@Emt1581 Sure, here it is about 1.5hrs in...I'll edit this post with a finished version when done.
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Mainly the board that runs it. It comes with an MKS Gen L, which is probably one of the most popular boards out there.
Swap-able drivers and quite a bit of extra stuff waiting on it when it comes time to start modding.

The ender board is pretty much the very minimum you need to print, and doesnt even have a bootloader on it when it comes time to update the firmware.
The firmware is a steep enough learning curve all by itself, without having to learn about bootloaders also.

That pussy turned out pretty nice!

Ender 3 was my first printer, about 6 months ago.

My manager has a Prusa i3mk3 and an Ender 3.  He appreciates the extra features of the PRUSA but the price/performance ratio of the ENDER3 is very hard to beat.

The pro isn't a huge upgrade.  I have a mag bed on my Ender3 and printed the rest of my upgrades.

I've printed everything from functional parts, to miniatures, to magazine loaders.  Gone through half dozen rolls of filament, with about that many other partial rolls stored.

Banggood had them on a Black Friday sale.  Nearly pulled the trigger on one if I hadn't already expended the $$  out of my Mad Money funds.  (A while back, don't tell Ma Danby)

finally caved and ordered a 3 pro with some fun money I had. merry Xmas to me . put it together being sure to square all the parts and adjusted the rollers and bed leveling. loaded a spool and plugged in their included card and printed the dog. turned out outstanding. took just over 3hrs in black pla. but it looks as good or better than anything my buddy with a $1500 taz5 ever made. the gear nut in me already wants to do a direct drive e3d hemera with a new main board but I haven't even used it a 2nd time yet. lol. I do want to be able to print TPU decently. not in a hurry for high temp stuff like ABS so while I'll probably get a glass plate to have the magnetic pad seems worlds easier to deal with than scraping things off glass and scratching everything up in the process.

whats everyone using for a slicer? Cura seems to be the popular choice.

Cura for me.

I'm sure you know, that dog and any other included files are optimized for best finish.

I'd suggest you print a bunch of stuff off thingiverse, just to give yourself some experience. You WILL have trials and tribulations until you understand the machine better.

You can easily spend $200+ on upgrades. Glass bed, yellow springs, metal extruder, BLtouch, SKR mini board, octoprint, and direct drive, possibly in that order. Don't forget about an enclosure and learning a CAD program such as Fusion 360.

Cura is prob by far the most popular, but best to take all the free ones for a spin and see which one clicks best for you.
They all do the same thing, but different ways the gui is laid out makes it easier to find things you might not otherwise know were there.
Even when you do find the one you think you like best, take a vacation and use a different one for a week or so every now and again. Great way to learn and keep on your toes.
S3d has always had the hype, but I guess if I just dropped dang near as much money on a slicer as I did for the printer, I prob be trying to convince myself it was a smart purchase also

I know what you are saying about the expensive printers.
I used to keep OG Tevo Tarantula at the shop.
Buddies kid was in high school and got to play with all the fancy ones there (sounded like they had all the higher end ones).
He preferred to use mine because it printed better lol. In all fairness, Im sure not having a dozen other kids breathing down your neck for their turn prob made things nicer too.

And for anybody else in the market for a ~$200 printer, dont get an ender. Get a Tevo Tarantula Pro.
Same money and dang near same printer, but already comes with a nicer board, and everything else about it is just generally a lil easier to deal with.

ETA Upgrades
I know the mod itch is a tough one to scratch, but you will be best off getting a handle on what you have now before getting into more complicated things.

Right now the best/most popular board upgrade for an e3 is prob the BTT SKR E3 DIP, the BTT touch screen (tft24, tft35v3?), and a set of drivers (TMC2209?).
This is a big jump though, and unless you are comfortable with the fw for what you have now, you gonna be on the forums hoping somebody has fw for your setup, or begging somebody to do it for you. Dont do this lol.
I recommend you figure out how to flash fw on the board you have now and get comfortable doing so 1st.
This flashing fw thing is one of the big reasons I would go Tarantula Pro over e3. Tarantula pro comes with prob the most popular 8bit board (like the ar15 of boards) out now and is just a matter of plugging in and flashing.
E3 comes with and odd little board with a funny chip that doesnt come with a bootloader to conserve memory or something like that.
You would need to figure out how to flash the bootloader (plenty of write ups, but I think you need to buy additional hw) before you can flash the fw on the e3.

Hotend, the one on there is fine, take the time to learn what it likes. If you upgrade, just get a v6 clone (again, the ar15 of hotends, and ~$10 complete).

Extruder, the one on the e3 is an old design and I think will be tough to print flex. Would guess there are printable mods to fix that though.
Tarantula Pro comes with a Titan clone that will do anything you want, flex, direct, and again, dang near ar15 of extruders.
If you do upgrade the e3 extruder, Titan clone (~$15) will be more than plenty. If you find yourself needing something crazy like a bondtech, go back and figure out wtf you are doing wrong at the hotend.

