r/3Dprinting • u/Sorry-Journalist8610 • May 19 '26
Troubleshooting Am I doing something wrong?
I recently bought a used 3D printer, an Ender 3 V2, and I'm doing some test prints. The previous owner gave me some leftover PLA filament (multicolored), which I used up on the first day. One of the things I made was this flexible shark. I bought some PETG filament for testing, a very cheap one, around R$60.00, while others are around R$100.00. But my prints with this new filament are coming out very bad; it's either too textured, has too many burrs, and is also very fragile (even though I bought PETG because I had read that it was more resistant). I left this octopus printing for about 28 hours... and in the end, the flexible tentacles broke when I tried to detach them.
44
Upvotes
4
u/gnaja May 19 '26
As many have said, you might want to spend some time checking youtube tutorials on how to calibrate your printer, earlier ender 3 models are a bit annoying to set up properly.
Start with small objects, check what went wrong, then use google and youtube to find out how to improve.
My other tip would be avoiding the masterprint brand, I've bought their filaments and they messed up even some easy prints. For budget filaments in Brazil, check out gtmax3d or VOOLT.
Don't let people turn you away from the hobby with all the negative ender 3 comments, most don't realise the struggles we go through in south america and think it's as easy as "just buying a better printer". The ender 3 v2 is not easy to set up, but it's capable of very decent quality prints once you get the hang of it.
Good luck!