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Review and setup of 3D printer Anet A3

Review and testing of a new Chinese 3D printer Anet A3 with GearBest from a well-established manufacturer. Initial setup, refinement, calibration and of course 3D printing! Welcome to the 3D era!

Good day, dear readers!

My long-awaited Anet A3 3D printer has finally arrived! It is worth saying that this is my first 3D printer, but before buying, I studied this topic for a very long time: features of different types of plastic (filament), types of 3D printers, main components, differences, fragile moments, ways to improve the quality of 3D printing and much more. Shenzhen Anet Technology's first 3D printers, such as Anet A8 and Anet A6, have won a lot of popularity for printers from China. A large number of add-ons have been released for the A8 printer, created by the community on thiniverse and in the official facebook group, which, at the time of writing, has about 11.5 thousand members. nine0003

The last thing I want to say before we directly proceed to the review of the Anet A3 3D printer itself is that a 3D printer is still not for everyone. Although every year 3D printers are getting cheaper and closer to our home, they still continue to be quite niche devices, since even the most expensive home FDM 3D printer in the world requires the same care, supervision and control as the most cheap printer models, and also have a number of common problems. nine0003

As one person said somewhere on the Internet - "A 3D printer can be perfect for someone who, when his equipment breaks down, does not run to a repair shop, but successfully repairs it himself. "

Delivery, packaging and assembly

I ordered a printer from the GearBest online store at a price of $309. Recently, I began to order more often in this store, because there I have never had problems with delivery, and the delivery itself is an order of magnitude faster than in Ali. Together with the printer, I ordered a kilogram of plastic from Anet, an additional cooler for cooling the plastic at the outlet of the nozzle, as well as belts and additional nozzles in reserve. The delivery of this whole thing cost me about $40 and how surprised I was when, after the parcel passed the border, they called me from the SDEK delivery service (how happy I was that it wasn’t Russian post!) And they said that they would deliver the goods, moreover right in to the door! To say that I was pleasantly surprised is to say nothing, since the total weight of all the contents was around 14kg! nine0003

Delivery due to the New Year holidays went to rest for eight days, because the total delivery time of the parcel took 26 days.

The printer itself came in a double, thick corrugated cardboard box and was additionally wrapped with soft wrapping so that nothing was damaged. The printer arrived safe and sound, but not without flaws - more on them later.

Separate movable elements were also tightly fixed, so I had no questions about the safety of delivery. nine0003

Included with the printer, the Chinese put a power cable, a horseradish for attaching a coil with plastic to the back of the printer, a blower for cooling plastic and nozzles at the same time, as well as a “rich” set of tools and other small things straight from the heavenly fixed price and, well, very “generous” 10 meters PLA plastic that you will spend on the first day, I guarantee you :D

Printer view

I specifically chose a small 3D printer with an acrylic body to give it a slightly more domestic feel. The maximum size of a 3D object for printing on this printer is only 150mm150mm150mm, but nobody bothers to print a large object piece by piece, right? nine0003

Some mechanical parts of 3D printer

Interaction with the 3D printer is carried out using a simple screen, a knob and a reset button.

You can see the full specifications of the 3D printer on the product page in the GearBest store, or on the manufacturer's website.

Anet A3 disassembly and fixes of the Chinese "fuk-huyak and in production"

When I took the printer out of the box, I noticed the sound of something rattling inside the bottom of the 3D printer case. Having unscrewed the bolts and removed the acrylic bottom, I found that the main brains of the printer (Anet 2.0 mainboard) were not screwed at all, but simply lay in a pile of wires, and 4 bolts with racks were completely neatly lying in the corner of the case.

While I was screwing the board into place, I discovered that the “+” power contact of the heated table was not clamped in the terminal (apparently it was loosely tightened). After returning it to its place and carefully tightening it, I turned on the whole thing until the case was completely closed to see if everything was working. The printer started up without any problems - everything worked as it should. nine0003

And yes - cable management is clearly not about the Chinese. On the other hand, when you buy cheap Chinese 3D printers of about the same quality you expect, but there is no problem with that. All FDM 3D printers are arranged in approximately the same way and any parts can be easily obtained for it, everything can be repaired / replaced even if it fails.

