UPGRADE your Creality Ender 3 V3 KE with Linear Rails

[@synapse8093]

Never owned a 3d printer before, but finding ways to upgrade my already budget friendly product is amazing to see. God bless the nerds

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I'm working hard to raise my nerd level, I think I'm sitting somewhere around 55, I need to learn more programming and electronics :)

[@nickg2705]

trust brother you're better off taking that money and buying a bambu lab p1s

[@user-2df90a0z1]

OMG! Was I the only one waiting for this video to drop??? I was scared cuz there were no tutorial videos... haha now I'm sorta confident about doing this upgrade lmao! Thank you! YOU'RE MY HERO!

[@Leeks88]

The KE is my first FDM printer, and your KE videos are how I found your channel. I’m really enjoying your work, thanks for the great content!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Hopefully the rods and linear bearings on your printer fit better than mine did. I'll have a few more videos for upgrading this printer coming out as well so that we can get a fast printer with excellent results and keep the price down. There are a few challenges to overcome, but that's what makes it interesting!

[@kslayer0]

@@NeedItMakeIt I just ordered one yesterday as an upgrade to my really old ender 3 and I'm super glad I found your videos as well! Your review of it was very good!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@kslayer0 Nice! I have quite a few upgrades/mods coming for this printer.

[@kslayer0]

@@NeedItMakeIt How well do you think those will work out of aluminum? I have a roll of polycast I've been itching to play with more and try casting some actual useful parts! but my modeling/cad skills aren't all that refined!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@kslayer0 I've like to see that! I've been getting ramped up to cast some parts as well, but my capabilities are pretty small. I think the plate would work amazingly from alum, I can send you the updated STL if you'd like to try it out. I am just about to re-print a more refined version. You are referring to the piece which I made from Polycarbonate correct?

[@heyitsdrew]

DO NOT BUY BLACK LINEAR RAILS! They coat them in a rust protective coating (Cold Bluing), yes. BUT what some suppliers do is they take OLD or USED rails and give them this coating to hide it. So you end up with not straight, or poorly coated rails. What you *should* do is buy normal steel rails that **aren't** black because protecting them from rust is not needed since they are already always coated in oil (which protects them), SO you can either keep up with lubrication (to protect the rails from rusting) or you can buy cold bluing solution and do it yourself - Birchwood Casey Super Blue - it is cheap and easy and anyone can do it. Just clean the part well, make sure there's no oil, rub the part in the solution. rinse and repeat (if necessary).

[@sovannv]

Thanks for the heads up. I was thinking about getting those.

[@highoctanestoner]

You can not reuse the rails that are worn out, there is an obvious wear mark that no coating will cover. Also you are supposed to clean off the rust preventative coating before use. So please do some research. I repair cnc machines for a living, these linear rails are nothing new to me.

[@tedwaetford]

So glad the algorithm pointed me to your channel. Really like seeing your methodical approach to testing. It's very satisfying you use a range of manufacturing processes to suit the purpose. The amount of time you must put into making these videos with all the printing etc is mind boggling. Your content is very professional, informative and super helpful to a new KE owner like myself. Well done and thank you.

[@mygamertag2010X]

Very very impressive modeling and problem solving! Your linear rail upgrade is phenomenal. Nice work!

[@whoguy4231]

Printing at the front left corner is when the belts are at their shortest relative to the x, y stepper motors. Any angle made by the belt mounting points to the extruder carriage and the bed support will skew the print as well as any vibration or imperfections from the geared tooth drive or stepper motor.

[@KannaKamui]

Please release the carriage! I made my own, but it having builtin spacers and a hex layout to save on more weight while keeping some strength is very tempting to test!

[@mjenx86]

Thanks for showing us your amazing work! I'm blown away by how much time and effort went into this upgrade, not to mention all of the filming and editing. Adding this to my list of future upgrades to my KE.

[@kickezer]

Thank you so much. I have ordered everything I need and will be doing this upgrade in the near future! Thanks again for your great effort and help to the community ❤

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I have another one you'll love coming tomorrow morning, enjoy!

[@hologos_]

For the algorithm!!! ✊You've done some incredible design for this upgrade, always looking forward to what you come up with! 👏 Cheers from vaccation in Bali 😁

[@NeedItMakeIt]

THANK YOU! And thanks for the model, I'll be printing some of these from TPU to go with the Nerf battles. I wish the upgrade with a little nicer looking, but function has to be first. I should have added some honeycombing to it, that would have done the job.

[@stew675]

Excellent work Mike on going above and beyond to do the work that, IMO, the Creality engineers should be doing prior to product release. It seems to me that the Creality production model needs to change, especially in the face of its competition nowadays that aren't cutting corners nearly as much. Sure, Creality's printers are cheap, but as another commenter points out, to actually get them to a point where they print as well as a competing product that costs a little more, you end up spending way more than that competing product. IMO, the marketplace is changing. More and more people are expecting something that isn't cutting corners straight out of the box. Creality needs to decide if it wants to be a maker of well designed printers for a low cost, or continue to product straight up bargain bin items that don't work as well as the competition out of the box.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thanks Stew! All of this seems so strange, from the extruder to the rails to the steel plate, what was going on? Was this a noob design? It reminds me of when I was working on our bit CNCs at work a few years ago, we had custom bits breaking constantly, they caused 2 fires as well, when I looked at the design, it was horrific, I worked on a new design with a different company, and we used traditional methods of router bit design, and guess what. Not only did the problem go away, we had better cuts, longer lasting cutters ... and not by a small margin, by a huge margin. No more fire hazard. When something is well designed, it's a beautiful thing. I think Creality can rise to the occasion, they just need to say goodbye to what worked for them a few years ago, maybe it's not so easy. I'd love to see a modular printer design, give me a printer that is build-to-mod, I want threaded holes everywhere! Whatever Creality comes out with next had better blow our socks off, they need to innovate and do things differently. Take everything that people want and find a way to get it into a printer with a ground up design. I always appreciate your insights!

