My first steps in 3d printing

A couple of years ago I've bought a DIY 3d printer kit Anycubic 4MAX. I was dreaming about my own 3d printer to make cases for my electronic projects. DIY kit was a cheaper option than buying an assembled one and I also wanted to understand how things are done 'under the hood' of a 3d printer. There was a detailed instruction for the Anycubic 4max 3d printer, and I spent about 2 days putting it together. That was a real pleasure to watch the first model was printing.

Then I asked myself a question: 'What next? What things I'd like to create?' I was already familiar with sites like thingiverse.com, and it turned out that there are lots of upgrades that could be printed for my Anycubic 4max. Making upgrades for my 3d printer then became a desire. I've upgraded mother-board and extruder's coolers, printed an improved fan duct, assembled more quiet TMC2208 drivers for stepper motors. And everything was ok. My 3d printer has become quieter. I customized its settings so the print quality was great. And then I decided to install another and very hyped extruder Titan Aero. I was expecting the print quality would increase many times. I've found a model of a carriage with the Titan Aero mount for Anycubic 4max and printed it. Then I assembled it and tried to make prints. They were faulty. I had to adjust printing settings many times, do lots of calibrations, re-flash internal printer firmware to achieve the same printing quality. The extruder upgrade consumed a lot of my time, and I was very upset of my expectations haven't met the reality. Neither great quality nor speed increase appeared.

Two years have passed since then. My 3d printer was packed and gathered dust in the corner. I wanted either sell it or gift it to someone. I wanted to give up.