Reviews

BL-Touch Review – A 3D Printer’s Dream

Last week I installed a genuine ANTCLABS BL-Touch from Amazon.ca on my Creality Ender 3.

I did a lot of research on a variety of automated leveling devices that are compatible with my printer and finally settled on the BL-Touch because of ease of installation, price, and quality.

Despite the apparent easy installation, I was intimidated to jump in, knowing that I needed to work with Marlin and do some basic rewiring to my printer. After utilizing a number of YouTube videos, including a number of videos from Teaching Tech…With this being the most helpful

I managed to get the BL Touch installed and mostly functioning. I ran through as much troubleshooting as possible and finally broke down to ask for help.

The above guide is for a BL Touch V2…I purchased a BL Touch V3 – Thinking it was a V2 (at least the Amazon page said it was).

Once I realized the V2 was actually a V3 – the fix was pretty simple. Luckily Teaching Tech’s YouTube channel saves the day again with this video detailing 3 fixes for the BL Touch V3.

Once I applied the first fix, the BL Touch worked flawlessly, and still does by giving me that perfect first layer.

Thanks for the life-saving raft Bl Touch! Looks level to me.

I’m excited to continue working with the BL Touch and exploring all of the add-ons and plug ins that are available.

Totally Creawesome Dude!

As a beginning 3D printer things can be overwhelming. That’s why Eric Ptak over on GitHub created the Creawesome modification for Cura 4.0

There are so many settings that can be adjusted in your slicer of choice.

I use Cura 4.0 and there are settings that will be valuable to learn right away, such as:

  • Infill – The percentage amount that will be filled inside of the object
  • Adhesion – Raft, brim, skirt or naked – if you dare. Get that print to stick to your print bed on the all important first layer.
  • Supports – Make sure your tricky prints don’t fail by adding extra material that can easily be removed.

Of course you’ll find a host of other, and much more advanced settings, that you’ll eventually venture out on and tweak until your prints are to your liking.

If you use an Ender 3, like me, you just might want to try out the Creawesome Modification. It changes key settings that are tried and true for Creality printers. Along with many surface settings, it also changes some settings that beginner users would never touch.

All in, many users, including myself are reporting much improved print quality over their pesronal slicer settings.

Not to mention, it updates Cura with this sweet model of your Creality printer

Hit this link for a direct downlad. Installation is easy:

  • Unzip the Creawesome package.
  • Backup your Cura resources file – In your Ultimaker Cura directory, simply rename your resources file to “resources_old”
  • Copy the Creawesome resources folder to your Ultimaker Cura directory.

If you don’t notice a difference, maybe your original Cura settings were tuned to perfection. Simply delete the Creawesome resources folder and remove “_old” from your resource folder to get back to your initial settings.

Keep an eye here as I will update the blog frequently with Creawesome Mod results.