I've been enjoying your videos more and more as of late. I have an Anycubic i3 MEGA-S and the ubiquitous Ender 3 that I've updated to run Klipper. For the last little while, I'd been contemplating getting the Creality Sonic Pad but ultimately stuck with the tried-and-true Raspberry Pi to run Mainsail (I had a heap of them lying around so I put them to good use). All that being said, you gave us a deeper look into the Sonic Pad (most other content creators quickly glossed over it) and demonstrated the little idiosyncrasies of the device. Looking forward to your next video in the series. :)
Great video. Your handling of nuts is remarkable, lol. As a result of your vids I have been eyeing the Ender 5S1 or the Sidewinder X2 as a second printer while I do dumb stuff to my Ender 3 Pro. If anyone in the comments has an opinion to share more than welcome to hear it. I also need to check out this guy's podcast. Really enjoying this channel and style of presenting.
Thanks Jon, I'll add a link to the podcast. Our website is www.perfectfirstlayer.com I went through an anti-ender phase, but now I like them again. Printers are becoming increasingly proprietary, but the good ol' Ender 3's are good enough to last a lifetime.
Aye aye. Will do captain! 👩✈️ Next video will be on the Ender 5S1 finishing up the mechanical build, then after that I can do a deep dive in the sonic pad to unlock its full potential and whatnot
Im a big dumb idiot so take this with a grain of salt but got an Ender 3 S1 last year and it was my first printer. It worked wonderfully and I fell in love with everything... except how slow it printed. When I saw the sonic pad I was excited bc I knew I didn't have time to learn klipper and I was using the printer for a university project. I ran into problem after problem after problem once I hooked up the sonic pad. A lot of those were bc of my lack of knowledge but, one that felt impossible to solve was the issue that you mentioned with weird bed mesh leveling behavior. I could not for the life of me figure it out until I saw a forum post discussing the S1's Y axis being mounted onto the metal enclosure instead of another piece of aluminum extrusion. This could lead to the axis being warped if things had not been tightened properly. Obviously, you aren't running the S1 but, I mention that because the issue was in reference to the leveling probe and yours might be too. (I say that was the issue and I think it was I wouldn't bet my life on it bc I still am a bit ignorant with all of it but when I fixed it the issue stopped). That managed to get my 3d printer working without anymore issues. If you look in the klipper config file the probe section should have its relative X and Y axis offsets. The offset of the probe can lead to improper offset compensation if there are irregularities in the beds height as it moves. I had found a picture along with a pretty decent write up about it; Ill see if I cant find it but if you look into a "zero offset" probe mount for the CR-Touch itll probably set you in the right direction research wise. I found a nice model on printables for my S1 and I no longer have this issue.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I am working on that fan shroud, I think I will try to get the touch probe closer to the hotend. I was going to leave the cr touch in the same place, but now that you mention it it would probably be better to move it. I wonder if the top frame is out of square combined with the offset between the probe and the nozzle is causing those issues. So by no means are you a dumb idiot! Or maybe you are and it's one of those broken clock being right 2 times a day kind of things :P
The Sonic Pad is a nice addition, but it would be nice to be able to run OctoPrint on it with the stock Marlin firmware. With that in mind I'm working on an updated Marlin 2.1.x with Input Shaping for this machine so that in the near future Creality can provide a firmware upgrade and also distribute this machine with faster speeds out of the box. I should also be able to contribute some improvements for the stock resistive touch screen LCD whose user interface is a little rough.
The stock code they provided for the hotend fan means the fan will only turn on when the hotend heater is activated (or above 60c), to reduce noise when it is in idle. It is correct
Agree. Im not sure how their self check works, maybe it does it not activate the heater when it starts the self check. They probably designed the self check for their older printers where the fan is connected to an always on port, and forgot they implemented this (good) feature in their .cfg
A video I'd really like to see is how well the boron nitride paste actually works. The claimed thermal conductivity is pretty good compared to like, thermal paste. I suppose if it's used like thermal paste on a CPU it could work well. That is, in extremely small amounts applied between two tight fitting surfaces (exactly like you have done here on your nozzle). I'm unsure how much it would help something like a thermistor or a heater cartridge floating in a sea of it.