[@robbycyr2099]

Made these yesterday from your files on makerworld; what an awesome set up and addition to this printer. Printed in PETG-CF at 50% infill, I printed the two end pieces in the middle of the be and put the bed mounts on either side, the surface finish was pretty good. hoping with this upgrade I will have good results across the whole bed.

[@AndrewMacRae-u1j]

Thank you! This has really helped my understanding of how do the linear rail replacement. Also, I am very keen on learning more about the printed carriage plate!

[@alexanderzawydiwski9534]

might do this to my ender 3 v3 SE In the future since the bottom portion of the printer is the exact same as the Ke good video

[@SgtNateHigers]

yeah i got my x and y axis linear rails in the mail right now for my SE. creality also just dropped their official version of the linear rail upgrade, but its only x axis for now. they havent dropped the y axis package yet.

[@PM-jk6uf]

​@@SgtNateHigerswhere did you find them? Store.creality didn't have any last time i checked

[@Rozwietr]

Hi, for me some recent videos are too specific so I've skipped them, but I'm sure people having this model of ender will love them. I'm giving thumbs up and comment for ranges anyway ;)

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I have some coming out which are much more broad, I tend to get onto a subject and have to just keep going at it until we get to some conclusion and when I keep finding problems... it's bad news. Thanks for your comment, I appreciate that feedback and I should have a few videos in the next weeks that would apply to a much larger audience.

[@ftball90]

Great mod!!! I found your channel due to purchasing this printer and trying to figure out how to fix the few issues I’ve found so far. I have loved this series

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thanks, my hope was that this would allow anyone to do the upgrade themselves. The hardest part is the screws into the power supply, but as long as you're using the 20mm long, you'll be good. The parts align themselves and follow the video and you'll be good. I'll have some more videos coming out on this printer, there are a few more mods worth doing to get to a better faster printer at minimal cost. I hope you continue to follow along as we go!

[@ftball90]

@@NeedItMakeIt I absolutely will continue following your channel as I learn and subbed. I’m a total beginner in the 3d printing world but understand CAD and mechanics so this is just the series I needed. I knew I wanted a “capable” printer but didn’t want to break the bank to obtain one. I also didn’t want to buy the cheapest possible thing I could find. After 100’s of hours researching I didn’t go in with a budget, but didn’t want to spend more than needed at this point with the understanding there would be some issues. If I enjoy it, and can be productive making blanks and test pieces for my side business I will gladly invest into upgrading the printer itself to something more high end in the future.

[@username0x0a]

My KE is still on the way in, but I'll definitely revisit this! Good job! 👍

[@loopymind]

Printing a holder for the filament roll seems to help too, so there isn't this weight at the top amplifying the movement

[@jetblack357]

I've got definite X axis wobble on mine with variation across both sides on multiple prints, printing off the set right now, good modelling and thanks for the help.

[@u2cantsee]

Fantastic design and modification. I just wish all manufactures took this route to eliminate this little issue. I would love to see a video on that new replacement plate and if it made a difference. Love your video and they are very informative. Keep them coming.

[@jonspot]

Subscribed and printed. First thank you . Super excited for this upgrade. Went to install everything and the screw that triggers the bed location switch is not hitting the switch. I could switch it out for a longer screw. But the lack of others commenting the same has me wondering if I installed something wrong. Thanks again.

[@IgnusFast]

You're a madman! I don't have the stones to mod mine, since it's my first printer. But your mod is amazing!

[@heyitsdrew]

the whole point of 3D printing *IS* modification. if you dont have stones to make your own machine better, you dont have stones at all

[@IgnusFast]

@@heyitsdrew Sorry, but that's bullshit. The whole point of 3D printing is to MAKE things, not have to figure out ways to work around flaws in the machine doing the printing.

[@heyitsdrew]

@@IgnusFast hahaha did you read what you just wrote? are you trolling?

[@zaxylotyl911]

​@heyitsdrew my god you sound insufferable

[@shadster208]

You hit the spot every time , love your approach and straight to the point problem solving. thanks a lot👍👍👍

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thank you! It's a great challenge to do these projects, there's always lots to learn, I would have preferred to have a few more mounting holes and flatter surfaces, but that's what raised the difficulty on me.... Maybe I levelled up my design skills?

[@mortegutt]

Speed is limited by acceleration, and these are limited by flow. I value high consistant flow over speed because i mostly print functional parts. Squareness and tramming of X and Y axis is one of the most important things, and thats where the budget printers usually fail. I just got my CR-10 SE, the squareness of the X-axis is hard to measure because the frame is covered in plastic. The print bed was 1,3mm off, and when i tried to fix this the bed screw got stripped cause they used screws that were not up to spec. This is just me scratching the surface of the printer, who knows what else is there to find. The "QC pass-sticker" on the side is a sad joke, however its the hars reality. I admire your efforts with trying to get the printer usable, hats off to you good sir!

[@noodl3d]

This made me sub. Great mod and i like that you made an improvement on the current rail mods available. Looks great. Pity the rail sets here are so dam expensive. Greetings from South Africa

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thanks! It was a lot of work to get to this point, but it turned out well, we just need to work on the extruder and we're going to be in good shape. I was able to get my rails on sale at Aliexpress, but when I went back to look they were out of stock... Amazon.com seems to have them for the cheapest at the moment, but maybe there is another source. Mine weren't the best, the stock Creality one on the X axis was smoother and quieter, and looks better frankly with the black.