The most important thing is to get a handle on what you have now before upgrading.
If you run into a prob, dont blame the printer, just figure out wtf you did wrong, and fix it right next time.
There are 100s of thousands of people using these things trouble free.
Dont be the goofball that cries "China POS" and shells out for some fancy bandaid, put your big boy pants on and figure out wtf you are doing wrong

If you do Sainsmart TPU for things like camera mounts and shit you shouldnt need a direct drive hot end.

I am on a CR10S and get TPU prints that are just shy of Brain3D quality in terms of dimensional accuracy.   A little stringing but I dont muck around with that to try to get it absolutely perfect.

It actually printed TPU pretty well as stock save for Capticorn tube.

One day I had it give me problems and I figured out that I was using lower temps I used for PLA rather than the 15-20deg hotter needed for TPU.

Side cutters and a lighter solves the hairs and little bits that need fixing.

The extruder needs like two tweeks to work well with sainsmart stuff.   Sainsmart is pretty tough so it tolerates bowden tubes pretty well.   I put a modded aluminum extruder plate on that I drilled out for Capticorn tube to pass cleanly through.  Then I got the lock fitting that threads in while letting the capricorn tube pass clean through.

This was done so I could get the capricorn tube slid toght up to almost touching the extruder gears.

Print the TPU on the upper end of the temp range so that it will not start to meet resistance.

Have not tried ninjaflex yet which is ridiculously soft/stretchy.

A low cost TPU friendly extruder update can be done by printing up a "Neustruder" https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2422803.  It uses a 608ZZ bearing, a few screws w/nuts & an E3D "hob-goblin" hob gear.   I did a re-mix of the upper block to make it more Ender 3 friendly https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3897798.

The author has a site that lists a hardware-only kit for the build that runs about $25 https://www.lukeslab.online/shop/neustruder-hardware-only

If you already have the other hardware on hand, an E3D Hob Goblin at the Filastruder site runs about $13 w/$4 shipping   https://www.filastruder.com/products/hobb-goblin-5mm-id-drive-gear . I bought my hob-goblin gear via Amazon, but it isn't listed there currently.  It is a bit pricey, but has deeply cut, sharp teeth that do a very good job of moving filament without slippage.

I find I can print 95A hardness TPU  (semi-flex) about as fast as PLA using it.   You do need to recalibrate extruder steps after installation as the new gear diameter is smaller than the original.  Doing this & storing the value is simple if you are already running Marlin.

The SKR mini board is a 32 bit, and has the bootloader built in. Load the firmware on a micro-SD card, stick it in the slot, and it'll flash itself to the board.

IMHO, don't do any mods to your machine for three months. There is really nothing that NEEDS to be done right now. Get to know your printer inside and out, then decide if there is something you want to change. Anymore, most printers print well out of the box.

I printed the prusa benchy I got off thingiverse. came out great. I figured the included dog was very optimised. the benchy is almost as good. printing a side spool mount since the top space saving one seems less than optimal. I saw people made a Z axis spacer to fix the out of vertical z axis lead screw. I havent measured mine to see if it needs it. the upgrade videos I've seen talk about TL smoothers, 32 bit boards, and covers, etc. so far I feel its plenty quiet. not sure if recent pro models have a better driver??? I have Raspberry pie's and plenty of arduino crap around. hell my sand buggy runs a DIY EFI called Speeduino that runs off a arduino mega and cost $115.

but yes I plan to keep it mostly stock sans some basic simple mods for awhile. at least until I find something that actually needs improvement.

Z axis alignment is important, and a few ways to do this.
One that decouples is nice also. Safety in a crash and makes maint easier.

No on the TL Smoothers, they just a bandaid. If the problem is bad enough to fix, fixing it properly with a new board and drivers isnt terribly expensive.
32bit is good, but get a handle on configuring and compiling the fw before you make the jump. (sounds like you have prior exp here so might not be a prob)
I believe the E3 Pro board has TMC2208? These are good and quiet drivers. The one on e will prob lock up on you though if you get fancy and turn on Linear Advance.
Octopi works fine, but seemed like complicating something that doesnt need to be complicated to me. Some people really get a kick out of it though.

Obviously different strokes for different folks, but that is far from how I roll. Not saying right or wrong, just different perspectives.

Sd cards arent going anywhere any time soon. Not really a problem, so no need for a solution.
Im sure there are some special cases where an alternative would make sense (no access to slot, printer farm, etc), but not for the huge majority.
If Im working on a project and getting near time to slice, I turn the printer on, set to preheat, and grab the sd card.
By the time Im done slicing, the printer is up to temp, so just a matter of popping the card in and hitting the button.
Sure there are many ways to skin this cat, but there just isnt really a bunch of time or effort to be saved by getting fancy for most of us.

