You need to level your print bed and adjust the z-stop. Your first layer (the top of the wings) looks like it's printing in mid-air. Fix that and the quality of the rest of the print will fall in line. That said, I would gladly print one for myself if you share the files. But first I would probably try to edit it to lose the pins and make it snap together with "nubs and divots" instead.
Thanks for the tip! Very new to 3d printing. Also changing filament isn't helping matter either. Big learning curve. Got an ender 5 pro. Any tips? Watched the videos and everything but 'significant drag' on levelling is a bit subjective. May invest on the auto leveller expansion because I'm having lots of first layer issues.
Leveling is a learned skill, it take practice. I suggest printing a skirt about 3-4 lines thick around each print, it's a great way to see how close you are to the bed and you can adjust level while it is printing to dial it in without hurting the print itself. You want that first level to be squished to the bed, but not so squished that the nozzle scrapes the bed. Your slicing software should have the option to enable skirts. Depending on the printer the bed level can change from print to print so it's something you need to constantly check. Autolevel is good, I just upgraded to it but you should know the basics of leveling even if you get it. Best thing about autolevel is that as long as you run it before every print, it doesn't matter if the bed level goes out of whack between prints, it will compensate. I suggest upgrading to the ender glass bed if you don't already have it as well. That was the single best upgrade I made to my ender 3 as far as getting a level bed and getting the prints to stick. Also get a heated bed upgrade if you don't have it, helps with PLA and is required for ABS. Some say it doesn't matter for PLA but it definitely helps in my experience.
Switching to flat springs is recommended too. I've started tramming the bed using feeler gauges as well.
Thanks to your advice my first layers are much better. Lack of confidence, fear of breaking the new machine and the really crappy stock filament that came with it and was ground into dust by the extruder have all led to a pretty rough first few goes. I've got heated bed, magnetic bed cover, metal extruder, updated tube on an ender 5. Now I've adhered maybe a little too well and am having trouble scraping it off! Might be able to drop the bed temp a little now I know how far down I can level for.
Print a temperature tower from thingiverse it'll show you the best temperature to print the filament you're using at.
I actually have one downloaded but when I tried with the stock filament it just fell over mid sprint! I'll try again with the good filament and hopefully get much better results.
Might be a good time to check that your ender's frame is square too, took me a few months to realise my Ender 3's gantry was slightly lop sided. There's a tonne of helpful YouTube tutorials for Ender maintenance.
Razorbeak Swordmaster - Transforming Sword Robot by fostorial Posted the files for the official v1 of this. Might try and make him clip together in the future but not for a while. I'd love to see how it looks if anyone makes the guy. Especially if printed by someone who knows how to actually 3d print!
I made a test copy - I edited it to get rid of the need for pins and did some other minor tweaks. Will do full color later. It's a pretty good design, the way the tail holds the blade shut is clever.
Thanks! I've got a few test prints plus the first full colour print that my son keeps nicking to play with which I must say is very gratifying! Mechanical shortcomings aside, I'm pretty proud of it. It looks so much nicer when someone who knows what they are doing prints it! Any chance you'd be willing to share your tweaked files? I'd love to know how you did it without pins. Something I'm definitely wanting to do for the next design I try. Got a rough idea how to do it but I'd love to see a working example. Think I've figured out a fairly convincing shield transformation to go along with the sword but not gotten past sketches yet.
@MegaMoonMan Just imported the files into Cura and I'm getting errors on the head, neck and tail. Going to run it through Meshmixer.
Most cura errors mean nothing to the end product, I get one on every other file and it always slices just fine - but I went ahead and fixed the tail and neck and re-uploded them. They had a couple duplicate internal faces that annoyed cura. I can't find an issue with the head, but it also slices perfectly regardless. Same with the wings.
Auto repair in Meshmixer destroyed the head but running it through the make solid function seems to have repaired the issue.
I've started printing the remix and it looks so much better after learning more about bed levelling. Is there a trick to assembling it @MegaMoonMan ? Got the wings in after some pushing but having real troubling getting handle in.
You just have to mash it in there. Might help to put the body down on a hard surface and tap the handle in with a hammer. You could also scale the handle down 1- 2% in the slicer and print it again if it is just too tight, or sand it down a bit.
Used a bit of old school leverage in the end. Jammed a sculpting tool into the body and twisted to give the body some bend. The PLA was surprisingly solid as it turns out! But all clicked together and looking ace! Thank you so much for helping get this sorted out! Learned a lot about 3d printing and CAD and joins. More importantly, I have a transformer I've made from nothing that works and is finished!
