Whoops!
It's been snowing and freezing here. I've had the snow blower going every other day. The temps have been in the negatives, in the morning for daycare drop off around -11° F today.
One upside of the extreme cold is I witnessed some amazing Sun Dogs the other morning:
Usually they aren't rainbow like that. Pics never do justice to these types of things, but in person it looked like a 300 ft rainbow pylon coming out of the ground. Pretty neat.
Ok, the reason this post is called "whoops!" is because I was naughty and bought the Ender 3 S1 from Microcenter.
Sorry to the Prusa cult, but at $120 off this was less than 1/3 of the price of the fully assembled i3.
I've actually had it for a week or so, but I wanted to get a few prints across the finish line before jumping to any conclusions.
The thing that tipped me over the edge is after printing that guide rail protector cap, the next print I went to do with the old printer was massively under extruding.
I just couldn't take it anymore.
They say the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. So why did I jump into another Ender 3?
I think this machine is genuinely better, at essentially the same price point (on sale) as the 3v2. Pretty much everything about it is nicer. It's like they actually
thought about the design.
In addition to better aesthetics and cabling, it has these upgrades over the 3v2:
- direct drive extruder
- dual Z-axis motors
- CR Touch bed probe
- filament runout sensor
- magnetic build plate
- different motherboard
- full size SD card
- USB C port instead of Micro USB
The bed heater wiring is much sturdier, they placed the power switch on the side instead of the back, the aluminum extrusions are flat so they won't collect dust, and the belt tensioners etc have dust covers. The bottom is easier to access and the mainboard and power supply layout is much easier to work on.
It came almost fully assembled, just had to attach the gantry to the base, and attach the extruder assembly.
Unlike the 3v2, this had machined indents for the gantry placement:
The fit was surprisingly precise.
Everything seemed pretty dang square.
One thing that bothered my OCD was the heater block was askew on the extruder, but I don't think this has any practical downside.
The hot end looks harder to take apart than the 3v2, but the heater block and thermistor cables would be much easier to swap out since they are so short. With the 3v2 they would have to be run back to the main board.
The whole extruder / hot end assembly hooks onto the X carriage with a few screws.
I like this because it's super easy to take off to work on, versus having to bend over the printer with little Allen keys. It's also "modular" and they sell a laser engraver that can be swapped in.
After getting it assembled I checked all the V-wheels and lead screws and belts for tightness. Some minimal adjustment was needed.
Then I manually leveled the bed to get close, and then ran the CR Touch probe to create a mesh.
Then I added
in the starting Gcode in Cura, which I guess is supposed to call the last saved bed mesh before the print starts.
And we're off to the races!
My first print was this unicorn cookie cutter for my daughter:
Came out pretty nice!
Since then I've printed:
A butterfly cookie cutter.
This track saw rail hose guard.
This helical looking wire support that goes on top of the extruder to help support the cabling from bending:
A Mexican Train (dominos game) train starter. My in-laws like to play at XMAS and lost theirs.
This is all with my old filament. I think all the prints turned out really nice with no major issues. These are all with the default Cura profile. I haven't touched the bed leveling, either, despite taking the magnetic build plate off a bunch of times.
I suspect I'll occasionally have to re-run the bed probe, but that's pretty easy.
Long term, the downsides I can see with this machine are repairs. If any of the wiring goes bad from use, since it is so buttoned up especially the extruder ribbon cable and bed heater cable, I suspect a full replacement part would be in order. This isn't the end of the world to me as long as parts are available.
Now my big question is what to do with the 3v2. I'm probably going to sell it to recoup money. But... part of me still feels like I know the machine well and am probably
close to fixing the extrusion issue. I could also fit one of this Sprite direct drive extruders. One thing I really enjoyed was the 0.6mm nozzle, and I don't really want to be switching nozzles much so the thought crossed my mind to keep the 0.4mm on the S1 and keep the 3v2 around for 0.6mm prints that are larger and less critical. But I'm still thinking about it.
If this S1 does me dirty in the long term, a Prusa will definitely be on the menu. But for now this scratches the itch and I like what I see so far!
Happy Holidays to everyone reading along, and especially to the the usual crew who respond and give me advice and feedback here, I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing holiday with your families! And get lots of new tools. 
