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Rejuvenating my 12 year old 3D Printer

A project log for RETRO 1 - Home Computer Console

Modular, customisable, 3D printed, retro-style case for a home computer

the-lab-guyThe Lab Guy 01/18/2024 at 21:010 Comments

I have an old 3D printer, an UP3D mini to be specific. It has a build volume of just 10cm x 10cm x 10cm. That's pretty small by modern standards.

Additionally, the bed-heater is fixed at 60 degrees centigrade and in it's original factory state, it only supported ABS filament because the nozzle temperature was fixed at 270 degrees centigrade (or something like that).

Also, the ABS prints would always warp during printing and turn rather poorly, unless they were very small. :-(

So one day not too long ago, I grabbed the latest firmware and desktop software, and got to upgrading, just for something to do.

To my great surprise the software upgrades added the ability to adjust the nozzle temperature and added profiles for PLA filament too. Woohoo!!!

I tried out some small test prints with PLA which came out great. So I tried some bigger prints, which also came out great and un-warped. Finally, I tried some 10cm x 10cm by 6cm prints and lo and behold they were awesome. No warping, easily removed from the print bed, no ABS stink.

And so was born my idea to try printing something BIGGER than my printer volume.

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