3D Printer yet?

[HobGoblyn]

The hot end was quite clogged. Cleaned it up, new nozzle and nut, did tube as per a vid I found (put tube in fully with pneumatic nut slightly loose, then tighten nut.

Also finally calibrated my e-step, was only fractionally out, was 97.95, now 99.59.

Grey AMZ3D filament works fine, the other filaments I bought cheap off facebook, had to up the current on the motor to get it to work fine,  wish I hadn't bought them. Trouble is Amazon UK  doesn't seem to have any decent 1.75 PLA.

The 4 rolls I bought off facebook group (Filament Deals & Discounts) 4 rolls for £60 delivered. Knew it would be too good to be true although  others say it's all they use now as it's a decent filament at a decent price.   

I've since noticed a post where the guy/home shop  that I purchased it from says the following 

"Some of you may wonder why our PLA doesn’t consist silica gel inside. The answer is that our PLA is modified in that way that it doesn’t absorb moisture from air over time. We still do have some rolls that are few years old and still print fine!" 

That would have made me question it (and at least ask if such a thing is feasible)

Anyway, it doesn't print bad (the blue smurf was that stuff), but it is a little brittle.  When I  opened the rolls (only tried 2), where the end of the filament was fed through 2 holes on the spool, that snapped as I removed it.  The rest doesn't exactly snap, it's just that the not very good AMZ3D stuff can be bent back and forth about 10 times more without snapping than the other filament I bought, which may partly be why I was having so many extruder problems, if it's a lot drier, then it will disintegrate easier when the roller is pressing it.

Ah well, you live and learn

[Monkeh]

PLA is a little snappy, but usually it's made worse by being moist or UV exposure.. Your Facebook wonder filament sounds like someone reselling bulk Chinese filament and cutting costs on, y'know, proper packaging.

I'll just plug Ooznest again. Sure, they've got four rolls of a vaguely bad gold and one roll of pastel green I wouldn't use at gunpoint, but.. they do have some of the PLA Pro in, but it is 32 quid a roll.

[mnementh]

On a separate note: things like fan housings for the printer, can they be made in PLA?

Yep. Mine is. There are lots of fan housings and cooling ducts available on Thiniverse.

Yup; mine too. Come over to the 'fang side; we have cookies. And enough "butt-ugly" to serve a 3rd-world nation. 

The PetsFang comes in two flavors for E3; the modular which allows you to fit various aftermarket hotends, and the BullsEye which is designed to recycle all your existing hotend and fans.

My main drive for going 'fang was to get rid of the small, noisy fans while improving layer cooling (which pretty much sucked bunge wherever bridging was required) so I went with the V2 Modular; end result was about 10dB below stock. The 5015 squirrelcage layer fan is a fair bit louder than the 4010 mine came with; but that was recycled to replaced the 3010 screamer on the heat-break.

mnem
 

[Monkeh]

PLA ducts are fine if you're printing PLA. Run a bit hotter with less flow for PETG or ABS and they start getting a bit melty. Even PETG ducts don't last long.

[HobGoblyn]

I've been watching a print of the cheap PLA, and noticed something.  When the PLA is taught, every now and then it's pushing in the extrude filament  release bit as it tugs from the spool. 

Maybe I'm wasting my time printing filament guide and should instead print something to move my spool elsewhere.  Have to do this  at some point to fit into the space (don't want shelf any higher).

Pic doesn't show how much space there is behind printer very well, but if I move spool away from top, can push printer back about 10 cm (4 inches)

[mnementh]

Yes, but if you put it right on the edge of the desk, or flipped the holder around so the filament hangs from the front, could do the same thing as well. 

mnem
 

[beanflying]

I've been watching a print of the cheap PLA, and noticed something.  When the PLA is taught, every now and then it's pushing in the extrude filament  release bit as it tugs from the spool. 

Maybe I'm wasting my time printing filament guide and should instead print something to move my spool elsewhere.  Have to do this  at some point to fit into the space (don't want shelf any higher).

Pic doesn't show how much space there is behind printer very well, but if I move spool away from top, can push printer back about 10 cm (4 inches)

(Attachment Link)

Give one of these a go https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/3d-printer-yet/msg1913924/#msg1913924

[Jeroen3]

On a separate note: things like fan housings for the printer, can they be made in PLA?

I printed a few PETG fan shrouds for the prusa but they last about 20 print hours. Can't print ABS, so bought some new ABS ones fro prusa and tried printing one with PET-HT (HT5300), which aside from difficult prints works just as good as ABS!

[HobGoblyn]

And here I go again.

Set off a print, watched the first few layers, came back a couple of hours later to find the printer had hung.  Nothing on the screen did anything.



Powered off, back on, screen completely blank.  Powered off, pulled plug, powered on, then put plug back and powered on, still blank.

Powered off, pulled cable from extruder motor, powered on and it came on fine.

powered off, put cable back, powered on and it came on fine (am going to check cable).

Took sd card out, put into PC didn't show up.

Went into disk manager and disk management just stays on "connecting to Virtual Service"   I wait 5 mins, nothing.  I remove sd card and instantly disk manager appears.

