piece, and the price is just slightly higher than the Ender model. Hopefully I will have learned enough to put the software to use by Christmas time.

Cool. I have been very happy with my Creality Ender. After I finish a design/print job the money from that will probably buy me a bigger machine as I am sure I am going to get into more stuff that is going to require a bigger machine. I briefly flirted with the idea to build a bigger one, but it is cheaper just to buy one.

I have been running the Ender non stop the last couple weeks printing a couple orders of small items (400ish parts per order) and it has not missed a beat. The only issues I have had are some of the older spools of filament I have are showing systems of moisture or degradation.

Some updates!

I bought another printer (#3) Resin based printer, these have fallen to a price point that I could justify trying one out. I am very impressed. No layer lines and super high quality even for this cheap machine. Only downfall is the cleanup aspect since it uses a liquid and the parts have to be washed / cured after. The print bed is also much smaller than the Ender (the whole machine will fit on the print bed of the ender.)

I printed the manufacturer's supplied test model for now.

20200525_191848 by Paul Taylor, on Flickr

20200526_022200 by Paul Taylor, on Flickr

20200526_022128 by Paul Taylor, on Flickr

And my heavily modded Ender3 is still cranking out very nice prints. Last night I printed a resin vat cover for the other machine and it came out really nice, especially for a large and flat print.

This is showing the "infill" between the solid layers.

2020-05-27_10-10-50 by Paul Taylor, on Flickr

I also printed some stripper clips for my Swiss K31 rifle , as original cardboard ones sell for 20+ each. I printed 10 plastic ones.

2020-04-16_11-23-46 by Paul Taylor, on Flickr