It has a couple of functions, one of which is to help transfer heat. But I also suspect that it helps prevent leaking plastic. I talked about it at length in another video, but the thermal interface resistance is one of the biggest issues with heat transfer, second only to the thermal resistance of the plastic itself. Conducting heat through solid metal parts is trivial.
OMG, do not know if anybody else commented, but you can tell the screen to stay on - from home screen goto configure>other settings>BREAK SCREEN - I changed mine to NEVER. Hope this helps.
Haha, I appreciate the effort though. I wonder if it will cause issues with burn-in. But when the burn in gets bad enough I’ll just turn the screen back off and mainly use the web interface
"Insufficient part cooling" well yeah, you replaced the original fan with a Noctua low noise fan, but its also a low airflow fan. Then you extended the print tip, so the part cooling duct was missing the part...
In other words, the part cooling is insufficient. I usually make several upgrade videos, addressing one thing at a time until I have my perfect printer. I made another video fixing the issue of part cooling.
There are a lot of tutorials on that topic. I know those other YTbers aren’t as clear or intelligent as me, but they’ll have to do :P But seriously, if you ask on the discord I’m sure you’d get some good recommendations for walkthroughs in the topic
I tend to not print with TPU. I assume it would be about the same as the other printers that are using the sprite extruder. Check out LostInTech if you want to see TPU performance, he uses it a lot. I just hate when it becomes tangled in the extruder and takes an hour to fix
Great seeing the Ender 5 S1 running with the Sonic pad, makes me happy that I went with a standalone Pi for my Klipper install. The mesh being bad on the Ender 5 S1 seems to be a common issue though, I have not found a way to fix it (other than the manual way you show). It's not a warped frame or gantry in my case so I suspect it can be something with the way the probe mounts to the printer but I have yet to find a solution :/
One thing is: The z height when probing is a couplle mm different than when it's printing. I wonder if the print bed doesn't move straight up and down???
I’m lucky enough to have a machine shop at home so if we were neighbors I’d just machine your stuff if you helped with my printer. Damn things intimidates me. Like it’s too fragile
This printer makes a nearly perfect 14 minute benchy stock with the sonic pad... he raised the flow %? ... his fan ducts are about 8mm above the nozzle... lol clever fellow
You need to adjust the "input shape" of your printer. I can print a flawless 3DBenchy in 40 minutes with my Ender 3 S1 PRO using the Sonic Pad. You will make a lot faster when set all the Klipper configs!
Did you think about a side part cooling fan? I mean, like the one that you can find on the Bambu x1c. I think it's better than adding additional weight to the print head.
Jet planes used to be really loud, but listen to some modern ones (787, B2 stealth bomber, etc) and you’ll notice they are extremely quiet despite pushing out massive quantities of air. There are tips and tricks that could be applied to 3D printers.
@@NathanBuildsRobots that's why I would love to see a diy implementation of this solution. I think that 92mm noctua fan combined with a properly designed side duct, bolted to the frame, should be relatively quiet and sufficient for cooling the part.
It’s a CHT nozzle, I’ve made several videos about it, but basically it splits the filament up and feeds into all 3 holes at once, and can melt the plastic faster
Hey Nathan, have you had any issues editing the printer.cfg file from mainsail at all? I have a friend with an Ender 5 Plus with Sprite extruder, and he is not able to change the probe offsets. He can change them from mainsail in the printer.cfg file, and then he clicks on save and restart firmware buttons, but the changes never actually happen. The probe offsets and other settings always stay stock. I dont know much about this sonic pad so I couldn't help him much.
