Author: tom

3D Printer Reviews

The next “BIG” thing: Prusa Mini Review

When you hear “Prusa” what comes to mind for you, what are your expectations for an original, genuine Prusa 3D printer? Okay, okay, hold on to those; for me, 1) A flawless user experience, so no guesswork, no messing around and tuning things, you just unbox it, set up the software, follow the manual, and get to printing. 2) Good print quality. Like, really good print quality to a point where I would say that, within the limits of current hardware and software, it’s going to be as good asContinue reading

Hardware Reviews

WhamBam Mutant: A Quick-Change Toolhead Upgrade for any 3D Printer! (NOT on Kickstarter)

This is the WhamBam Mutant – patent pending. You just saw what it does – it’s a quickchange system for 3D printers and light-duty CNCs, be it with a routing head or something like a laser. You have one part that stays on the machine, they’re calling this the “Fixed plate”, and one part that stays with the toolhead, that’s the “Mobile Plate”, and they lock together with a pretty simple, but effective mechanism. They slide together with a dovetail and then it’s this lever that locks it all inContinue reading

Build

Forum: Discontinued

TL,DR: “forum.toms3d.org” is being taken offline. It was way too big of a challenge to run and didn’t provide much value. I recommend using the RepRap forum instead. It’s time. forum.toms3d.org is going offline. The forum was originally started as a means to sharing thoughts, ideas and helping others, independent from my YouTube channel. At the time, it was looking like the trusted RepRap wiki and forum were not too well maintained and were going to buckle under the load eventually, so I wanted to have a backup at hand,Continue reading

Tips and Tricks

PrusaSlicer 2.3

PrusaSlicer 2.3 is out! At least, by the time you’re watching this video (or reading this article ;-), it should be out, and it comes with new features like monotonic top infill, ironing, paint-on support material, and automatic variable infill patterns. Here’s the thing, though – PrusaSlicer and all the features it comes with are not exclusive to the Original Prusa 3D printers. In fact, Prusa actually reached out and asked if they could sponsor this video where I show you how to set up the new PrusaSlicer for basicallyContinue reading

Hardware Reviews

Elegoo Mars vs. Mars Pro vs. Mars 2 Pro

Elegoo has really become known for their resin printers recently – but originally, they’ve been doing robotics and Arduino stuff. And that shows. In a good way. Today we’re going to take a look at their Mars lineup, specifically, the Mars, the Mars Pro, and the Mars 2 Pro. They’ve also got a cost-down Mars-C, and in the future, apparently, there will also be a Mars 2 non-Pro. But these 3 models are arguably the most popular ones they offer, so what I wanted to find out is what theContinue reading

3D Printer Reviews

Artillery Sidewinder X1 Review

Today we’re going to take a look at the Artillery X1. You might have seen a review or two of this printer on other channels from a couple of months ago, but this is the newest iteration, the v4. From what I’ve seen, the X1 supposedly has always been a printer that was really close to being a perfect low-budget machine and only had a couple of flaws that would need to be figured out, so what I really want to know is if Artillery or Evnovo finally managed toContinue reading

Tips and Tricks

The Spaghetti Detective AI

“Do not leave your 3D printer” unattended. Sure, that’s good practice, especially with ones that have, you know, questionable cable management or cheap components, but are you really going to babysit the machine the entire time? I don’t think so. Especially when things like noise, particle emissions, and printing smells are something you don’t really want to have right next to you. So OctoPrint is actually a very good first step for that – it allows you to remote-control a 3D printer from anywhere you have access to the sameContinue reading

Hardware Reviews

What a lazy 3D printer design! Anet ET4 “Pro” review

Here’s a little behind-the-scenes: Some of you might already know this, but I script all the videos where it’s reasonable to do so, for example for a review, I do my testing, write down notes, and then write a script from those. It just makes for more compact and easier-to-follow videos, I’ve found. Writing this review for the Anet ET4 “Pro” has been the most challenging scripting process I’ve had to do for a while because the things Anet are trying to get away with here are making a mockeryContinue reading

Hardware Reviews

Creality CR-6 SE vs. Ender-3 v2

The Creality CR-6 SE. It’s an attempt to catch up to the big boys and to finally have something that’s not going to be labeled as “just another budget 3D printer”. But here’s the thing: The Ender-3 v2 is their actual budget 3D printer and it is actually doing a much better job at just about everything the CR6-SE tries to do. It’s more reliable, it prints better, it looks like a more professional machine, comes in 1/3rd cheaper and it’s a printer you can buy right now without havingContinue reading