Ender 3 is great (though new people looking at printers now should maybe look at something else). What I’m getting at is that if it was slightly worse than it is, you shouldn’t touch it at all. But it’s not. They worked on that thing to hit a price point while still being good enough. It actually takes some good engineering to pull that off.
When I bought my pair of Ender 3’s, they had no thermal runaway enabled in the firmware, and an “XT60” power connector that didn’t meet spec and was loosey-goosey. Those needed to be fixed to make it safe. Then add a 32-bit controller, calibrate the steps on everything, do linear advance, some kind of automatic bed leveling, replace the cheap blower, and you had an excellent printer. Hell, just doing the calibration steps that only cost you time will get you something pretty good.
Ender 3 is great (though new people looking at printers now should maybe look at something else). What I’m getting at is that if it was slightly worse than it is, you shouldn’t touch it at all. But it’s not. They worked on that thing to hit a price point while still being good enough. It actually takes some good engineering to pull that off.
When I bought my pair of Ender 3’s, they had no thermal runaway enabled in the firmware, and an “XT60” power connector that didn’t meet spec and was loosey-goosey. Those needed to be fixed to make it safe. Then add a 32-bit controller, calibrate the steps on everything, do linear advance, some kind of automatic bed leveling, replace the cheap blower, and you had an excellent printer. Hell, just doing the calibration steps that only cost you time will get you something pretty good.