[@FailureElite]

Great content, really helps with figuring out all the nuance of this printer. I can attest that the biggest improvement so far was ditching the PEI plate that came with it. Something defective about the surface, wettability is far too low. Switched to 1/16” thick garolite and all my first layer adhesion issues vanished.

[@vladimirstastny5393]

Hello, my KE had 8 mm dots and there was no need to modify it, just strengthen it as you mentioned earlier. It's worse with the construction, which was at a wrong angle. I solved it by sanding the bottom of each side to a right angle

[@titopancho]

wao, i am planing on getting a KE, this video blew my mind.. now i wan to do that too.. wao, excellent.. congratulations man.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Many more to come, I have several upgrades in the works at the moment coming to a website near you!

[@titopancho]

@@NeedItMakeIt man, this printer is new, no many people still have it, what you did is incredible, if i am you, i make at least 25 lineal rails converision kit and sell them.. 100% sure they wont last long... and with that video tutorial, you have a good oportunity in your hands..

[@802Garage]

I looove this upgrade! Exactly how I would have done it, but I literally couldn't have done it better myself. 😂 It even just looks like a much more solid and stable design. You'll have this printer near perfect by the time you're done. 😜

[@kimmotoivanen]

PC plate might be too flexible (esp. in Z direction) to work well, but let's see it tested :) Does Klipper have Z or weight compensation for IS frequency (Marlin FTM does, for the record)? Or maybe IS for Y should use wider shaper to cover the range from empty plate to full plate / high Z ? Overall, KE sounds like a good printer, until it's not. Likewise K1 sounds like a good printer, but VFA. K1C fixed that, but changed to different harder-to-get nozzle. If you have K1, how about a mod for smaller pulleys etc. to bring VFA on par with K1C? Maybe shorter stepper motors are not required 🤔 Bedslingers are perfect for slow big prints (plus and max variants) and moderate speed (still a lot faster than what we were used to in 2022 - thanks to Klipper and Marlin IS!) small prints. Core-XY seems to be the only way to go for impatient people with a bit more loose money or high requirements for print quality 😅

[@NeedItMakeIt]

It's certainly more flexible, I'd like to look at an aluminum version, and in each case I'd need to buy the accelerometer add-on to allow the resonance to be measured correctly. Right now it uses Klipper with hard-coded values and I could be wrong, but it should be measuring before for input shaping, but also while the print is occurring to adapt while the mass on the buildplate changes. They've made a cheap starter printer, but it's not as easily upgradable as the older gen with the extrusions, this would have been such an easy project if I didn't need to try and fit these parts to something that has such a strange shape. The newer metal frame Ender 3 V3 has a nice flat solid base, but it seems that they've replaced the small rods with larger 10mm, and maybe they'll be a better fit to avoid these issues. Having moved mainly to CoreXY myself, I see a pretty big benefit, mainly the enclosed print, but also that I can design and print something the same day, I can also take an order and ship it out the same day, which is pretty nice for everyone. It is a bit of an instant gratification, wait until the replicators come out.... I like your idea about the VFAs for the K1, there are probably a lot of people that could use an upgrade like this. Creality should provide one!

[@starplatinum2216]

so excited to receive my Ender 3 V3 KE, plan to use it for printing anime action figures, some 1/3 to 1/4 scale and paint them myself.

[@przemekkobel4874]

So, no chopping of the printer base... nice. As you redesigned the base plate, it reminded me of something regarding bed warping. I noticed that the bed is perfectly flat when not tightened to the base plate, after mounting and leveling it gets warped a little, and situation gets worse after heating it. Obviously the problem originates from tensions and thermal expansion. So maybe instead of mounting bed directly to the base plate via screws, it would be better to put 4 mounting points on 4 mini linear rails oriented diagonally? They should be tight enough to avoid any slack, and they would keep the bed tension-free (i.e. flat), even when it grows because of thermal expansion. Or maybe I'm talking nonsense, and warping occurs anyway, because the heater PCB expands differently than the bed it is glued to...

[@30dimos]

worth it, it's not all piped like normal, so it will have a uniform design

[@alpercagangunes]

I I have a same wobbling problem on the right side lineer bearings to. When i press my finger on the right side of bed it goes up and down. But this is my first printer and im not trusting myself to make a huge changes on machine. Maybe one day people start to sell offical upgrade kits for lineer rail upgrade i will buy it but not now.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

If it's a new printer, I'd suggest you contact Creality and ask for replacement parts, hopefully a new set will fit better. Let me know if that works!

[@alpercagangunes]

@@NeedItMakeIt its been almost a month. i contact my seller multiple times and he said he is gonna call me back but never did. i can feel a gap in bearing but surprisingly there is not huge errors in my parts and nearly perfect. so i just let it go. btw thanks for the advice i will definitlty contact with creality directly to.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@alpercagangunes Let me know if there is anyway that I can help. I think you should be able to submit a short video to Creality showing the problem along with a short blurb. As far as where the problems are coming from, for me it seems to be that the extruder cannot handle PETG well, I still can't explain it completely, but maybe this is partly the issues you're running into.

[@woodcat7180]

6:56 Ouch. Kudos for leaving it in.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I know! I was really lucky that I had carpet in that spot, most of my shop is concrete. Note to self, remove the rails before trying to do that the next time... Bozo came to down for sure on that one.

[@teknikeleman44]

It's a great work. Congratulations. I was inspired by a similar work and bought a 300mm rail. It has one mgn12H on it, but yours has 2. Can your work be done with a 300mm rail? Thank you.

