I've been doing a bit more 3D printing than normal recently as I've been doing a lot of other DIY nonsense things like this viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1513&p=35547#p35547
However, I was mentioning to the LF a few weeks ago that I've really got to look at sorting out my 3D printer. In a nutshell, I built it myself with the help of a few friends and colleagues who printed parts for me and similar. But that was many years ago. The tech I've used is antiquated by today's standards. Without having a cover I've been very limited in terms of the materials I can print with. I've got to print really, really slowly in order to get good quality prints. I've only got a build area of 120x120x120. In short, my printer is a first generation 3D printer. No auto bed-levelling, no nothing. I've got no gripes about it - I've been lucky to have had a 3D printer even before they were easily available in ZA and I've always managed to get decent quality prints out of it. But I've not had the capability to print decent size objects, and I've also been very limited in terms of the materials I could print. And this has been irking me...
Fast forward a week or two later, a friend of mine mentioned on a WhatsApp group he was throwing a printer out if anybody was interested. So I said yay - I was. I collected the broken item for the cost of a case of beer thinking it was completely buggered but that I'd at least be able to use the frame and the other working bits (motors, etc) and build a newer and more current printer between it and my old one. A bit of investigation into the thing and I realised the big issue was the fact that no power was getting to the hot-end. A bit of googling, and it turns out that the motherboard uses a zero-ohm resistor (highlighted red) to provide power to the extruder. And there was no connectivity at all between the one side of the resistor to the other. In short: at some point the extruder had shorted out and burnt the resistor...
Before people call me mercenary: I did contact the original owner and offer it back to him for the cost of a few beers. He has acquired a new 3D printer, is happy with the new one and told me I must keep it... But I still owe him big time...
I was not happy with the stock firmware and software, so I've reflashed it with Repetier (https://www.repetier.com/) as I believe that will give me more control of my prints. Although I've recently started churning out prints my old printer gets in terms of quality, I'm still not getting the quality I believe I should be able get out of the new one, but I need to use different software for "slicing" and printing. I'll get there.