I can totally respect wanting to get your geek on and learn a new trick, and this stuff would be a great way to get your fix, but still not a need, and often not legitimately any "better" than the old fashioned way.
I also think most people are nucking futs for printing unattended, scares the shit out of me anyway.
If Im printing, I stay close enough to smell the smoke and put out the fire before it becomes a major prob.
And since this is an Ender thread, did they ever turn on the thermal safeties in the fw? I know they were set for Chernobyl mode in the past

Ive not played with pi, but have messed with ESP3D and ESP32CAM.
The ~$10 this costs does everything octopi does that I think should be done on the printer. I feel the rest is better left to a proper pc.
In the end, the only thing this remote access gained me was not having to physically go look at it every hr or so to make sure the print was still stuck and I wasnt working on a spaghetti monster.
I could control it and do some other wizbang stuff, but never found any of that to be needed, or even useful.

And not sure I would call this "hacking" either.
IMO, being creative and adding additional functionality is exactly what this stuff is all about.

Did a write up on using a smoke detector linked relay to kill enclosure/machine power here https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3894912. Can help provide a second layer of defense ...

Parts cost, delivered, is about $30 via Amazon prime.

Crazy that Creality did that, and still might.
The board they like to use is actually fully and legitimately open source though. I give props for that.
Problem is it uses a smaller chip so they dont put the bootlaoder on there to save some memory. Even when you get around that, you still need to be careful what you turn on in Marlin for the same reason.
I dont think the MKS boards that Tevo uses are technically open source, but they give out enough info to be close enough for consumers.
Its not like the other info required would ever be used on something this complicated, and the only people that would need it are other mfg cloning your shit anyway
The Tevo boards all have the bigger chip with a bootloader so never a prob getting your freshly compiled fw flashed on there. Usual 8bit stuff still applies so if you get too fancy you can still bog it down.
The new Tarantula RS that is getting close to shipping looks like a sweet setup. 32bit MKS Sgen L board and AC heatbed. This one will be a hotrod.

Creality also got a fk ton of heat for modifying and using Marlin on their printers, but not releasing the source code so people could edit things like thermal safeties.
They did eventually release it, and is one of the reasons Marlin has print resume after something like a power failure now.

Tevo has always had thermal safeties on. This can be a problem for those that are learning though, and plenty of posts on the forums when they get crazy with the layer fan
There are a few things on the Tevo that are only there to check boxes that people who dont yet know wtf they are doing (people looking to buy 1st printer) always want to see checked for some reason.
I think just human nature to default to "moar is moar better" when we arent sure about something. If you play the odds, that prob is the safer direction though.
2 fkn giant layer fans, gotta have it lol. Ya, until you crank the thing up and it blows heat off the nozzle and tricks the fw into popping the thermal runaway error
The support for the free end of the lead screw. Ya, it looks fancy and all, but this isnt a perfect world so leave it in the box.

Not dead sure, the detectors run off a 120v supply w/ 9v battery backup.  Multiple detectors can be daisy chained on the same circuit breaker feed plus the interconnect wire.   When daisy chaining detectors or relays, the interconnect line is spec'd as 18awg, <=  300 meters & rated @ 300v.   The relay has to be on the same feed as the detectors and has NC & NO contacts.  I'm guessing the interconnect line goes high during the alarm & energizes the relay, but that should be easily testable with one in hand.

The install sheet for the detector can be found here: https://www.firstalertstore.com/store/images/pdf/9120B6CP-First_Alert_Hardwired_Smoke_Alarm_with_Battery_Backup_6_pack.pdf

The install sheet for the relay  can be found here:http://www.brkelectronics.com/pdfs/2009/06/05/3912da49.pdf

Per these sources:

http://www.edcheung.com/automa/smoke_det.htm
https://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/household-safety/question576.htm

interconnected smoke detectors set the interconnect line high @ 9v  relative to the neutral line during an alarm event.

If that is the case, you would just need the neutral & interconnect lines for attachment to a circuit that could latch the printer feed line open until reset.

got one a couple weeks ago... so far so good

Great, now I'm torn between the Ender3Pro and Tarantula Pro ...

Board on the Tevo is definetly better.  Mechanical they seem a wash,  but community support seems heavily tilted to the Creality

the 32 bit boards start around $28 and the top tier one is about 99$ my main concern at this point is for TPU a direct drive setup would be a big improvement and the single lead screw Z axis isnt ideal for the extra weight. have you looked at the sovol?

Try TPU before the upgrade path you think you need.

Seriously.  My boden extruder gives me results with TPU that I am completely happy with when using Sainsmart TPU.

Both communities are big enough that it doesnt matter.
Board, no contest.
Mechanically close, but still, Tarantula Pro easily takes that cake.
Its painful to see people go with the e3, knowing they gonna find out they are behind the curve when they start figuring out wtf is really going on in the next few weeks.

Ender 3 is a great printer for beginners and experienced users. Its easy enough to upgrade boards and other accessories. For the most part it's mostly plug and play. As long as you check your belts and Z rod and extruder you will be fine. The real struggle for me was learning cura and meshmixer to get the most out of the printer.