[@dpoulson]

I would love seeing your data report on the use of the poly carbonate plate. Great video btw, I've been back and forth on doing this upgrade for a long time. Your revision makes more sense. I never liked how close together the rails were. Spreading them apart makes much more sense. Thanks for all you do for the 3D printing community! I clicked on your two links for the rails. But they didn't come up as the black ones. Am I missing something? Lastly, what model is it that I purchase? And how do you go about cutting them down to 350mm? Thanks again! PS. Do you have an extra spot in your discord group? I would love to listen in to learn. How can I join if you do? Sorry, very new to Discord.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Hi! I think the PC could work well, I will see about making some tweaks to it and see if I can bring this to everyone to try themselves. If not from PC, maybe ABS as an alternative, not everyone has PC, but I'll try to make it so it's printable on any printer (may require at least a towel or two draped over your bed slinger). It seems a lot of people are interesting in the PC option, I will purchase the accelerometer for the printer and then we can get some measurements as well as compare the before and after, the Y axis vibrations are not so great and I wasn't running the printer at full speed, so we can do better. I will also look into an aluminum plate option, alum will cost more, but it should be stiffer and thinner as well. I say that other option for linear rails and I think they did a good job, but I was looking for something a little bit better that would last longer and keep that be as stable as possible no matter where we print the parts. I couldn't find any black rails at a good price unfortunately.... I looked for quite a while but I only saw one set which was far more expensive, so maybe we could use bluing instead? I think they may be stainless I'm not sure the bluing would work well. Yes please join our discord! I have a link on my Patreon page near the top that should work, but if it doesn't let me know. We have a great team on our discord of very talented people and it really to have a crew of people that havev a problem solving mindset.

[@dpoulson]

Thanks for the reply! I found these rail at Amazon. It appears black already. And the description indicates it will accept bluing. What do you think of these? or should I just go with the ones you have selected? Lastly, do I need both M3 amd M4 brass inserts? I know I can go back and review the video. Thanks for taking the time to answer all these questions. PS. I became a pateron ASA member.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@dpoulson I don't think it allows links here, but you can send a note on Patreon. Only M3 heat sets are needed on this job, the 4mm screws will go into the power supply. I saw that thank you so much!

[@stefanNT_1008]

Tremendous work! Please go ahead and test the printed carriage, i am really curious to see how that holds up. Also please consider garbing an Ender 3 V3 SE and work your magic on it, i have the SE and i feel that a lot more folks got the SE, as it is quite a bit more accessible in the price department, but it has its own set of flaws. Thank you !

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Cool I will, it would work in combo with this upgrade, but I need to add a little more clearance because the PC or maybe ABS plate would need to be thicker, too bad we didn't think of this earlier. I may also try an aluminum version at 4mm thick which should be around 1/3 of the steel plate and it should be stiff enough as well. I'd like to see if I can have a company CNC machine it so it has everything integrated into one. I'll have to check out the SE, it looks similar to the KE - the Klipper and a different setup for the extruder/head.

[@stefanNT_1008]

@@NeedItMakeIt Stellar!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@stefanNT_1008 I have a few projects in the pipeline that I need to finish up but I'll get back to this and we'll get something really good going.

[@stefanNT_1008]

@@NeedItMakeIt I am looking forward to see what you have mapped out, thank you for your work!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@stefanNT_1008 Sounds good! I have a few videos to get through but I'll come back with something that looks good, works well and is easy to install and print yourself. Well... that's the plan anyway, whether I can deliver on that, I sure hope so.

[@Dr.Pepper-BB]

Hey Mike, could you tell something about the noise with the linear rails. My SE is really loud while moving the bed. Does it increase or decrease the noise? Thanks for the great video! Keep up the great work!

[@rondlh20]

Great upgrade, this is a excellent way to support a moving bed, well done. The PC bed support should work fine too, but I'm not sure if the reduced weight is significant.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thanks! I think it could have been even better if I had used ABS or PC for the parts, but I didn't have enough of that in-house since I mainly print with PETG. The weight reduction amounted to just under 400g, but we added a small amount more friction with the linear rails, they are running nice and smooth now, at first they were a little bit stiff, especially one side. I'm working on a PC bed that anyone can do as long as there is enough interest, I also want to learn a bit more about the factors involved, expansion of the aluminum heat bed above it etc.

[@waggy401]

​@@NeedItMakeItI'm interested. I have a KE and recently installed silicone spacers to get the bed more level. Mostly I had already sanded the originals, then realized that the gantry was leaning back a couple degrees. After correcting that, the plastic spacers were way off so I replaced them. But I have noticed on mine and many others that the bed seems to be cupped, with the middle fairly flat but the corners warped upward.

[@MariuszLon]

I noticed this also, the bed is bowed up I checked it with a straight edge. For now I put 3 strips of painters tape in the middle and it is almost perfect. @@waggy401

[@ErikBeverloo]

This looks great, I want this on my printer,, is the SE the same as the KE printer?

[@J_i_m_]

A free and quick alternative is to re-tighten the stock bearings while pushing them in a V-position. It will probably wear even faster, but works for now :)

[@borisn879]

I use linear rails in KE. They are beautiful!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Nice, where did you buy yours?

[@joiscara7191]

I have my V3 KE sitting in my car, and I’m pondering if I should go with this.

