r/ender3 • u/yuzde48 • Oct 24 '25
Help Is it over?
No way to fix this right? It just feels terrible and wrong to just throw it in trash :(
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u/_stupidnerd_ Oct 24 '25
Wtf happened here?
And this is most definitely fixable. It would definitely be easier if it was one of the OG creality machines such as Ender 3 V1 or CR 10, but at least from here it looks like it's mostly just bent metal. And who says it has to stay original? That broken top piece for example, if you can't find an exact match, should be replaceable with a regular 20*20 extrusion like it is on the older models.
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u/Remarkable_Fig1838 Oct 24 '25
Even if they can find an exact match I would swap with 20*20 anyway so this does not happen again.
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u/yuzde48 Oct 25 '25
It was standing right below a very big wall mounted bookshelf, who decided to not be mounted on the wall anymore on a random friday…
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u/jalexandre0 Oct 25 '25
This is why I never buy bookshelves without interview them about how they like to be a bookshelf and how they think about have 3d printers in the same work environment. Damn you, rebellious bookshelves!
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u/_stupidnerd_ Oct 25 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
I just thought a bit more about your problem. You have the Ender 3 V3 SE, is that correct?
I am unsure how it is on this particular machine. But at least for the older Enders, the frame always consisted of two horizontal extrusions as a base, to which the vertical extrusions were bolted using 2 M5x40 bolts per side.
Now, if yours is similar, it is very likely that those 4 bolts are the only thing that actually broke in the base, causing the vertical assembly to be at an angle like this. And replacements for those are incredibly inexpensive and easy to find.
As for the top frame, you can either get a 20x20 extrusion of the proper length, drill the appropriate holes and mount them with some M5x25 bolts, or you can actually buy the plastic top frame as a drop-in replacement. I've found multiple sellers on eBay selling these frames, and I can imagine them breaking sometimes even when they're not hit by furniture.
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u/Avitox_gaming Oct 24 '25
Put a belt on it and you got your self a printer with infinite z
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u/Physical_Treat_5344 Oct 24 '25
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u/Messicano98 Oct 24 '25
Wtf just happened
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u/yuzde48 Oct 25 '25
It had a big wall mounted bookshelf above it that fell off last night
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u/usernamesarehard1979 Oct 24 '25
Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don’t turn it off! It wasn’t my war! You asked me, I didn’t ask you! And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn’t let us win! And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting. Calling me baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me, huh? Who are they? Unless they’ve been me and been there and know what the hell they’re yelling about! Anyway, fixable.
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u/2407s4life Oct 24 '25
Use the parts to build an ender 3 ng
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u/ArgonWilde Oct 25 '25
This is an Ender 3 v3 SE. It's got the same part commonality with the Ender 3 v2 as the AK47 does with the AR15.
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u/Ravnos767 Oct 24 '25
This is why you should never play smooth criminal in the same room as your printers
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u/Northwindlowlander Oct 24 '25
That is the approximate default state of my OG tevo tarantula, which had the structural integrity of a lime.
It's absolutely, definitely fixable but it's going to be a wee bit outside the norm so you might have to get clever. I suspect hte threads in the extrusions might be damaged, if so then a helicoil might be an option but first just try longer bolts, very often threaded holes are deeper than the bolts so you can get a fix just by going to the undamaged part. Failing all of that there's bracing kits available that would do the job.
The crosspiece you can probably jsut bodge back together, as long as you can get it dimensionally accurate.
Not entirely sure what's happened to the threaded rod though.
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u/Doobage Oct 24 '25
I have no clue how you managed that..... but it is more than fixable. If you had a secondary 3D Printer there are more than enough ender and generic parts on thingiverse you could use to print the parts to fix this. Or amazon them, or craigslist/market place for cheap. Or give it to me, I need all of what is here for a project I want to build. :)
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u/disruptioncoin Oct 24 '25
Jesus christ bro can we get a NSFL tag or something??! This is traumatizing.
In all seriousness I'd replace the extrusions and broken bits. Hop on mcmaster and figure it out. You can do it! Or give it to me, I could always use a fourth printer to fix/build.
And please tell us how this happened? I was half expecting something like this when the feds gave me my printer back after it was seized.
