Goodbye Ender 2, welcome back HE3D I3

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I bought the Ender 2 because it was only £100 which was about the same price as spending hours fixing the He3D, it spent 6 months sat on the bench waiting for me to fix it and as soon as I did it's been printing non stop. I ran the outer case for my currently unspecified turbine prop, the ender 2 fared valiantly but there was some separation and severe stringing at the higher levels. This combined with the constant slicing and juggling has made me realise I could do with something bigger.


I rescued the He3D I3 from the loft where it has lived for the last five years. Knowing more about printing this time around I was able to resurrect it fairly quickly. The software to drive things has come on a long way in that time which really helped me get up to speed quickly. The original failure was that the hot end died after a dozen prints. I recently bought a new hot end to replace it for a staggeringly low price of £3 and with a bit of fiddling and juggling I was able to mount it in place. Levelling the bed was easier after all my Ender 2 practice and I was able to print a new benchy straight off.


Now this all probably seems like a backwards step, returning to a 5 year old 3d printer and you would be right; the main purpose of this was not to use daily but to sell onwards. There was so much interest when I resold my £100 Ender 2, I figured an £80 slightly dated He3D would also sell quickly and it did. Now I have £180 to put towards a new 3D printer without feeling too guilty about spending more money on it.

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