Adventures in 3D Printering
2026-03-10 17:39 - Making
Back in 2016 I got my first 3D printer. It's a minor hobby for me, but I keep using it every once in a while. It came with, as was very typical at the time (and not unusual still today) a version of Marlin for its controller software. In fact, part of the assembly/installation instructions involved downloading the source for it, tweaking the source, and compiling it. As far as I can tell, from a comment in configuration.h it was Marlin version 1.0.3 — but there is no such version? The vendor patched version was probably based on 1.0.2, from 2015. This is fine. But is fine good enough? In the middle of 2024 I looked into newer Marlin releases. Apparently I ended up with 2.1.1.2. There were a variety of new things. I especially appreciated additional controls available with the built-in screen, and overall I liked the result. For a while. It took me a long time to figure it out, but there was a serious problem.
Pictured above is the very same simple box shaped object (a spacer for my silverware tray, so that each utensil fits neatly into the space available, rather than rattling around in empty space). On the left is one I printed while Marlin 2 was running on my printer. This printer uses a GT2560 control board, with the main processor running at 16MHz. Despite being a supported target, something about all the nearly ten years of changes between versions was too much: Marlin did not run well enough on my printer. When making probably any, but especially noticable in long straight moves like the faces of these boxes it would jitter periodically, where the X/Y translation motion would speed up briefly, go slower for a while, and repeat. This leaves very obviously visible artifacts in the objects being printed.
It actually took me quite a while to connect the dots and figure out that it was the Marlin upgrade that was the problem. I think I had generally smaller objects without such long straight lines, where this problem was most visible, for a while. But eventually figure it out I did. Despite it not directly supporting my model of printer (with going back to the original Marlin version as the backup plan), I took the leap of trying out a different type of printer control software: Klipper.
Like mentioned above, Marlin does a lot of complex math inside the printer and the newer software was (it seems) trying to do more than my printer could handle. Klipper splits this in two: the computer built into the printer essentially only does the direct controls of the hardware, the minimum possible. The complex math involved in deciding exactly when to (e.g.) turn which motors happens elsewhere: on another computer. This is almost definitely a more powerful computer. And since it's a regular computer, it's much easier to build and try features into this software.
It took some time, starting in October 2025, to build up a Klipper configuration from scratch for my unsupported printer. I could thankfully leverage other GT2560-based printers as a base. Then the most useful thing for me: Klipper has a lot more features for tuning and tweaking built in. I used them to find the mechanical limits of what my printer could do. Once tuned, it worked at least as well as ever, probably even much better than new.
I used it this way for a while with a small renaissance for me, it was new and exciting again, at least a little bit. Eventually, however, things took a rough turn again. The printer would randomly crash and cut out. Powering off and on would make it work again, usually. Then even that didn't seem to help again. After a short while I finally started looking into it. At first I checked the power supply, but it was outputting a perfect twelve volts the whole time. Then I looked at the control board for the printer and rapidly found the issue: the power connector. It was terribly black and charred. I think it wasn't quite good enough. Close but not quite, so with too much contact resistance it slowly built up heat over time until it failed too far. Once I replaced that connector the machine again was good as new. Maybe better? Long ago I added some LED strips, to make things bright enough to monitor with a camera. As best I can recall they would always dim when the heaters, especially the large heated bed, kicked in. Now that I've replaced the power connector they don't dim anymore — or so little that it's hardly perceptible.
This was a bit of a roller coaster. I had noticed the problem just before holiday season, and didn't figure it out for a month or two simply due to the timing of when I even tried to. Something about fixing it made me happy and I put a few extra dollars in: I upgraded to a magnetic flexible build plate. Which by the way was a great improvement! And to celebrate this I took the time, like I had long intended, to design an organizer insert for my primary toolbox. Before, somehow the tool I needed seemed to always be on the bottom.
Here's the result of that. I split the design into four parts, one for each corner. Primarily because the 200 mm diameter print area of my delta printer definitely didn't fit the whole thing as one piece, and possibly not two. Turns out to have been a good thing: the first piece I printed, in black, used up the last of that roll of filament. One of the other corners (bottom right in this picture) was a failed print: a kink in the filament made it stop feeding, 80 or 90 percent of the way through. And then after finishing the fourth quarter, I again almost perfectly used up that roll of filament, the last I had on hand.
Somehow very shortly after that I was browsing Marketplace, as I sometimes do for curiosity and entertainment. I found not one but two very reasonably priced 3D printers. Both around an hour drive away, but very near each other. I reached out to both sellers and very quickly was setting up appointments with both of them!
First was a Monoprice Select Mini 3D Printer V2. A rather famous early inexpensive model. I didn't want this terribly much, but it came bundled with five mostly full rolls of filament, including a glow-in-the-dark roll and a flexible material roll. Just the filament was nearly worth the $65 asking price. I've given it some attention and it's definitely working, though I might try to resell it, as it doesn't do much my other printers don't, if anything.
Next up was an Artillery Sidewinder X3 Plus. Much like my original printer, this is a nearly-no-name brand that offers good price vs. performance. It's a large format printer, fitting 300x300 mm on the bed and going up to 400mm high. It's quite new by comparison, having been originally released in 2023 (I don't know about when this particular one was made but I'm the 3rd owner, so probably not super recently!). It went for $60. It did not work when I first got it home, and I suspect the seller knew this. But, after a bit of looking around, unplugging and re-plugging things: now it works great! I've made a few real prints with it and I'm very happy with it for what I spent. In fact, it can print big enough things that I might redo my toolbox organizer as one big piece! I also should redo the wiring repair from the previous owner, with the sloppy white tape visible near the top.
I haven't yet decided if I'll switch one or both of these new printers to Klipper, yet. It should improve their performance. And there's some value to having the same control and interface for them all. But both of these new (to me) printers have nice built in interfaces, which Klipper would not use at all. So I'll live with them as is for a while, and think about it again later.