So before the first print, I still recommend getting inside the case and checking if all the wires are connected. Then run a couple of tests - after turning it on using the printer control menu, try to move the extruder, heat it and the platform, etc. In my case, everything went fine, so I immediately proceeded to the next step - setting up the 3D printer and calibrating it. nine0003

Just in case, I'll attach an image of the Anet 2.0 board with signatures where and what to connect.

Installation and setup of 3D printer Anet A3

The main profiles for preparing 3D models for printing using the popular "slicer" programs are on the microSD card that comes with the kit. There are also instructions for using the Anet 3D printer, initial installation instructions, slicer programs for windows and several test 3D models in STL format and ready-made models cut into layers directly for printing with the .gcode extension. So you should not have any problems with the first launch and installation. nine0003

I recommend that you immediately save these files to your cloud, because during the time I used the complete memory card, I knocked down the format several times, so I had to format it every time.

Before proceeding, it is necessary to ensure the best adhesion for the first layer. If you print with organic (PLA) plastic, then for this I advise you to carefully stick Kapton tape over the table, or put a piece of durable glass. I do not recommend printing on masking tape. From my humble experience, I can say that an acceptable level of adhesion cannot be achieved with it. nine0003

Next, you need to insert the plastic blower that comes with the kit into the cooler hole 50x15 near the extruder. The “blower” itself is hastily printed on a 3D printer, so before inserting it, it may be necessary to process it with a file.

Then you need to pull the plastic thread into the extruder. To do this, we screw the holder for the spool with plastic into the prepared place on the back side of the case and install the spool / skein with plastic on it. The plastic thread must be pulled through the plastic tube straight up to the extruder. To securely clamp the plastic thread in it, you must first warm up the extruder - for this you need to perform a number of certain actions. And so, how to fill plastic in a 3D printer? nine0003

1. Go to the menu and select Preheat
2. We choose the heating option for PLA (it will be enough for us). Be careful - the extruder will be heated up to 200 degrees, and the platform up to 50.
3. We are waiting for it to heat up (the status is displayed on the main screen)
4. Press on the hex screw to press the metal plate. This must be done carefully, holding the entire mechanism so as not to accidentally warp the axis.
5. Pressing the screw, we drag the plastic 3-4 centimeters inside and release the screw

Answering the supposed question "How to replace the plastic filament in an Anet 3D printer"?

1. Repeat the previous 5 steps. (yes, it is also necessary to push the plastic through)
2. Lightly begin to remove the plastic. Ready!
3. Insert the plastic as in the previous 5 steps

Preparing a 3D model for printing

You can download free 3D models in STL format from thiniverse and a number of others. The STL format is necessary for slicer programs that will cut our model into soybeans and think over the paths and other necessary information (in principle, you can work with the obj format). nine0003

In order to prepare a 3D model for a 3D printer, you need to load it into the slicer program, which is already configured and prepared to work with our printer. For this purpose, I will use the Cura program for which there is already a ready-made profile with presets from the manufacturer (available on microSD).

To be honest, the standard set of parameters did not suit me at all, so I began to select my settings to create a suitable profile for medium and high print quality in Cura - I will tell you about this in the next article. nine0003

After the program finishes cutting, you can safely save the resulting gcode file to a microsd card and insert it into the printer!

3D Printer Calibration

Printer calibration is extremely simple, but very annoying! It is recommended to calibrate before each print.

To calibrate the 3D printer, turn it on, select Position, and then Auto home to set the extruder and bed to home position. Then go to the Control section and select Disable steppers to have the printer release the stepper motors and let you freely move the extruder manually. nine0003

Move the extruder so that the nozzle is in the left corner about 1 cm from the edge of the platform. stretch a sheet of plain paper under the nozzle - it should pass freely, only slightly touching the nozzle. If the nozzle is slightly higher, or the sheet does not pass at all, tighten the bolt in this corner. Repeat this operation for all corners of the platform.

Even the smallest oversight in the calibration can significantly ruin your object during printing, so take this process as seriously as possible! nine0003

First attempts at 3D printing

The first thing I printed for the test is a simple cube with 20% infill and size 20x20mm, layer height 0.2mm. It took about 15 minutes to create the cube - all this time I stared at how it appeared.

Unfortunately, I did not experience such success with cylindrical parts - the plastic lay down too quickly, often not having time to really stick to the printed surface. Two main things influenced this one: I printed the cube on masking tape, and also the default Print Speed ​​and Travel Speed ​​parameters were somewhat stupidly set, so the next time I had to select them manually.

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