Lots of frustration with the Creality Ender 3 Pro

It’s been about a 10 day journey to getting consistent prints with the Creality Ender 3 Pro. (Amazon affiliate link, but I got it from Creality for cheaper during their Black Friday sale.) Manual bed leveling is an art that there are too many opinions on that… well.. they didn’t 100% work. I tried various gaps from paper thickness to card stock thickness, and while they mostly worked, I would have prints fail at random places halfway through.

Initial Success

I had some success with the Creality Filament (affiliate link) with perfect leveling and some glue stick application, but most prints bailed an hour or two in:

The dog and cat prints did eventually work with specifically the separately purchased “official” filament, but not with the sample white filament that came with it.

Tempered Glass Bed: Amazing for Adhesion

The Dawnblade Creality Ender 3 Glass Bed Upgraded (affiliate link) greatly improved my success with the black “official” filament with the included print files and I was able to print a couple of things from Thingiverse like the Doggie Phone Holder if I started with a raft, but I still ended up a bit warped:

With the glass bed, however, I was able to get the Basics 3D filament (affiliate link) to work with the stock prints:

Creality CR Touch Upgrade: Possibly Better than the Glass Bed?

I bought and received the Creality CR Touch (affiliate link) prior to the glass bed, but installed the glass bed first because it’s much easier. (I later also bought the Ender 3 Pro bed clip clamps (affiliate link) which are mostly unnecessary, but provide cleaner clearance on the ends.)

I suspect that I might not have bought the glass bed if I had the CR Touch first, as the adhesion with the bed is almost *too good*:

Tips for Installing the CR Touch

• The motherboard is the box in the front left of the Creality Ender 3 Pro. There’s one small screw near the front of the motherboard case (and near the bed rail) and three below. You’ll need to remove all three.
• Remember to note WHICH VERSION your motherboard is *while you have the case open*… I don’t know if it matters, but if it does, you’ll kick yourself if you close it up before noting it:

• The firmware is in a zip file for your printer model under accessories on the Creality website
• You’ll have to turn the printer over to get to the motherboard port you need:

• The screws go into the mounting bracket up through the CR Touch and then into the bracket (you’ll be really mad if you fight to get them started the other way, but fortunately, the correct way is easier!):

Here’s a link to the YouTube video that helped me with figuring out the CR Touch install:

Now, Off to the Races!