I have been running a Creality Ender 3 for about 4 months now. I am getting the results I wanted.
My machine does not have any bells or whistles. No auto bed leveling, bare bones machine. As has been mentioned above it pays to initially print a few things that help out for the machine itself. I added cable chains and a cooling duct for the electronics. Also repositioned the TF drive so it is actually ease to change discs.
The first layer is key as mentioned earlier. Also a little common sense is in order. Printing tall thin things without a "skirt" is a recipe for failure. It is important to understand that a 3d printer does NOT just lay melted plastic down. It is actually squished a bit so there are some side forces that can topple things that are not secured well to the print plate.
What type of filament being printed is also important. PLA prints pretty easily. ABS can be a challenge since it does a couple of things, the first being is that it shrinks as it cools. That is important for dimensionally accurate parts and it also causes layer delamination if you do not control the atmosphere temperature around the printer. For a while I just used a cardboard box with an open front and that kept any drafts from causing rapid cooling. Just finished building a nicer enclosure for ABS.
I have not tried a lot of other filament types. It pays to figure out what you are going to print and then match the machine to your needs (where have we heard that before?). Some machines, like mine are a bit limited in the higher temp ranges but I have no real need to print in the higher temp materials. Most of my stuff is for in the shop and ABS works well for outdoor things.
The actual process of getting a job going is downright simple. Create or obtain model, load in slicing software, select material and it will generate the file needed. After a person gets started then they can start playing with changing some settings like temp. A weird thing, most filaments have a temp "range" listed. This is one of those times where it is smart to start at the high temp and work your way down.
OK, this needs to be said. . . . a lot of stuff can be modeled in Aspire. But as we all know Aspire does not allow undercuts, so there is a limit to what is possible using Aspire. That is not a dig or complaint, Aspire was not designed to be a 3D solids modeler.
This is a model I am working on to suck up the smoke from a laser on the machine. It slips over the existing dust shoe (Kent CNC). I have a cobbled together mess that works like this but it is time to make something more permanent. This also works to keep the wood from flaming. All the pieces are being 3D printed except the dust shoe (yellow).
"If you see a good fight, get in it." Dr. Vernon Johns