@@NathanBuildsRobots Are you editing from web interface or are you able to edit the printer.cfg from the sonic pad lcd? Maybe you can make a YT short on how you edit the printer.cfg and save changes? I cant find any info or videos on how to edit the config with sonic pad. All I find are Klipper/Raspberry Pi info where they use a console command of: SAVE_CONFIG to '/home/pi/klipper_config/printer.cfg'
will you be adding an enclosure to this printer, or maybe enclosing side panels? im interested in this printer combo as an upgrade from my 2018 ender 3 for both speed and the smaller enclosed size. my ender 3's soft enclosure takes up a huge amount of desk space lol.
Definitely look into tuning your slicer settings and consider an external blower fan on top of a part cooling fan. I have an ender 3 s1 running the sonic pad and my 15 minute benchys look considerably better than that 49 minute one. You should disable any acceleration/jerk control in the slicer, and just set your max acceleration in klipper. Acceleration control isn't that smart and it's better handled by input shaper in klipper using that accelerometer (I'm not sure if you setting your acceleration in your slicer is the same as AC in cura, but I think it might be if it was overriding your max accel). Jerk control is for marlin firmware and isnt used by klipper so just set your square corner velocity to something a little higher than 5, I use 35mm/s on my printer. I use cura so I'm not sure what other settings you might be using, but I think as general rule less is more when it comes to slicer settings for klipper. Don't forget pressure advance. It can be really finnicky to tune properly but when tuned just right it'll make your corners sharp and consistent, and should reduce blobbing.
Yeah I need to tune this up. I’m planning on getting it mechanically as perfect as possible, then doing a deep dive on tuning. I’m relatively new to Klipper but will try your suggestions. I’m also wanting to start using Cura more often. Do you know of any good presets for speed printer settings?
@@NathanBuildsRobots For my speed benchys I set minimum layer time to 0 seconds, 300mms print speed, 350mms travel, 5000 accel, 35 square corner velocity, and this gets me a very good looking benchy considering my cooling solution is really sub optimal at the moment (stock fan + external blower) I'm planning on solving this sometime. My slicer settings almost stock, just disable any acceleration/jerk/flow control ('coasting' I think it's called). I recently got a few of those "clone" 0.4mm CHT nozzles off of ali express and they have been working very well, and considering your hotend upgrade I think cooling will be your main bottleneck, and resonances/kinematics would be the second. When I'm printing parts that arent just benchys I'll keep acceleration and everything else up, and just drop the print speed, but I'm still testing these new nozzles to see how much better their flow rate is.
I haven’t had a chance to look at the hiragana. I have some upgrades for it so maybe I can take a 2nd look at it. Can you send me an email or discord message? Otherwise it’ll get lost in a sea of commenta
When using the sonic pad, are you using any startup code commands in your slicer? This is mine for my Ender 3 S1 Pro and Ender 3 Pro. Notice the BED_MESH_CALIBRATE line. This makes the probe do a bed mesh for each print and then use it. Also within the web interface, the tune function works great. I suggest you give this a try. G90 G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder G28 ; Home all axes BED_MESH_CALIBRATE G4 P10000 G1 Z2.0 F3000 G1 X5.1 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 G1 X5.1 Y200.0 Z0.3 F1500.0 E15 G1 X5.4 Y200.0 Z0.3 F5000.0 G1 X5.4 Y20 Z0.3 F1500.0 E30 G92 E0 G1 Z2.0 F3000 G1 X5 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0
I dont have it plugged in at the moment, but when I fire it back up I will look at the startup gcode. I am going to finish designing a new hotend cooling setup first!
Unfortunately I have heard that the Ender 2 pro has a board where you can’t flash the firmware. No idea what that means but I’m guessing I can’t use it on there. Haven’t tried though. Would be happily surprised if it worked
You probably know this but I had the same bed mesh issue and fixed the problem by removing the bed mesh calibrate line in the startup gcode creality puts in there with this: BED_MESH_PROFILE LOAD=default You'll need to have setup a mesh before hand of course.
I also have problem with bed level. right side is always to close to the nozzle, no matter how perfect I manualy level the bed. Im new with klipper, Nathan can you tell me how to solve this. Please.