[@TS_Mind_Swept]

I feel like it would have been a lot less work to modify the linear rod setup, possibly putting in another set of berings (like you did with the rails), and maybe even just replacing the ones that were there with ones that weren't so loose (if you couldn't adjust the ones that were there of course.. seems kind of strange to not be able to 🤔 ). This is definitely a very robust alternative though, and I do agree that it's a bit ridiculous to make something try to move so much mass around so quickly.. but then again, any of the printers are kind of limited by the ability of the material to liquefy and solidify in terms of speed, so why the printers are the only things getting the speed focus is kind of beyond me 🤷🏿‍♀️

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I see that the newer Ender 3 V3 (Metal frame) has larger dia. rods, and I would assume that it's to avoid this problem. My printer being new and already having the be vibrating needed a solution. I covered in the prev. video that the correct size of rods with a pre-load would be fine for this printer. I just figured it be better to have an option for long-term and there is one linear rail option out there but it uses only centrally mounted carriages, so we're back to the teeter totter effect. If they went with rods and somehow were able to run them out further, we could have bearing blocks spaced out further as well and it would be more stable, but they've crammed it all in there to look good I suppose.

[@TS_Mind_Swept]

@@NeedItMakeIt Definitely seems like a bit of a short-sighted design decision to make it like they did... but I suppose they were trying to iterate on previous designs whilst not making them vastly different.. kind of unfortunate that it leaves so much potential for issues like this though, especially when it could have so easily been avoided..well, back to the ol' drawing board 🤷🏿‍♀️

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@TS_Mind_Swept Maybe it was one of those... "hey you, new guy, we need you to design a printer.. "type of situations.

[@TS_Mind_Swept]

@@NeedItMakeIt Well I wouldn't go so far as to say that.. a lot of the designs are fairly decent on it, but clearly not everything..

[@TS_Mind_Swept]

@@NeedItMakeIt Thinking about it some more, if it was a new guy, it probably would look a lot different than it does since the current design is so similar to the previous; might not necessarily be better, but newer people tend to look at things differently than people that have been doing the same thing for a while

[@TonyGrant.]

I have to say that although I have a bed slinger at the moment (it was given to me by a friend) I'm not remotely interested in getting another. I will (and have) make some upgrades to this one but when I replace it it will be with a core x-y. Regardless of any input shaping you will always have the variable of the weight of the print itself increasing as well as the height which will cause inaccurate calibration as the print develops as well as oscillation as it gets higher.

[@throwapot]

Out of curiosity, why not just add an additional set of bearing blocks to the original rods?

[@suivzmoi]

please do input shaping modeling before and after modifications. this is something i've been having trouble finding on all the online reviews/videos about E3 V3 SE/KE: we actually don't know the accel limit of this printer vs the advertised 8000 . it is always important to quantify objectively before and after changes are made and IS modelling allows fast and repeatable measurements without having to rely on subjective prints. my assumption is that all these modifications may not actually show improvements at stock settings but may prove their value at higher accel--meaning they unlock potential but you have to print faster to see it. regarding the 0.5mm droop at front right bed attachment, i have a feeling that the base of the printer on which the rails are attached may not be flat. it is after all also a stamped piece. i noticed you checked for parallelism of the rails in Z plane but not for parallelism to the Y plane. the front side of right rail may itself be 0.5mm lower than the rest of the rail plane. assuming a 150mm separation in the rails a 0.5mm droop is something like 0.2deg which is within precision thresholds of a cheap spirit level + eyeball and definitely detectible with a digital one. if the rails are misaligned in Y plane this will actually transfer flexing forces through the rail adapters/rail/rail carriage and into the stamped metal base. the base should flex the most but i think the printed adapters may also suffer from premature maintenance required. if the rails are misaligned in Y, the 0.5mm shim should be under the rail rather than above it.

[@brustertootwopointo4644]

I recently upgraded all of my Creality printers...with new Bambu Lab printers! Never again Creality. You got all you're getting from me. Good bye...

[@_powerbeard]

The petg problems may be due to lack of dimensional accuracy of the filament. I have had the exact problem and that was the cause.

[@MichaelDeeterIA]

Who the heck uses regular hex allen keys these days (5:06)? :) - just teasing... really enjoying your videos lately... I really appreciate your videography and presentation. HQ for sure.

[@peaceorpieces8343]

Cool upgrade, i use the ldo rails on my ender 3 they are alot better than the cheap Amazon ones, travel speed seems to affect most creality bed slingers Great video

[@NeedItMakeIt]

LDO, I'll have a look, I don't use to many linear rails, but I think there are quite a few projects coming up that will require them so I'll need a better source, thanks for that! I just had a look, can you purchase direct? I can't find any side for LDO, only resellers.

[@peaceorpieces8343]

@@NeedItMakeIt i got mine from onetwo3d not sure if you can get them direct

[@julesmarcu5635]

Great job on the linear rail upgrade. As far as the metal under plate being replaced with polycarbonate, Will the heated bed affect the polycarbonate plate?

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thanks, I still need together back to that printer to finalize the upgrade, but with PC it seems to work well, I modified the design a bit so that it had more stiffness where it matters, but aside from that, the heat tends to go up and there is insulation on the bottom of the bed as well which helps, but it does make me wonder a bit, and I have a thermal camera too, so I can check to see now what it looks like. I also think ABS GF would work well, or possible something with CF in it too mainly to keep it as stiff as possible. The biggest issue to address is still the extruder or extrusion, I really need to get back to the project to finish that part of it off!

[@throwapot]

Great design. Curious if this adds much mass to the bed and the impact it would have on acceleration.

[@laydnbeats]

I think it would be better to keep the original aluminum plate rather than 3D print one. The weight difference would be moderate, but i don't think this would make a difference on max accelerations. I tried it on my ender 3 V2 that is not even an ender 3, and I have got zero benefits rather than have a tiny more wobble. Note : I love your videos and how active you are, keep it up !

