As an extra to all that’s being said so far, a food safe material doesn’t mean it has a food safe pigment in it. To be honest, if all you’re going to put into the prints are packaged items (say the tea bags) then meh, not much of a big deal IMO.

You might have some polypropylene there. Really strong material! Won’t stick to shit, temperature resistant, chemical resistant, can bend without breaking… never tried it, personally but it’s interesting stuff.

Sounds like TPU? Maybe soft one too.

Thanks, I think I get it. There’s a lot of humidity where I live too, so while not at the same scale, the problems are at least relatable. Best of luck with the project, it sounds like a cool but lengthy and complex journey that can really pay off!

Oh! The “brassic” guy! I don’t have much help to offer, but I didn’t know that term, had to look it up and found the tv show :D so thank you.

A tiny bit of potential help: you mention wanting to use desiccant in the boat. I’m obviously not an expert, but it sounds like a bad idea, as the stuff absorbs water… but maybe you mean in small amounts, so that wouldn’t make a difference.

I’m thinking it looks like the print gets to a spot where it can get faster, and your hot end can’t keep up with the temperature required by that filament, causing under extrusion. If my guess is correct, it would show on a small test print (same settings) where you get looooong straight lines to allow for speed. And would disappear by slowing down. Since it looks like a relatively expensive filament I suggest you wait for more feedback before trying my test, just in case I got it wrong and my test would waste some filament for nothing.

LIDAR sucks, accuracy wise. If you want accuracy, and hate yourself, then you need an iPhone XR/XS because that was the generation with the most accurate FaceID (for whatever reason). Or go photogrammetry, the LIDAR can help but isn’t the main thing there… this is both free and great. With a Mac you can get the data processed faster, or it can be done (paid) via cloud, or with less accuracy and a bit of patience, on device. It’s not going to be a professional solution, but depending on the task it works and chances are the hardware is already there :)

SV07 then? It’s pretty full optional, but I believe they didn’t open source the whole thing.

You might want to double check this, but as far as I remember both the Sovol SV06 and SV08 are open source. The SV06 sounds in line with your desired budget, IF I remember correctly the open source thing. And as others have said, Cura, Prusa slicer and Orca are open source and cross platform.

A bit hard to tell, as every printer is different, but try a small test file at let’s say 100 mm/s? I use Cura (really, really dislike the Slic3r/Prusa Slicer/Orca interface) and here it’s called “Print Speed”. Changing that will lower the others in the same way, can’t imagine it works differently in Prusa Slicer.

True about PETG, but the thing about a specific filament being stringy stands: I have a green PETG that, once it gets some time in the drier, is almost perfect. And an orange one, that can sit in the drier a whole day but still string.

This could be two things, aside from what you considered. Did you increase the speed? Because if I remember correctly the SV06 has a bit of a wimpy cooling system, and as opposed to the SV07, no extra fan on the back. Another thing to consider is that sometimes you just have a filament that is stringy, did you try a different one, or so far it’s your only option?

All I can think is “Do you even lift, bro?” and chuckle.

Seconding this. I had a rock solid Ender 3 since 2018 that got a few upgrades (btt 32 bit silent board, geared extruder, abl, couple of printed add ons) but never really needed any maintenance, recently upgraded to a Sovol SV07 Plus (big SV07, mechanically similar to the SV06) and hot damn! It’s a beast. Not only it goes stupid fast, can reach higher temperatures, heats faster… but it’s great out of the box and it prints TPU like nothing. Really, I tested it without changing anything and it worked fine. Downsides are that I got used to Octoprint and it can’t be used here, but Klipper is a decent replacement. Now, the ugly bit about that: it’s running on a really cheap board and an oddly customized os. You don’t notice any of that normally so that’s a plus, HOWEVER if like me you have a Spaghetti Detective/Obico account things change. There’s some copy paste to do via ssh, then the webcam struggles to hit 15 fps and whatever you do DON’T push any update button! Those wrecked everything. Not a fun few hours when I tried to figure out how to fix it.

Anyway the SV06 mentioned by OP is with Marlin rather than Klipper so none of the warnings apply :D

If it’s colored, it’s bad. I have a lovely purple GITD pla that even had a warning about the purple one not being that much glowy, it still surprised me. Very short time, very dim even if charged with a UV light… I like the color so all in all no big deal, but wow. Speaking of the suggestion of using UV reactive filament (light that, by the way, would keep the GITD ones glowing) some colors just look bright even without needing to be special. For example I have a bright green PETG that pops with UV light.

I’ve never had issues with Cura losing my stuff (been using it with an Ender 3 since… 2019 I think) but the backup plugin is connected with your account. It’s a wonderful thing! New computer? Login, restore backup, everything is like you left it.

I do make sure to use it before any update because I have seen the same kind of posts as you have.

I can only see the Dalek being reeeally pissed off, all “EXTERMINATE!” lol

What I get from the comments here and my own one is… Creality has questionable quality control. There’s some people really against their stuff, but my 2019 Ender 3 still goes well and it gets the bare minimum of maintenance. There’s a few upgrades, true (BTT silent board, geared extruder, Raspberry with Octoprint, stiff springs) but mechanically it’s still the same.

So I guess you either get a good unit or not, surprise!