1 Topic by gringo

  • gringo
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Topic: Number 58's alive!

well - at least it was... although I'm sure the error is mine.

First off - congratulations to Tim on a great kickstarter and a great kit.  It was a fun build, and the directions I thought (except those from the manufacturer of the temp controller) were excellent.  Perhaps point me to a decent tutorial on that controller if someone can, as my engrish isnt' so understanding.

I did the build leisurely in roughly a day - and all went well.  I wired it up with the skills of a lucas engineer, and it all worked great...

First impressions - it's quieter than I expected.  Hearing the youtube videos you think it's hard to carry on a conversation with this thing running - but that's far from the truth.  It just merrily hums away - not too loud by any means.

Number 58 ran for about half an hour (after warm up) - and extruded just shy of four and a half of filament.  If you look in the pictures - it started grey - but then tapered to a nice white color - but I'm still going to run a bunch more filament through to clean things out before I use it to print.

I did hit a snag - but I'm honestly a bit too tired to troubleshoot it tonight - so I'll post this here - and see if anyone else has seen this.  Things ran smoothly - for about 30 minutes or so - and then the temperature started to drop, and you could hear the auger loading up.  I shut things down as the temp fell through 160, and let things cool down before giving it another go.  The second time - just trying to preheat things - it warmed up to just shy of 100, and then same thing - the temp started to fall back off.

Now, I've not yet cracked the case to look inside at my wiring - but I wouldn't doubt the fault is mine.  I did however notice the power brick getting warmer than my laptop brick - but I'm not casting any stones until I get in and check my work.  Perhaps I hooked something up wrong - or something broke loose.  Either way - that'll be the project for tomorrow.

I do welcome suggestions however - and would love any feedback or comments.  Either way - great work Tim!

Thanks,

brett

(imgur link attached if I can get it through my link limit)

//imgur.com/a/ueUaw

2 Reply by elmoret

  • elmoret
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Re: Number 58's alive!

Possible defect in the PID controller - dont fret, I'll post more tomorrow.

Filastruder - the robust, inexpensive filament extruder
E3Dv6 All Metal Hotend - the premier 3D printing hotend

3 Reply by elmoret

  • elmoret
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Re: Number 58's alive!

Ok - More info:

A small number (3 so far, out of 70 kits) PID controllers have a defect that causes the relay connections to fail intermittently. The manufacturer has taken responsibility for the defect, and the package of controllers that is in transit to me right now (the next block of 100) has been upgraded to fix this failure, apparently. They haven't arrived yet so I can't take a look, and I just got one of the defective controllers back from one of those 3 kits - none of mine had failed, so I haven't had a chance to do a teardown on a defective one.

Here's what the manufacturer had to say - sorry for the communication issues, like I said I haven't had a chance to tear one down yet, so I an't post my own words.

Every time the relay actives, you will hear a sound. That means the OUT output is ok. The most possible problem is the bad terminal connection. The terminal screw is installed conversely with a plastic gasket,which is to avoid bad connection. So when the plastic gasket falls from the terminal, the result is the bad connection.
Normally the plastic gasket is fixed with glue,however it may falls when the meter get hit, eg. during the transit. Please  shake the meter off with your hand, you can hear a sound of the gasket. Please open the box and find it, then put it back to the terminal and have it fixed.

So, there's a few options here:

1.) If you're handy with a soldering iron, open the case and solder to the terminal pads for terminals 3 and 4. Should fix it, no problem.
2.) Do the mfgr suggested fix.
3.) Contact me (filastruder at gmail) and I'll get the defective one exchanged.

My apologies for the trouble, but hopefully it's worked out in this next batch. If not, I'll look at other controller manufacturers.

Oh - and the gray filament means it was beginning to cook in the barrel, most likely. You could probably use a lower temperature/not leave it at temperature with the motor off as long.

Happy extruding!

Filastruder - the robust, inexpensive filament extruder
E3Dv6 All Metal Hotend - the premier 3D printing hotend

4 Reply by gringo

  • gringo
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Re: Number 58's alive!

Thanks for the heads up.

I should have made it clearer in the picture - the extruded filament started grey (as it probably cooked while feeding forward in the hot, empty and perhaps dirty pipe).  but after two feet or so - it's really clean looking.  Diameter is consistent as well - so I'm really pleased.

You've cleverly built a heck of an device here.  I look forward to running it for a long time.

5 Reply by bjah

  • bjah
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  • Registered: 2013-06-08
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Re: Number 58's alive!

Thanks for the info about the PID, I was trying to troubleshoot this problem and was coming up short.  I will open it up and try fix 1 or 2.