My CTC 3D Printer Build review + Mods

EDIT #1: I forgot to mention I have a 3D printed Z-Axis rod guide/stiffener yet to be mounted (keeps the ACME thread rod in place). Also I need to print some Y-Axis pillow blocks (already bought the bearings).


Hello all, I recently made a post in the general forum about buying a 3D printer, and ended up going with the pick of the CTC 3D printer via eBay (US warehouse delivery, china made). Been having a lot of fun modding and upgrading the hardware aspect of the printer; it can clearly print out of the box but I love to tinker and mod new gear :).

Right off the start I had to tighten all the hex screws/nuts since the majority of them were loose. Also, my Y axis rods are not 100% straight and a bit wobbly, anyone know if that is going to affect my prints (I haven't printed anything yet)? After tightening them up, I dropped a generous amount of red threadlock on those suckers. Let's just say this case isn't falling apart on me any time soon.

Some mods I've been putting into effect are:

• X-Axis cable support (pictured)
• Aluminum support arms for the bed (pictured)
• Corner braces for top (pictured)
• PLA exhaust fan cups -- snap in, have to reverse fans to shoot air OUTWARD (pictured)
• Raspberry Pi A+ WiFi printing via Astrobox or Octopi -- not setup (pictured)
• Wireless webcam monitoring (not pictured / setup)
• LED Case Lights w/ on/off switch (pictured)
• Alternate WiFi control of LED lights via RPi + relay switch (not pictured)
• Extruder head filament guide support housing (pictured), and filament tubing guides (not pictured)
• 6mm Borosilicate glass bed plate + silver metal clamps (pictured)
• Case windows + top and front plexi door (not pictured / not installed)
• Upgraded nozzles, upgraded extruder head for alternative filaments (not pictured, not installed/made)

Phew. That's a bit mod list. So on to what I can show you and some descriptions:

Attachment 6838

Here's the overview of the printer; you can see most of the visible mods here such as the cable guide for the X-Axis cables, glass bed, corner brackets, R-Pi (left side), LED switch (front) etc. I have the printer on rubber 'stilts' -- some heavy duty rubber squares I've had FOREVER and figured to put them to use here. Should help with vibrations/movement, especially on the slippery slidy plastic table.

LED Switch
This was a fun one to put together. I mounted my R-Pi (A+ model) on the right hand side using some heavy duty double sided tape, along with a USB hub DONGLE (plugs straight in to the USB port and has a rubber "foot" I built to give it support against the printer wall). The printer's back USB is routed underneath the base to the R-Pi, alongside USB power running from the printer's power adapter. I had to buy a 24v to 5v DC-DC buck converter adapter from Amazon. It's really tiny and amazing. The one I found was around $11 and did not need to set a potentiometer; the voltage reduction was preset. That was also taped to the underside of the printer base near the power source box.

Now, I read online it was possible to control a relay board from a R-Pi to control LED strip lights. Being a huge fan of automation and remote controlling things, l definitely wanted this kind of setup for my printer for when I wasn't nearby and wanted the LED lights on/off but didn't wanna go manually flip a switch :). After looking up some YouTube tutorials, miscellaneous R-Pi wiring diagrams for the GPIO etc, I managed to get all the wiring setup for the relay board to RPi. The clincher here is I can switch between direct power to the LEDs OR switch to relay control via the front toggle switch. How awesome is that! The wiring, soldering and mounting was a pain but definitely worth it. When the switch is DOWN, it routes power via another 24v to 12v DC-DC buck converter module (also from Amazon). This one on the other hand, had to be set for the voltage output. I'm glad it was variable, because after wiring my LED strips and mounting them, the 12v out did not seem to give ANY current to the LED lights, so I had to boost the output to about 16 volts or so (I didn't check the multimeter at the end, just rotated the pot until the lights looked about right). I could probably get away with higher current, since LEDs are still running cool right now and aren't as strong as they normally would be.

Attachment 6840

Closeup of the LED lights turned on with no ambient lighting present.


Attachment 6841

Closeup of the Rasberry Pi A+ mounting and wiring. The small red/black/green wires run from the GPIO header to the relay switch underneath the printer. The RPi will send a 5v signal to the relay telling it to close a circuit which provides 12-18v power directly to the LED strips.

I'm still working on getting the filament guides setup; the original 3D print for the guide base called for 6mm push-in tube adapters, which simply wasn't true (I'm using 4mm tube nozzle with a 5mm screw base). It's TINY. And I'm concerned because the filament holes do not perfectly match up to the screw holes on the guide plate. Additionally, the filament guide that is mounted on the back of the printer (not seen), has much larger diameter holes for screwing in the push-in adapters, which looks to be more like a true 6mm diameter hole. So I had to order two additional push-in tube adapters via eBay from china.

For the webcam, I'm torn between using a dedicated R-Pi webcam board, or a regular USB webcam. The advantages of using a USB webcam is that I can route the cable wherever I want; whereas the dedicated webcam board for the RPi uses a flat ribbon cable. Either way, I'm going to be mounting a 12" flex arm on the front of the printer (attached with 4 screws to the front panel). This leads to a 1/4" thread base adapter (general purpose for a lot of camera gear). I can then mount a webcam on the 1/4" thread and position it a bit further away from the front panel for better viewing of the print. My original thought was to mount a webcam inside the build area itself, but I would most likely need a VERY wide angle webcam (expensive), and more mounting hardware and finagling than I want to do.

Also up on my to-do / to-buy list, is the Critical Mods' plexiglass enclosure mod kit. Not sure if I'll opt for an exhaust fan or not; since I only plan to print via PLA for a while (then later on ABS and others). I know I don't really need an enclosure for PLA printing, but I still like to keep all the smell and nanoparticle plastics within my printer enclosure and not out in the air :). If I do opt for the fan exhaust, I'll probably mod that too with a custom carbon air filter pre-exhaust to filter out nanoparticles.

Any thoughts, ideas or suggestions on further bettering my 3D printer, is very welcome!

I'm still trying to figure out why you haven't printed anything yet.

Also those bulldog clips will have to go - the print heads will catch those on almost any print over something tiny in the centre of the plate. They will also get caught when you calibrate, start a print or home your axis :-)
I use slivers of kapton to hold my build plate in place. Bulldog clip[s just don't work once you actually start using the machine.

The only things I've done to my flashforge creator (essentially the same machine) are print area duct fan, 3mm aluminium build plate as the one it came with wasn't flat and we put an on/off switch at the front.

That's it - and she'll print anything :-)

So before you completely rebuild what is probably a perfectly working machine - try using it :-)