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Topic: Sometimes BROF Is A Dummy, This Is One Of Those Times

(Subtitle:  A Day In The Life Of A 3D Printing "Expert")

Gather around and prepare for a chuckle.

The I3 2020 I bought from Hearless has been a good machine,   A bit temperamental at times but it really does good work.    Most of the time.    When it wants to.    Silly machine.  wink

Seriously though we bought it to jumpstart our business after a setback,  and now it does duty as a prototype/test machine.    Along the way it developed a habit of skipping and stalling during extrude.

Initially I thought it was a thermal stability issue at high temps so I replace the thermistor with a TC.          Started printing well again,   then after some mods it started misbehaving again.

So I turned up the V-ref on the E-drive.     Slight improvement.   Gave it more power.

The board it shipped with eventually died (as all good things do),  so I replaced it,  and flashed the firmware back to it...  and the skipping came back.

A helpful member suggested some tuning,   more E-steps,  more acceleration,  more power.

It got worse and worse,   so I replaced the motor.    And the driver.    And the board again...   and this problem would NOT GO AWAY.

I reached out to Heartless,  she was stumped.    Calls to Folgertech basically resulted in "If you ordered an FT-5 press one,  all other callers can hang up and--"   Well not quite but they had very little to say.

Reached out to Heartless again.    She suggested turning down a certain setting in the firmware...

And what in the name of all that isn't bacon it worked.

So I lowered another setting.

And another.

To the point where I had massive underextrusion and from there I've gradually dialed it back in.



Go ahead and laugh...   I was following the advice of those who came before me.   And it seemed intuitive -- stalling = more power/more steps.     Turns out we were overfeeding to the point the machine was going "LISTEN, HUMAN I CAN'T CHEW ALL THIS STOP OMG."

Long story short... well sometimes even us "experts" have our moments.   Hopefully by sharing this I can prevent someone else from going down the same path.  wink

MonoPrice Mini Select,  Orion Delta, HeartlessTech I3 2020, TWO Taz-5,  8 Wanhao Clones
Filistruder (Operational)  (Scanners RMA'd Due To Missing Components)
Benchtop Molding Press,  Arburg All-Arounder IMM,   Bridgeport ProTrac, Monarch 10EE Lathe,  Light Machine CNC Mill & Lathe
(THIS IS JUST MY HALF OF THE WORKSHOP MUAHAHAHAHA)

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Re: Sometimes BROF Is A Dummy, This Is One Of Those Times

Yup, that was good for a chuckle.

more is not always better. wink

SD4 #1 & #2 - Lawsy carriages, E3D v6, Rumba controller board, mirror bed plate, X motor fan, upgraded PSU & Mica bed heater
SD4 #3 - in the works ~ Folgertech FT-5, rev 1
Printit Industries Beta Tester - Horizon H1

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Re: Sometimes BROF Is A Dummy, This Is One Of Those Times

It can happen.  Even us experienced 3D'ers get a reality check on occasion.