@@alenbainrauch3853 Subscribe and see what happens when I test some stuff =) Planning on filming a video about it this week and uploading it maybe in 2 weeks
I am working on a solution. I think it is loading the mesh, its just that there are some mechanical problems. All will be revealed in about a month (or you can join my Patreon for early access ;) )
@@NathanBuildsRobots I will definitely check out your patreon, your Modder board v2 is working like a champ. It's the best mod I've ever put on a printer.
How can I get my hands on a pair of NBR's nuts? Seems like just the thing I've been looking for on a serious note: Would you recommend getting rid of my Ender 3 S1 (with Sonic Pad and 300C all-metal hotend upgrade) and upgrading to the Ender 5 S1 (also with Sonic Pad)? I print soft TPU 95A/TPE 83A and tough PA6-CA but would love to print at even higher speeds than the 3 S1 can handle (up to 150mm/s with Sonic Pad). If the 5 S1 can do 300-400mm/s with Sonic Pad and a CHT Volcano 0.6mm it would finally allow me to print more large projects. I've also been considering an Ender 5 plus with much bigger build volume, adding on the S1 extruder and CR touch, PEI build plate, and the aforementioned Sonic Pad, and CHT Volcano 0.6mm.
I haven’t used the older Ender 5 or Ender 5 plus. But I’m working on a fan duct upgrade for the Ender 5 S1 so I know that would a make a good upgrade path. I would look into what other ppl can achieve with the Ender 5 S1. If you want more output, I’d recommend getting a 2nd printer instead of tossing the old one!
@@NathanBuildsRobots space is a consideration for me, and I've been trying to jank together an enclosure for the 3 S1 to print Nylon, but a 5 Plus or 5 S1 can be more easily enclosed with some acrylic or non flammable high density foam... it's a far more attractive upgrade path for me since I can realistically only have 1 printer.
I noticed that you used an 8 GB SD card. I have been unsuccessful trying to load the flashware using a 64 GB card. I have read a few comments on line that said Ender printers have problems reading SD cards higher than 8 GB capacity. If that is true it would be nice to pass this info on to your viewers, since many people might buy a larger card being unaware of this potential problem.
You are far too skimpy with the thermal paste - gotta squeeze more in to have a chance of it working I reckon. Also, I think the fastest printed benchy is easily the best looking of the lot - such character and you have to admit it, its unique. Seriously though your pursuit of speed with this printer is doomed to failure - with its delrin wheel setup on the X & Y, axis imperfections will creep in fast as print speed increases. And the weight of the DD print head will cause all sorts of problems too. You'd have more success with the original bowden tube setup which means the print head weighs far less and will thus exert less inertial forces on the printer frame in movement.
I have a kg of boron nitride, next printer I assemble will be dipped in Boron nitride batter and deep fried to perfection I appreciate the comment. Print speed is proportional to printhead speed times layer height times extrusion width. I don't like to chase speed by flinging the toolhead around faster and faster. I prefer to speed up within reason, and lay down a fatter bead. I think this thing will do well at ths. The toolhead could use a diet, it's unnecessarily heavy. But there is also a lot of that weight is in the X gantry and carriages. Also keep in mind this is the Ender 5 S1, it came with direct drive, so I'm inclined to leave it on there as its less work and I'm lazy.
Why would you spend all the time and money making the fans quieter, and then jump the speed up? Speed printing is loud, even with TMC drivers, as they can't stay in silent step mode beyond a certain point anyways. I've never understood people's obsession with putting noctua fans on their printers. They're already pretty damn quiet already. Additionally, since Noctua fans are made for 12v systems, there's always added complexity by either having to install a voltage regulator or a chance of burning out the noctua by running them at a voltage they aren't designed for...
A single 220 ohm resistor limits the current so it is effectively getting 12v, not very complicated and near 0% chances of failure. This printer is quiet. I had a noise portion of the video, but removed it since it was redundant. The whole last episode was on the silent fan install and I didn’t want to go over it again.