I try again just to double check it wasn't a coincidence (knew it wasn't but still), disk manager has same message until I remove SD card.

So something fried my SD card too.

Getting a little frustrating now

EDIT:  It's plugged into a UPS so wasn't anything to do with power spikes etc

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Getting a little frustrating now

No wonder.

[HobGoblyn]

Googling, it appears SD card dying is a common cause.

Will try again with different SD card

[CatalinaWOW]

The USB-microSD adapter supplied by with Ender3 has died for me also.  I am quite happy with my Ender3, but when you aim for absolute bottom price point things can't be first rate in quality.

[mnementh]

As a caution; some of the cheap μSD card readers will kill the card; I don't know what the cause is, aside from just plain crap-ness.

Some online research indicated it was a level-shifting fault or lack of proper voltage regulation. Still a form of crap-ness, IMO. I lost several cards to two such cheap readers on different occasions, including a 64GB card full of un-backed-up pics of my kids from my phone; I was actually trying to get them off the card when it was murdered by the cheap reader.

Point being: do yourself a favor and only use readers you build yourself from scratch or that come as a kit from a reputable name brand, or an adapter in the SD card slot of your laptop.

Throw the cheap-cheap giveaway readers in the trash, EVERY ONE OF THEM. They're worth exactly what you paid for them, and they have a high probability of costing you data that is worth far more.

Also, Orico brand ANYTHING has a HIGH probability of shiteness. Learned the HARD way.

mnem
Learn from my mistakes; don't repeat them.

[mnementh]

The USB-microSD adapter supplied by with Ender3 has died for me also.  I am quite happy with my Ender3, but when you aim for absolute bottom price point things can't be first rate in quality.

The sad part is that there are like a whole 2-3 (4-5? 6-7?) LOWER QUALITY echelons of China-direct 3DP available to the unsuspecting noob. There are still people selling Acrylic-framed and worse crap everyday. CReality is actually one of the BETTER "Cheap China-direct" 3DP product lines out there; nowhere even CLOSE to "absolute bottom price point".

mnem
Yes, the bar CAN always go lower.

[beanflying]

Touch wood all three of my Creality SD/USB adapters are fine so  maybe I won the lottery or maybe I am not as rough as some 

[Brumby]

Ahh, Bean .... leading with the chin, are we?

[HobGoblyn]

Two steps forward, one step backwards as usual for me 

After my hang (which was just the SD card) it had sat there at 205 degrees for about 2 hours.

End result, back to juddering extruder and really hard to push filament through hot end.

So I ordered some Capricorn tubing and took the hot end to pieces to make sure there was zero gunk in it.  There was about 1cm of solid gunk stuck in the end of the bowden tube.

Everything clean, new nozzle, new pneumatic nut supplied with the capricorn, put it all back together and printer halts as soon as I turn it on with thermal runnout error. Removed thermistor and heater again and spotted the problem straight away. When I tightened the thermister screw it's pierced both sides of the insulation grrrrr

Will order some from amazon.   Presume using heat shrink on a hot end is a very bad idea.

I will get there, it's not going to beat me

[mnementh]

Two steps forward, one step backwards as usual for me 

After my hang (which was just the SD card) it had sat there at 205 degrees for about 2 hours.

End result, back to juddering extruder and really hard to push filament through hot end.

So I ordered some Capricorn tubing and took the hot end to pieces to make sure there was zero gunk in it.  There was about 1cm of solid gunk stuck in the end of the bowden tube.

Everything clean, new nozzle, new pneumatic nut supplied with the capricorn, put it all back together and printer halts as soon as I turn it on with thermal runnout error. Removed thermistor and heater again and spotted the problem straight away. When I tightened the thermister screw it's pierced both sides of the insulation grrrrr

Will order some from amazon.   Presume using heat shrink on a hot end is a very bad idea.

I will get there, it's not going to beat me

A little Kapton tape will resolve this. I tend to use it a little more than is ahem... normal; one can hide a multitude of sins under the aegis of its golden-hued layers.

If you don't have a roll, you can often find small amounts to salvage being used to protect delicate bits of electronics and in battery packs; you literally need just a CM or two for this.

Also, just BARELY snug that screw down. 

mnem
*lessons hard-learned*

[HobGoblyn]

Thanks. Got 5 rolls in different widths.

Answers always obvious when someone points it out to you.

[mnementh]

Oh lordy, ain't that but the truth.

mnem
"...and hindsight is always 20/20 vision." ~grand-dad

[beanflying]

Two steps forward, one step backwards as usual for me 

After my hang (which was just the SD card) it had sat there at 205 degrees for about 2 hours.

End result, back to juddering extruder and really hard to push filament through hot end.

So I ordered some Capricorn tubing and took the hot end to pieces to make sure there was zero gunk in it.  There was about 1cm of solid gunk stuck in the end of the bowden tube.

Everything clean, new nozzle, new pneumatic nut supplied with the capricorn, put it all back together and printer halts as soon as I turn it on with thermal runnout error. Removed thermistor and heater again and spotted the problem straight away. When I tightened the thermister screw it's pierced both sides of the insulation grrrrr

Will order some from amazon.   Presume using heat shrink on a hot end is a very bad idea.