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Hey! If it were aluminum, I'd definitely keep it, but they made it from steel and it comes in at about 500Grams and when I added the prints to it we had about 600g. When I swapped it out, we were at 139g, which is a pretty good savings, you can certainly feel it when you move it around with the belt taken off. Thanks! I have 1-2 videos every week, some take longer than others, I need to get better at this so I can get more out there.

[@laydnbeats]

@@NeedItMakeIt Dang that's heavy ! Yeah well 3D Printing a carriage seems to be a good idea then.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@laydnbeats yeah, I don't know who made that call, and it was bowl shaped as well, I've no idea if that was on purpose either, the parts mating to it weren't bowl shaped, I can't see that working out well. I hope that this option gives people an alternative that lasts the test of time and helps to get their prints to the next level.

[@802Garage]

​@@NeedItMakeIt500g is crazy! Can't wait to see what you come up with.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@802Garage Core XYZ bed slinger next, I just need to figure out how to cross the belts over each other!

[@CoreyStup]

Looking forward to trying this mod! Thanks so much!

[@Wandering_Horse]

I am curious if the lower bed plate was machined true to remove any bowing as you had pointed out in the beginning of the video, would net any positive results. Printing a bed plate from plastic of any kind seems like a downgrade in my mind simply due to the variable temperatures it will encounter. I have the KE and it is my first foray into 3d printing so my knowledge is limited but I have also worked in precision CNC lathe and milling for aerospace. The first thing I did with this printer was ditch the nylon? bed spacers with precision machined stainless parts, although the rear left corner is sitting on a plastic wire support for the bed heater wires and that is still needing adjustment. I have still experienced the nozzle dragging in the plate inexplicably. Not sure if this is all due to quality issues or simply user errors despite running multiple calibrations. At the end of the day is any of this worth fighting on a $200 entry level unit?

[@kenken7120]

Keep going with the bedslingers!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I think I have about 3 more videos coming up just for this printer alone.

[@sp4yke]

Just subscribed. I love the quality and high level of details and precision you put on your videos. May I ask what technique you used for scanning the base ?

[@peterstoltz3296]

Thank you so much for showing the right ways to upgrade our printer's. I have ender3 v3 se version so im going to order the linear rails for it and what's the number for the x linear rail number??

[@simonbyrne1182]

I also found my Y-axis bearings to be sloppy. I've adjusted them as much as I can, using the play in the mounting screw holes, but I never imagined being able to swap them for linear rails. This is a brilliantly engineered upgrade which is also entirely reversable if needed. I bought my V3 KE after having many impressive prints off the Ender 3's we have at work and I must say I've largely been disappointed with the print quality I'm seeing from it. The wobbling of the gantry bothers me so I plan on tacking that at some point.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Unfortunately it just isn't suitable for a printer with these kinds of speeds, the steel plate, the central bearings. It's all good, we'll get it where it needs to be, the next video is going to be pretty cool and I will have something coming out for the Z as well, but first we need to do something pretty cool in order to get something we can work with a little bit easier. Sorry for being cryptic, the video will be release this weekend coming, it should be cool!

[@simonbyrne1182]

@NeedItMakeIt no worries, I completely get it. I'll be watching with great interest when the next video drops. One thing I wondered about the Y-axis rail mod, is there a physical stop for the bed towards the front of the machine now?

[@LostCloudx4]

Just so you know, Ali Express have a kit with plates rails and all to slap straight in. Ordering 2 now

[@ParshvaPatel-ib9lm]

Is it possible to modify hotends of this printer to print like and carbon fibre filaments. I want to print nylon parts on budget so I looked at ender v3 ke/se but couldnt find any mods and I dont want to buy older ender 3 which has a lot's of variety in terms of mods but older firmware do you have any suggestion? Btw brillant explanation in every step of the process.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Hi, it is possible, the nozzles for this printer can be swapped for ones with hardened steel tips, but printing higher temp materials with success will require an extruder with hardened steel gears and it'll also need an enclosure. I have a video coming out next week on Wednesday on that subject if you can wait until then to decide.

[@ParshvaPatel-ib9lm]

@@NeedItMakeIt I am definately going to wait thanks for update.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@ParshvaPatel-ib9lm No problem, and let me know when it does come out if it helped to make a decision.

[@sebastiankrosinger2101]

Great work! But I've got one question: Will the strain gauge still work after this mod?

[@vladimirstastny5393]

Díky!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thank you very much, I really appreciate the help!

[@vladimirstastny5393]

@@NeedItMakeIt What you are doing is amazing and helps a lot. You have everything thought out and I like that. Keep it up.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@vladimirstastny5393 Thank you! I try to think of as much as possible, sometimes I need to go back and start over if it's not working out with the original ideas. I have a few more videos coming on upgrading this printer, one of them has some really cool new connections that I've created, it'll be interesting to see what people think about it.

[@vladimirstastny5393]

​@@NeedItMakeIt Nice.I'm already looking forward to the next idea. I am currently experimenting with noise reduction on this KE. I achieved a large reduction by cutting out a grid in the sheet metal in front of the fan and also in the sheet metal on the DC power supply. The fan itself is not that noisy, but the holes in the sheet metal make noise. I am now designing a new printhead cover for the noctua 40x40 hotend built-in cooling fan. It's hard, I'm trying not to gain weight.

[@komiteunofficialaccount9224]

What's the model that you used for the test print? The XYZ corner thing. Anyway, I've been watching your KE stuff and it's definitely very solid man, I've been 3d printing for... a month? (also learning CAD to help me design parts to help around the home) and I'm super excited to see what you do next with this printer!