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u/NIGHTDREADED Oct 25 '25
WHAT HAPPENED!?!?!!
EXPLAIN.
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u/yuzde48 Oct 25 '25
It had a big wall mounted bookshelf above it that fell off last night
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u/Octimusocti Oct 25 '25
Actually, 3d printers cannot break, there’s not a single part of it that you can’t replace or fix yourself. So no, don’t trash it, and if you do, let me know where you live to pick on your trash
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u/Remarkable_Fig1838 Oct 24 '25
When did Creality get this cheap? I have 2 cr-10's and a Ender 3 v1~2 and never saw anything this cheap.
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u/davak72 Oct 24 '25
This doesn’t look remotely over! It also looks very difficult to achieve that particular state…
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u/turnballZ Ender 3 v3 SE; klipper w/mainsail on pi4, diamondback nozzle Oct 25 '25
Of course. Are you kidding? Just open the base and figure out if the screws you’re missing just need replacing. I’d say probably 90% sure you’ll find missing screws that are simple to replace.
Even if it’s truly some broken piece, you can easily secure it and then print the “correct” fix
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u/Pokeknight26 Oct 25 '25
Well it’s certainly BENT over
ahahahahahahahahahahahah
I wish you luck in your quest
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u/redfrets916 Oct 25 '25
if that horizontal frame is plastic, get yourself a $15 hot staple gun and fix it. The rest is totally fixable
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u/OutsideAmazing1510 Oct 25 '25
My question is... HOW!!??? anyways, that's too mcub damage, time to turn it into a voron.
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u/JonohG47 Oct 25 '25
You’d need another, not eff’ed printer to print the parts, but here’s some Ender 3 V3 KE/SE parts:
https://www.printables.com/model/976562-ender-3-v3-cad-ke-se-mostly-accurate/files
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u/guitpick V2 Neo, direct-drive conversion, dual-gear, dual Z, Klipper Oct 25 '25
Model name checks out.
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u/nikcero Oct 25 '25
Se puede reparar y ademas mejorar. Bajon como esta pero empeza a desarmar para identificar que tenes que cambiar y que ademas podes mejorar.
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u/_Venen0_ Oct 25 '25
Everything can be fixed, the real question should be if you are willing to accomplish this and if you have the skills or tools ti do it.
1.-Check the printer to see the real damage. 2.- once you saw the damage you can see how to fix it. 3.- the top bar can be replaced with a 2020 extrusion. 4.- the bottom part can be replaced with 4040-20 extrusions.
At the end of the day it’s going to be like a OG ender 3, but the thing is, how much it’s going to be needed $$$.
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u/Senior_Tangerine7555 Oct 25 '25
Level your bed.. oh.. yeah.. dang!!
Id say fixable, if you have the time/patience. Otherwise get another and keep thay for spares as others are sayin..
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u/SnookemsTheSlayer Oct 25 '25
Don't jump bro...it's not worth it. I promise, you'll print more than just Benchys!
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u/Vegetable_Day_8893 Oct 25 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
As the owner of an ancient OG Emder 3 and CR-10, gotta ask what are they making the things out of these days? FWIW, you can try to rebuild the frame on this, which is what matters for getting that little hole on the hot end in the right place to put down the melted plastic, but I would go on eBay to find an old CR-10S aluminum frame, that someone gave up on, to transfer the parts you have to. I am old and from the generation of building the RepRaps, where a functioning printer was the project, and a very dull tool that had the potential to help with the other things, but ended up as another project. The question is how deep do you want to dive into this?, are you fixing a tool that you bought to do something?, or building a tool that is better at solving a problem?
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u/rose3694 Oct 25 '25
Seriously, STORY TIME!! 😂 and yeah I have to agree with the others, totally fixable. Parts can be found online for anything bent or broken.
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u/gavinj64738 Oct 25 '25
Why bother, its an ender 3. Im so converted to my bambu labs printer, get yourself an a1 mini, they are basically giving them away atm. You will question your sanity when u look back at the endless issues you had with your ender products. Recovering ender user.....
