New ctc owner, need advice

[nhutster]

Hi guys to I recently got hold of a ctc duel printer from ebay, first 3d printer and im a complete noob at this. now from what I've seen others have metal pulley gears where as mine came with plastic ones, do you guys think it's better to replace them with metal ones (if so could someone please provide a link) or would that not affect it. I'm on my phone and for whatever reason I can't post a photo but I will update with a photo when I get home. Thanks guys!

[adrianq]

Hi guys to I recently got hold of a ctc duel printer from ebay, first 3d printer and im a complete noob at this. now from what I've seen others have metal pulley gears where as mine came with plastic ones, do you guys think it's better to replace them with metal ones (if so could someone please provide a link) or would that not affect it. I'm on my phone and for whatever reason I can't post a photo but I will update with a photo when I get home. Thanks guys!

Welcome to world of 3D printing!!

I am fairly new myself so I definitely know how tempting it is to start upgrading everything and anything. I will say that the CTC is a pretty capable printer out of the box. It definitely has some room for improvement, but I haven't had to do any major surgery yet to get very impressive prints. I have tried the metal pulley gears and I honestly cannot tell the difference. Many people say it fixed the problem with them not being able to print round circles, but I never had this problem. To be honest, my biggest upgrade was printing the sprint loaded block from Thingiverse. It made printing with Flexible filament (which I do a lot of) so much easier.

My suggestion is to play with your printer for a bit. Get to know the stock version and allow yourself to get familiar with it. Then decide if you want to upgrade the hardware.

Always keep it fun.

[nhutster]

Welcome to world of 3D printing!!

I am fairly new myself so I definitely know how tempting it is to start upgrading everything and anything. I will say that the CTC is a pretty capable printer out of the box. It definitely has some room for improvement, but I haven't had to do any major surgery yet to get very impressive prints. I have tried the metal pulley gears and I honestly cannot tell the difference. Many people say it fixed the problem with them not being able to print round circles, but I never had this problem. To be honest, my biggest upgrade was printing the sprint loaded block from Thingiverse. It made printing with Flexible filament (which I do a lot of) so much easier.

My suggestion is to play with your printer for a bit. Get to know the stock version and allow yourself to get familiar with it. Then decide if you want to upgrade the hardware.

Always keep it fun.

great advice, thanks! i think thats what Ill do.

[Woraug]

After a ton of reading on here and other sites after I got mine, I seem to have gotten the short stick. Mine didn't print for spit out of the box. After all the printable upgrades were done it was like a completely different machine. Though, I still have problems with circles not being round. I'm currently waiting on aluminum gears to come in from China. They should be here some time between next week and August (Hooray for international shipping!) I'm really hoping the gears make the difference, because the only other option I have is a dying motor. I'll find out later, because if I'm going to be taking the whole thing apart, I'll just make a day of it.