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Topic: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

What is the best height to place the filastruder from the ground? I am having issues with getting a extremely long usable strand of filament.

I also have seen a vertical hopper in thingiverse and I was wondering if that worked better for creating consistent filament. Does it prevent getting the squigglys in the filament...

My main issue is I want to be able to let it run without having to babysit it.

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

I never have to babysit mine, never have squgglies. You'll get there - patience. smile

What material?
Temperature?
Diameter?

I do 48" nozzle to ground, 1.75mm ABS @ 180C. Sometimes if the board is too long with respect to the face of the nozzle, you'll end up with squiggles (ramen). What is the horizontal distance from edge of the board to face of the nozzle?

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

Also make sure there is clear space in a circle centered on the nozzle, without table legs or anything in the way.

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

4.5" to the end of the board measuring strait out from nozzle.
I places it a 56" of the ground @ 180 degrees and i was extruding nice but at 1.56mm. Could I reduce the temperature to get it up to 1.75mm? I'm making ABS.

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

moved the nozzle to 41" off the ground and it's extruding the correct diameter range now. I guess Ian was correct that I needed to move all the stuff from under my table. Working good now.

One other question: Is extruding the entire 1lb bag of pellets that it came with enough to get all the impurities out of the machine?

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

JDM_ wrote:

One other question: Is extruding the entire 1lb bag of pellets that it came with enough to get all the impurities out of the machine?

Should be, as long as the barrel was decently cleaned before assembly.

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

elmoret wrote:
JDM_ wrote:

One other question: Is extruding the entire 1lb bag of pellets that it came with enough to get all the impurities out of the machine?

Should be, as long as the barrel was decently cleaned before assembly.

what do you consider decently cleaned? I banged it on the counter and used my mouth to blow it out..

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

That's good, I usually run a paper towel through it a few times as well. It's not an exact science, unfortunately.

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

I washed mine with soap and water and then ran paper towel through it to make sure it was dry, I haven't notices too many impurities.

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

Seshan wrote:

I washed mine with soap and water and then ran paper towel through it to make sure it was dry, I haven't notices too many impurities.

I would avoid washing this metal with water. They're coated with grease for a reason - rust is not something you want in your filament, nor anywhere on your machine. What I did was use a paper towel with acetone on it. Acetone can lift some of the contaminates off of the metal without exposing it to water that might start to rust it.

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Re: Best Height To allow Filament to Fall

jakegraber wrote:
Seshan wrote:

I washed mine with soap and water and then ran paper towel through it to make sure it was dry, I haven't notices too many impurities.

I would avoid washing this metal with water. They're coated with grease for a reason - rust is not something you want in your filament, nor anywhere on your machine. What I did was use a paper towel with acetone on it. Acetone can lift some of the contaminates off of the metal without exposing it to water that might start to rust it.

That's why I made sure it was really dry. The plastic would clean out any grease on the inside anyways, I washed it to remove any metal that would be trapped in some oils. Do these pipes actually come with oil on them or is it just from the machining?