I picked up a Ender 3 S1 Pro 3D Printer to tinker with. Just wanted to learn a bit more about 3D printing and see if I could make some useful stuff. Since I received the printer a few days ago it has been printing pretty much non-stop. I started out printing a small bunny rabbit trinket but quickly moved on to printing more useful stuff. There are a ton of interesting and useful (and free) ready to print projects on Thingiverse. In this post I’ll show off a few of astronomy projects I have printed on the Ender 3 S1 Pro 3D Printer and a few others I plan on printing in the near future.

I am brand new to 3D printing so I have not done very much tinkering with settings and such. I take the files downloaded from Thingiverse and slice them in the Creality Slicer. The settings in the slicer for most of these prints have been Standard Quality (0.2mm), Infill: 20%, Supports: Off, Adhesion: Off. I am printing with black PLA filament and the nozzle temperature is set to 200 C and the bed temperature is set to 60 C. I have not ventured any deeper into the Custom settings yet. The first few prints I printed from the touch display on the Ender 3 S1 Pro but I have set up OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi (OctoPi) which now allows me to print, and monitor prints, remotely.

OK so now, check out the cool astronomy stuff I have printed:

SVBONY 102ED Bahtinov Mask – https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5449253
This print is a Bahtinov Mask for the SVBONy SV503 102ED telescope. It fits snug on the telescope shield to assist with focusing.

The print took about 4 hours.

This was actually the 2nd thing I printed and it came out pretty nice. Should help with focusing.

After this print I printed a cool cat for the wife.

ZWO Filter Drawer Holder – https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4899792
This is a nice holder for ZWO Filter Drawers. There are designs to hold one, two, and four ZWO Filter Drawers.

It took about 4 hours to print and came out pretty nice. There is a little bit of weirdness on the bottom since it prints with 4 small feet instead of printing the first layer directly on the bed. It function just fine, but I plan to edit it and fix the feet for the next print.

This was the first print I ran remotely using OctoPrint running on a Raspberry Pi 4.

The filter drawer fits nice in the holder. There is a dimple at the top of the holder to keep the filter drawer secure.

ZWO 2″ Filter Drawer Cover – https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4755987
This filter drawer cover is basically a blank to cover the hole in the ZWO Filter Drawer if you do not want a filter in the image train. Without this you have to have an empty ZWO Filter Drawer, which is kind of a waste.

I also used OctoPrint to print and monitor this.

Took about 2.5/3 hours to print the filter drawer cover. It fits very secure in the ZWO Filter Drawer. There does not appear to be any light leaking around, it should work nicely.

I have been having a blast with the Ender 3 S1 Pro 3D Printer. The printer took about 15 minutes to assemble, a few minutes to level the bed, and then it was off to printing. The Ender 3 S1 Pro 3D Printer has been printing pretty close to non-stop for the past few days. Right now I am printing some bridge supports for my grandson’s wooden train tracks.

Here are a few more astronomy related 3D printer projects I am planning to print over the next few days:

Solar Finders
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1549757
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5541673

Light Box for Flats
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1839188
https://www.printables.com/model/164957-flat-light-box-for-create-astrophoto-flat-frame-on

Diffraction Spike Mask
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4608036

EQ6R Pro Feet
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5149066

Tripod Power Brick Mount
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5451616

Looking forward to printing more useful (and some not so useful) things… and learning more about the settings and processes. I have added a new Category, 3D Printed, to the SuffolkSky so stay tuned for more…