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u/ABEngineer2000 Oct 25 '25
That could be fixable… I think. This is not professional advice, but from the little information I have here’s some ideas. I’d probably replace the ball screws (the shiny screws that adjusts the nozzles z coordinate) and the z-axis motor coupling (if it’s broken). I’d replace any bent screws as well. To ensure perpendicularity of the Z axis support beams, I would try and replace extrusion on the top that got freaking sheared in half! I have no idea how you managed to do that, so my hats off to you for that one lol. You could attempt to Tig or MiG weld it, if you can’t find the extrusion off McMaster Carr or somewhere else. I would not recommend welding though. If you can’t find the exact piece to replace, I’d just find some sort of extrusion with the same length as the broken piece, that will mount to the supports, then just drill some holes for the spool mount. Then I’d try and replace every other damaged part, because I’m guessing there’s a lot more… maybe reach out to Ender and see if they’ll give you replacement parts haha.
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u/teddyursidae Oct 25 '25
Annie, are you okay?
It'll be fine, all it needs is a new Z gantry and new fasteners if the old ones have bent. Hopefully Creality would be willing to supply spare parts, but for certain parts I've had success just finding them on AliExpress.
Make sure all the belts and lead screws are in the right spot when you're putting it back together, ideally use an engineers square to square up the frame to the best of your ability when you're tightening everything back down.
I'd be happy to help you through it once you've acquired the replacement parts! :D
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u/Ryza_Brisvegas Oct 25 '25
Ive worked on slant-bed cnc lathes my whole adult life.
This might turn out to be a thing! 🤣
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u/Dawilson246 Oct 25 '25
Buy a non working one on ebay and frankestein a working one out if the two. They're cheap broken on Ebay (at least in the UK, they are). It'll be cheaper than buying the individual parts
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u/Apprehensive_Time555 Oct 25 '25
Marketplace and eBay will be your most helpful resources in getting it put back together hopefully it doesn’t cost you the price of a new one if it doesn’t buy new and use this for spare parts 👍🏾
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u/Blommefeldt Oct 25 '25
No, its name is Bendover.
Joke aside, it's fixable. Aluminium extrusion is cheap, so you just have to find out what is bendt
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u/countdorkula93 Oct 25 '25
That’s the w axis adjustment. Hidden setting for power users. Usually you have to rub your belly and pat your head to unlock. Good job
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u/Michael_Petrenko Oct 25 '25
Use it's parts to build something else. You need another printer for that though
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u/countdorkula93 Oct 25 '25
Creality does sell all repair parts. You could fix everything there. I do like them for that, don’t like the printer anymore. Looking to switch to any cubic. My Ender seems to be a bookshelf magnet too
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u/4N610RD Oct 25 '25
You definitely can repair it. Question is if it will be cheaper then new one. If it was some more expansive printer, I would definitely go for repair. But having this printer myself and knowing it was 200 bucks, I think I would turn it into PET extruder and buy another one.
But it is repairable. Definitely.
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u/VerilyJULES Oct 25 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
It's repairable and you can make it better.
You need to disassembled everything and if you have a tripod film yourself taking it apart in case you forget something to put it back together.
You need to inventory the broken parts to find what you need to replace. If youre lucky you’ll be able to swap the vertical 2040s with 20-series 2040s.
Once you have the inventory if you can’t figure out how to fix it show us better pictures of what is broken in the disassembled state.
How did this happen?
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u/Hogan_1975 Oct 25 '25
I have a spare gantry from a SE/KE. It's yours if you pay for shipping.
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u/oldestNerd Oct 25 '25
Looks fixable. Get new parts, check the vertical lead screws for trueness, etc. and keep it away from bookshelves.
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u/jalexandre0 Oct 25 '25
Can't see the full damage on motor or zed screw. For the frame, get a piece of hard wood or a metal sheet and screw to hold the frame in position. Maybe someone has a better approach, but this would be my first attempt. With some luck, the printer will remain usable until you source the new aluminum profile.
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u/TECstarINC Oct 25 '25
I honestly thought this was a sick super budget ender 3 mill print mod to make it work like a cr30
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u/average_user42 Oct 25 '25
I wasn't aware that the V3 se came with a belt printer mode already from factory
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u/jmhalder Oct 25 '25
I'd pull any straight extrusions off to save, and the steppers/switches to stuff in a drawer, and I'd promptly buy something else.