[@richardmiklos]

I have some Y axis location bias when setting the probe to nozzle z offset. Basically the offset is different at the front of the bed and the rear of the bed. I read that it could be from a twisted Y rod and a linear rail would help. Could you do the "Location Bias Check" from the Klipper docs please? Doing it just at the middle back and middle rear is enough. The difference should be lower than 0.025mm.

[@TheJensss]

Great video! Does the rail upgrade work with the Ender 3 V3 SE also?

[@JenSalik_]

For me it qould be very interesting, if the PC bed works and if it delivers any advantages.

[@darkxipher1908]

I think the removal of the steel plate with cause issues with the center of gravity on the printer but you never know until you try

[@PrimalShutter]

Good job, the way it should be by default

[@Almost_Made_It]

Just ordered this yesterday and now I watched your series. Do you think this problem can be mostly solved by printing slow? I don’t need fast prints

[@andyb7754]

Very nice upgrade, thank you.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

You're welcome, I hope it helps a few people, hopefully anyone that wants to do this upgrade can find the rails at a good price, mine were cheap, but they weren't the best quality, so I can't really tell people to go that route. They are working nicely after a few prints and I'll keep them oiled and we should be good for a long time.

[@avejst]

great video Great upgrade Are you not dubling the price for the printer? Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍😀

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I was able to get these linear rails for less than 40$ CAN, that's the entire kit, I luckily had the screws and inserts already, unfortunately I didn't have much of a choice but to fix it. New rods may not have solved the problem and I figured other people would want this if not now, sometime down the road.

[@TiXeNo1]

I'm trying accomplish what you have done in the video, but I wonder if the lenght of the M3 bolts are very important? You say 8mm and 12mm.. I have 6mm, 10mm and 14mm on the M3. Can I use any of them instead of buying even more 😅

[@darkalleywaystudio3975]

Weird question. The chassis of the KE looks similar as the SE. I have been following your videos for a bit and wanted something more stable for the rails on the SE. It has those two foam pads that work but I can see these needing to be swapped do to wear. Would this upgrade work on SE if you had to guess? Thank you for your videos =)

[@miniboom007]

Instead of steel plate, perhaps aluminum? Thanks for the info (upgrade).

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I'm not 100% certain why they went with steel, my first guess is that it was to try and resolve the flex issues they were having with the centrally mounted linear bearing approach. It could also be to try and make the parts as similar to the SE as possible, the metal is stamped slightly differently than the SE but overall it is the same shape. I think with the linear rail mod here an aluminum plate or a Carbon fiber plate would both work really well....yesterday I tried to see if I could order a Carbon fiber plate from Send Cut Send, but it wasn't accepting my file... but that's one that I would like to see. I have the polycarbonate plate on there and it's working well, but I think the CF or Aluminum would be better and overall stiffer.

[@miniboom007]

@@NeedItMakeIt if possible consider doing both, aluminum and CF? Compare the difference. It looks like you got some more content for you channel. On a side note, I do not own a 3D printer. Just looking around to see what fits my hobby (RC rock crawler trucks). Not really looking to be upgrading and taking it apart. What do you suggest for a newbie, like me. Although I prefer a printer that self levels (calibrate). Thanks for the video and info..

[@madness3D_]

Support this mans makerworld models so that he gets points for a P1S or X1C. That way he doesn't need to upgrade and troubleshoot his printers 😅

[@Rhunadan]

Brilliant design.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thank you!

[@TheNextGreatGamer]

Would this work on the SE version? They're very similar printers and it looks like it might fit. Awesome upgrade!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Yes it will, I've had a few people already try it out and there is only one difference, and that's on the steel plate below the bed, it is more hollowed out on the SE than the KE. That does not impact anything for the installation so it should be G2G!

[@MurrayBill]

Hi, newbie here. Would metal washers work in place of the printed shims? Definitely a great video, will add rails as soon as they arrive.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Hi, and yes they will work as long as you can get a washer that's the right thickness, I had trouble finding any that were thin enough for the amount that my bed was out by.

[@MurrayBill]

@@NeedItMakeIt Got it, gotta be picky with the thickness. Time to bust out the calipers. Thanks for the reply!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

​@@MurrayBill At one time I had paper shims, they also worked fine for getting very precise adjustments, positioned below the standoffs.

[@vladimirstastny5393]

Hello, I finally received the linear rails from ali. Do you think it would be better to put them directly on the base plate via the created 3 mounting points for each (middle screw on the middle metal sheet). They should sufficiently strengthen the entire mounting plate. This would prevent any twisting. They would hold the bed firmly and perpendicular to the Z uprights. The thermal expansion of the mounting plate should then not have such an effect.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

If you can I think that's a great idea, I would have wanted to do this, I only avoided it to provide people with the simplest solution possible. Your idea is better I think. I guess my only small concern is that the base isn't flat and may pull the rails down to the position it would like them to be in.

[@Queracus]

people who made first printers with rods were high on something. As a mechanical engineer, when trying to make something as accurately as possible in motion, you would never use rods...especially since price comparison with rails is basicaly thesame for such short travels. If you are in Europe, get the Hiwin brand of rails and low profile carriages. With grease (not oil because it solidifies usually) they will last longer than any of us :) Hope you didnt loose any bearing balls from the carriages when the rail flew out :D than again, using printed adaptors for the plate reintroduces possible future ware and movement. rather give those small pieces to some machinist to make out of aluminium. Threaded inserts are another weak spot - alot of possibility they arent straight, which will introduce tension in the 3d printed plate adaptors. with aluminium adaptor, you can avoid the possibility of crooked threads + you would spot any tension in the assembly, since the carriages would seize up, or they would move harder at some points on the rail (if rails arent parallel) (also thats a great test to check if your rails are parallel). With 3d printed part which can flex, you lose that parallelism check (unless you go trough the tedious work of doing it with the gauge - but even if you do, it can still shift when you assemble the parts. reason being rails have bad reference step to press against (with radius) on the printed mounting parts). Best way to do it is probably ditching the original plate under the bed, and replacing it with your own 3mm tick sheet. Bolt it directly to the carriages. Maybe some holes in it if you think you need more heat dissipation or less weight for the bed, but i dont think its needed once the bed is at working temp. But i rather have stiffness than less weight. at some point weight becomes good if things are rigid, since it dampens vibrations. Edit: ignore the plate thing. you mentioned it yourself at the end. My thoughts about trying to make bed slingers go fast: Instead of making them fast, make them able to print wider extrusions so they will need to make less travel/passes, and save on time from that direction.

