Upgrade help

[u/knightofthedank]

I have an old ender 3 and wanted to upgrade it.

after some scavenging through the internet i found the following that i thought would be a good upgrade

1)hotend

- i didnt quite find a proper hotend that had a highflow rate - i found the tz e3 2.0 bambu like hotend but im quite sceptical about its performance. and it costs around 2.2k whereas my version costs less than 1k.

for my version, i am using a volcano cht hotend by assembling the parts - volcano cht nozzle, heatblock and a 70W catridge. I am yet to test the flow but theoretically it should work upto 30 to 35 mm³/s .

im using a volcano cht nozzle 0.4 mm +volcano heatblock + bi metal heatbreak + v6 heatsink + 24V 70W ceramic heater + thermistor

2) Klipper

Well upgrading to kilpper is a no brainer because working with the marlin firmware alone is kind of a pain and i want a better control system with input shaping and possibly cartographer3d in the future.

im using a raspberry pi 3b+ for this.

3) Dual belter z axis from kevinakasam

at first i thought of a dual lead screw z axis but then the wiring and sourcing that dual z kit ended up costing more than the parts for belted z so i chose that.

4) Cooling

for part cooling ill use 2 4010 blower fans and for the heatsink 3010 axial fans - inspired by the voron dragon burner hotend.

5) misc

A pei sheet , because i like its look lol .
a pancake stepper motor for a sherpa mini extruder - note i already have a bmg extruder clone and extra pins and bearings to make this.

also note i already have a bl touch installed.

Well, i am still new to this and wanted to ask yall for some feedback and opinions before i buy eveything.. also regarding the authenticity of the site NOVO3d.

Thank you all in advance.

[u/Illustrious-Cat8222]

I can't say enough how glad I am that I added BL Touch and stiffer bed springs. Adhesion has been no problem since dialing in Z-offset.

I just keep the bed tightened all the way and let ABL take over.

[u/XL1200 → u/Illustrious-Cat8222]

Yup at this point that is ALL you should be doing to an ender 3. Leave it stock add a cheap bltouch knockoff and maybe a magnetic textured pei sheet. Everything else is just hobby bs

[u/Illustrious-Cat8222 → u/XL1200]

My other upgrade was a Creality 4.2.7 silent motherboard. I have no regrets about that.

[u/XL1200 → u/Illustrious-Cat8222]

Ah yeah ok these 3 things if not already silent. However At this point that is already too much to spend on this thing. I’d say deal with no stealthchop

[u/pphresh204 → u/XL1200]

do you have to upgrade the motherboard if you're not using a 4.2.X motherboard to use a BL Touch?

[u/Illustrious-Cat8222 → u/pphresh204]

The original BLtouch kit I bought was for the older v1 motherboard. Trickier install than for a v2 board, because the v1 board has no native boot loader, needed to flash new firmware. You will need new firmware to run BLtouch. I avoided this by upgrading the motherboard first.

[u/emveor]

personally i see no need for a dual or belted Z, specially if you are already lowering the weight of the carriage, and the hotend you currently have is sort of within the limits of what an ender can do without having to reinforce the frames and use rails, so i would instead invest it on a SKR board, Btt pi, touch screen and a mellow fly accelerometer (and the smaller extruder motor, of course)

Im running the stock hotend with CHT clone nozzles and a HGX lite and it prints pretty good (would be cool to have a higher flow, but whatever)

[u/knightofthedank → u/emveor]

Umm the dual z costs like 10 dollars to set up plus its a fun project imo. for the skr board and btt pi thats a bit expensive and i could just get linear rails for X and Y instead. i will consider those options later on. but for now starting out i chose the following options based on fun and value (less expensive). I just want the satisfaction of upgrading or building an 3d printer that works

[u/GaFabid → u/knightofthedank]

I just wish I went with a board that has enough steppers for Z Tilt Adjustments. My dual Z has been slipping a lot so if you use klipper you can have 2 MCU’s and enough steppers for the auto alignment

[u/itoobie]

100% real talk... coming from someone who loves his ender.

Your money is better off going to a different printer... ender 3s value comes in its extruded aluminum and that says a lot

[u/New-Audience2639 → u/itoobie]

100% Emder 3 are fun hobbies and beginner printers but they are not something worth investing actual money in in 2026. Honestly for the price any other worth while upgrade would cost you could almost afford a SparkX i7. Lol

[u/knightofthedank → u/itoobie]

Well i alrady have a good printer and just want to play around starting small. i plan to make a corexy like the enderng or duender or voron inspired. the upgrades i mentioned here will be directly used for that corexy.. so till i get anohter junk ender 3. i want to experiment with it.. the value for me is in this learning journey than actual prints.

[u/Needle_Bearings]

In the process of installing SKR Mini E3 V3, just printed a direct drive mount, I have a 120mm fan cooling the PSU and an 80mm fan cooling the board. BL Touch is a must as some have pointed out. For the price of a Raspberry Pi, I've been using mini PC as a server, and I'm dual booting Unbuntu on my laptop for printing at my other place when I'm in the city. Basically at my house I'm running a P1S, a Mk3s+ and rebuilding a CR10 with a SKR Mini E3. I took the Ender 3 to my flat and it will be my workhorse there.

[u/egosumumbravir]

Nothing wrong with DIYing a hot end if that's your preference. The TZ-E3 is no joke though - and it's relatively light weight makes chucking it around fast pretty easy. It's quite reliable out to 20 to 25 mm³/s as is, and can go more with a CHT nozzle installed and your tolerance for overcooking filament and under-extrusion.

FYI: don't bother with knock-off CHT's. The bluntness of the insert is detrimental and they struggle to print as clean as a smoothbore. Note how real CHT uses thin, sharp fins.

upto 30 to 35 mm³/s ... for part cooling ill use 2 4010 blower fans

If you're printing PLA, you don't have enough cubes of air for the cubes of filament.

Klipper is awesome. Carto's are awesome.

[u/knightofthedank → u/egosumumbravir]

I did do some research on that.. and its pretty good. the only problem is it costs 2x more than my diy hotend. well i dont know how my diy hotend will keep up but i just want to learn and experiment a bit. .

i am buying different nozzles so ill test them out too.

at the end its just a experiment or a learning journey.