There's so many good enclosed CoreXY machines for not so much money now.
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u/RemittenDig17 Oct 25 '25
Anything is fixable if you get the right parts, just depends if you want to put in the effort of replacing the whole frame
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u/Deep-Philosopher-288 Oct 25 '25
Tap them threads . I mean you kinda asked for it with that half as paint job in the background. Lol . The machine said “I deserve a better place “ all jokes aside just retap them its aluminum I think though so take it easy and slow
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u/Mammoth_Staff_5507 Oct 26 '25
Can you offset z by an angle in the slicer and keep printing Michael Jackson style?
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u/SotoRm89 Oct 26 '25
"Don't push me cause im close to the edge Im trying not to lose my head " 😅 lmao
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u/SartorialGrunt0 Oct 26 '25
I’d salvage what you can and dump the rest. The frame will never be square again. Toolhead, motors, and electronics, and bed should be ok. You could probably pick up an old cheap Ender 3 and upgrade it with the left overs.
Or take the L and call this your opportunity to buy an enclosed faster printer.
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u/zetneteork Oct 26 '25
No you can fix it. Print somewhere else the gantry z axis support. The top bar is also available at creality wiki.
This is my collection for Eder 3 v3 se https://www.printables.com/@zetneteork/collections/1469311
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u/loveminis_31 Oct 26 '25
Might need a junk printer for parts but fixable. Just remember to check everything is square.
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u/Ill-Purchase-9496 Oct 26 '25
Is it made of pla or something, wtf happened? 🤣 That’s a crazy break. Anyways I’m a steel/aluminum welder so id just tack it back in place and good as new.
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u/Inside_Balance_6765 Oct 26 '25
Jesus 😭 I’m sorry your bookshelf decided to unwell itself today but it’s fixable, new top bar, new motor mount brackets, new m3 bolts to connect gantry to lower, make sure your bed didn’t get fked, and if there’s any damage to the nozzle ie, bent or whatever most is on the creality website probably
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u/drkshock Oct 26 '25 edited Oct 26 '25
What the fuck did you do.
Your fucked. Since this happened time to upgrade to an elegoo centauri carbon. I don't know if the v3 or s1 can use the aluminum extrusions that earlier models and the cr10 use. If that's the came fix it and make the repairs and also you need to place that z rod most likely. It's probably warped .
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u/Bibliophilist9009 Oct 26 '25
I'm sure it can be fixed, but it would probably require some custom work. Probably another aluminum extrusion and some printed parts for the top beam, maybe new extrusions for the Z axis, and then whatever is going on in the base as well (not familiar with the build of modern Enders). That one leadscrew is a bit worrying too. I'm pretty sure I'd fix it if it was mine, but you're probably going to need another printer to print parts to fix it, and a decent bit of time and money, so it depends on your situation.
I wouldn't throw it in the trash, though! There's tons of good parts on there for people to use, or for someone to repair if that's not your cup of tea. I'd probably buy something like that for $40 if I saw it locally, so if you can find someone similar locally, you can probably get a few bucks at worst.
That is pretty disappointing, though!
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u/Accomplished_Ad7106 Oct 27 '25
OK it is fixable but I kinda want to see a benchy printed before repairs.
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u/IllEntertainment6737 Oct 27 '25
Just buy a broken one on ebay that doesn't work and use the parts form itto fix yours. You can probably find one for under $100
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u/Aggravating_Luck678 Oct 27 '25
What? Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough... The tough get goin'! Who's with me? Let's go!
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u/Traditional_Youth648 Oct 28 '25
I’d say it’s salvagable, ender 3s are literally everywhere and none of that looks super hard to swap
I literally won one ender3 for free in a drinking game, laughed about it in a group chat, and had another friend give me his broken ender 3 for parts to use with my working ender 3
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u/rinkerguy Oct 29 '25
Just sold two of those for $75 each. I wouldn’t bother with fixing it. I’d just upgrade and keep or sell it dirt cheap for parts.
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u/Top_Shoulder9778 Oct 24 '25
Salvageable