[@pb8416]

I'm learning bout 3d printers and how to improve them. I don't see the use for the Adaptor Plate. Could the Bearing Blocks be drilled and threaded. Then have the Bed be direcly attached with spacers for adjustment?

[@albi1cnobi1]

First off, thanks for the amazing content and tutorials! I have followed 2 of your other videos and created all of the attachment points on the base of my Ender 3 V3 KE and also printed and installed the support arms for the tower. Now I'm attempting to do this upgrade(linear rails), however I'm having a problem printing the front and rear rail attachment plates. The hotbed adapters printed fine but the front and rear plates are giving me fits. I first tried ABS and towards the middle to upper end of the print they end up looking like soft half melted chocolate. Kind of wavy and the very top starts to curl a bit. So I tried PETG and that was even worse. Now I will say that I am a novice when it comes to 3D printing but I've been doing a lot of research on correct hotbed and nozzle temps for different filaments. I just can't seem to get these right. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Al

[@richardmiklos]

Could you recommend a few specific PETG / CF-PETG filaments you think would work for the models required for this? Sadly Prusament is not an option in my country.

[@petercallison5765]

Hard to keep up with all the new models, I thought this upgrade might make it equivalent to the CR10 SE but it has a different extruder. So obviously the extruder on the KE is not meant to be their best. I was interested in the Ender 3 V3 CoreXZ but at the price it makes no sense when I can get the Flashforge 5M cheaper. By the way you cannot buy extruders for the KE or CR10 SE.

[@wizardfpv7856]

Why a c carriage over a longer h carriage?? Wouldn't the h be better?

[@オールマイト-y1f]

I might be wrong. But I feel like alot of this could have been easier fixed with removing the fillament from the top heavy loader and adding the anti shake chip and that would basicly acheive the same thing with significantly less investment and time?

[@МаксимТомчин]

Hi, the models you have provided are exact size of the printer holes. Do i need to zoom it to cover for example ABS shrink after print. Look forvard for reply, chanel and models you have provided are great!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Hi, good question! With ABS, you'd probably see about 0.25mm contraction over that distance, it's a good idea to account for it if you'd like a perfect fit. There is also some clearance in the holes, but if you want a bit more, you can use a 3.5mm bit and ream them a bit as well. I've found that that PETG-CF works great for these, they're quite stiff, but ABS would work really well also. I have more models coming so thanks for your note, I'll consider whether I need to account for that in future models.

[@Ponial]

hello, out this video the one of most interest to me are the spacers, question, how safe it is to make spacers out of pla+?

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Hey, so anything close to the bed should be printed with higher temperature materials, PETG is a bit higher than PLA+ I believe, but it could be worth a try, that area below the bed is separated by a fair distance and it might not have much heat build-up. If you're printing in an enclosure, that's a different story. If you're talking about the adapter plates that mount to the Body of the printer itself, I think you'd be good with PLA+, they're far enough away and shouldn't have much heat buildup there. I hope that helps.

[@Ponial]

@@NeedItMakeIt I see, thank you

[@stephenduff3215]

With regards to the bolts are they counter sunk or button head?

[@bigturbogti84]

i think its the actual bed with the heating element is attached too. i swear they fold them in half and send it out. Even with glass im still finding issues with level prints.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

LOL, yup the bed will warp, apparently this is in part due to the rapid heating of the aluminum and also that it is pinned in 4 places, this restricts the expansion and causes it to bulge until it has enough time to uniformly heat and settle down a bit. I'd suggest a thicker bed, but we don't want to be adding weight to the Y travel. One solution that I have is to introduce a soak time, to each of the Creality printers, and it seems to help quite a bit. If you need the info of how to do it, I have a video already on it called "Let it Soak" there is a printer in a bathtub on the Thumbnail if you're interested.

[@gangleweed]

I have to wonder how the two linear rails get magically aligned and level with each other seeing as they are screwed down on a plastic base..........the table is set to the nozzle height with .004" accuracy but that is out of the window if the rails are not both level to each other.

[@nos9510]

Cant find the MGN12C available where I am. Would the MGN12H be suitable as well? Not sure what is the difference between the two.

[@zachsgarage7004]

My main issue is that it seems my infill keeps getting bunched up on the prints. My bed seems pretty stable from factory, but I am upgrading these parts soon. Can you share your settings though? I can't get PETG to print well consistently

[@xxoTUBBSoxx]

Hi, im assuming this upgrade would work for the SE as well?

[@23_1]

I'm going to try my se by watching your video and referring to it. However, there seems to be no end cap on the lm guide, is there any problem such as the guide breaking away from the rail?

[@vonkertis]

Hi. Had to use longer M4*20 for Y-axis positioning as the original one didn't touch the trigger when rolling the hotbed. Now it collides with the front adapter, blocking the hotbed movement and messing up print coordinates during the print pause / color change. How to overcome it?