I will get there, it's not going to beat me

Stick at it  That plug is common and comes in part from the Bowden not being seated flush with the nozzle. That end cut has to be at a true 90 or you will get oozing.

Way back when https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/3d-printer-yet/msg1936516/#msg1936516

[HobGoblyn]

Something very weird is going on

New Capricorn Bowden tube correctly fitted along with new nozzle.

Also fitted new thermistor (had already ordered them before mnementh suggested Kapton tape)

While I was at it, rechecked all wiring and swapped over the extruder and the X axis cable at both ends to rule out any problem with the extruder cable.

Also fitted silicon springs.

Levelled bed using Cheps bed level gcode, then did 25 point mesh levelling. Remembered to store it.

Ran Cheps bed level test and it came out perfect.

So decided to print a temp tower in case themistor reported slightly different temps.  180 - 220, one I've printed many times before.

Printed this from the SD card in the touch screen port, watched the first few layers and it went very well.   So I left it to it.  Checked back a while later all was OK. Then it printed the 190 level, then produced nothing but string for 180.    My initial thought was the themistor is reporting the wrong temps and the 180 it reported was much lower.

However.

I tried to print again and it couldn't read anything on the SD card.  I put the SD card into my PC and it read it correctly. I formatted the SD card and recopied the files over to it. It still couldn't find any files.  So I put them on a microsd card and plugged it into the main board.

This worked fine, I tried printing the same temp tower, wondering if the touch screen is playing up (causing problems with SD card), the first section, 220 went down totally fine but this time, when it started the 215 level, string started to come out.

At that point I turned it off and had a beer .

Just gone back, turned it on and now the SD card that wouldn't read in the touch screen earlier, now works totally fine (decent SanDisk Extreme SD)

Wondered if it had lost it's meshleveling at some point, so connected it to octoprint, sent it M503 and sure enough, all mesh levelling details are there.


I just sent it M109 S200  and when up to temp sent it G1 E100 F100  it only fed about 80mm and yet again I can see/hear extruder jumping.

While nozzle at 200, tried to push filament through and it was very very very hard.  As though nozzle is blocked again. 

When I fitted the bowden tube, I took the entire hot end off and to pieces , triple checking everything. I had the 10mm pneumatic nut firmly secured, the steel bit that goes into the heater block was down just enough so that when the nozzle was tightened right up, there was a 0.5 mm gap between nozzle and heater block (the nozzle was screwed against the steel).  Then I removed the nozzle, fed the bowden tube through until it was a fraction past the steel tube (and I pulled on the tube to check it didn't rise back up).  I then reassembled everything, bought it to 200 degrees and then put the nozzle on and tightened it.  It's almost impossible for there to be another gap there now.

So I've just raised the nozzle temp to 250, filament pushes through easily, even if I feed through filament really fast, zero extruder juddering, I resent it the 100mm test and it was spot on.  This is PLA that says 180 - 220 on it.

Going to bed now and will take another look tomorrow, might put original board and screen on and see what happens there.

[mnementh]

The correct procedure for ensuring no slop in the Bowden is as follows:

First, remove the pneu fitting and inspect the throat of the extruder; make sure there is no foreign matter in there to interfere with the tube sealing flush.

If you're unsure whether the throat is correctly clear, use a allen wrench and a Sharpie as a depth finder for the sealing surface. Transfer your depth mark to a scrap of tube or the tube you're going to use WITHOUT the fitting installed. Plumb the throat of the extruder with that tube to confirm that you can in fact make proper contact with the sealing surface at the correct depth according to your mark.

Next, make sure the end of the tube is cut perfectly square. Capricorn makes a cutter that ensures this which they include with their kits; alternately, if you ever when you get the printer working again, there are a number of models on ThingiVerse that make a jig to ensure you are making a square cut with a razor blade. Do NOT install the tube in the pneu fitting at this time.

Next, install the pneu fitting in the extruder and tighten fully, then back it off 1 1/2-2 turns. NOW you push the Bowden tube in place, all the way down. Hold the pneu fitting and twist the tube while pressing it in place to be sure.

Finally, tighten down the pneu fitting. This will force the retainer up against the shoulder inside the fitting; jamming it up so the tube cannot back out, while at the same time pressing that square end tight against the sealing surface inside the hotend.

Next, follow the the same procedure with the pneu fitting on your CReality CNC extruder per my description here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/3d-printer-yet/msg3032618/#msg3032618



Also; did you ever replace the SKR board/touchscreen, or did the vendor give you a rash of sh** over warranty?

mnem
 

[HobGoblyn]

Thanks mnementh.

Today (haven't redone bowden tube yet) I tried another temp tower. Same stringy mess and juddering.

I then put the original board and screen back in, did a quick 5 point level, and it's printing perfectly.   Just finished the temp tower, zero extruder juddering.

Can also push filament through fine at 180.

So it has to be a faulty skr board (both SD card problems were with the SD port on thew touch screen).

So I'm going to return them both (bought in a package)

[HobGoblyn]

Just done another print, 5 chain links and their covers (to put over cable). Again came out 100% perfect.

SKR board now on its way back to amazon