Davinci Junior Filament Stepper clicking (Page 1 of 4)

I'm hoping others will have better input but I'm going to be messing with the z-axis tonight to see if I can get things right. I've at least made progress with it, in that it prints something now where as it wouldn't put out any filament after that first layer by adjusting the Z-axis.

The way I see it, is this is a learning starter printer for a few years until full featured true plug n play printers are available at a reasonable price.

Thank you for your reply. I think your right. I did some adjusting today and found that the back right side of the print bed is higher than the rest. If I set the nozzle to about 0.2mm above the print bed on the front right and move the bed forward so the nozzle is located at the back right of the bed it drags on the bed starting about 2/3 of the way back. I'm wondering if it's dragging when the extruder is on the back portion of the bed it's clogging and that screws up the rest of the print. To my knowledge it does not adjust in the same way as the rest of the davinci series. It is supposed to not need adjusting but mine definitely does. If this doesn't get better and they still want me to mail it back I may return it to Amazon and get another, that way they pay shipping.

I've attached a picture of a partial print that I canceled because it looked like crap compared to my first print of a hinge I needed.

I have only had my Junior a day and it has started doing the slipping and knocking from the extruder motor. If I release the filament tensioner (the bit that presses the filament against the extruder drive shaft) the noise goes away a little as I release the tension and returns shortly after the tension is re-applied. So I suspect it is the filament backing up as it were. Prints seem to come out OK, so far.

It didn't do this on the first few prints...

Maybe the extrusion drive is going a bit too fast for the extrusion rate? If we had more control over the functioning of the printer then maybe we could come to a solution. Maybe one of those quality or density settings that I have been fiddling with may have a bearing on the problem.

Has anyone noticed whether or not this problem was introduced with the recent firmware update or not? I have only had my Junior for a day and it upgraded the moment I started using it you see. Maybe we could get the last version of firmware and stick that in the printer and see.

Its the flood of davinci juniors! You have to problem solve here. Take one step at a time. Start with loading and unloading the filament. If you can load the filament without clicking then the extruder is functioning correctly. If it still clicks, then you have a clog or the extruder drive gear is dirty and can't catch the filament. If extruder is working, then your hotend is too close to the bed when extruding. You need to adjust the bed using the paper method (research online). I assume the juniors have bed tensions for adjusting?

One last thing to note. The plastic cover in the filament cartridge needs to be removed prior to printing. XYZ's cartridge has a lot of tension in the cartridge. You can test this by pulling filament out by hand to give it slack. If this is the main problem there isn't an easy solution.

The software (not the firmware) has just been updated and not fixed the problem. I have been printing the sample (wavey vase thing) and there is definitely a big big problem with the clicking in that it seems to interrupt the smooth feed of the filament. I have had the extruder drive apart and it is not damaged or clogged and I have had a good clean of the hot end. All seem well but the clunking still continues. This didn't happen strangely for the first few prints. The hot end seems to be a reasonable distance from the bed.

It would seem to me that the extruder drive is trying to push the filament into the hot end too quickly and so the extruder drive rollers skip when the back pressure gets too much. There is a tensioning sprint in the extruder drive that allows for this "blockage" situation.

I can't see that anything would or could have changed in the extruder drive mechanism so I think there is something that has changed with the hot end. Maybe it isn't getting hot enough or something similar. Maybe the thermocouple that is used to control the hot end temp has gone wrong?

These test prints have been directly from the SD card files but I have had similar problems when printing from the PC.

I have contacted my supplier Technology Outlet about the problem and await a response. This isn't any where near great because the printer just doesn't do what it is supposed to do at the moment. Obviously there are other units out there that work (I don't think that they are all getting sent back) so I expect a replacement hot end assembly or some new firmware will be needed to fix this issue.

Here is a picture of my first and then again recent prints of the sample vase. You can clearly see the issue.

I have just tried with black filament and the results are a complete disaster. The hot end just pushes black plastic all over the place. I'm now convinced that it is the hot end that is the problem. It just gets blocked.

The supplier just told me to clean the head. The trouble with the PLA is that it is DRM'd so you can't even use good PLA from other sources. So I suspect the printer will be going back for a refund.

I'm also going to send a message to my seller to get a refund.
I'm okay with a 3D printer that needs some tweaking to print good, but then you need a printer that allows you to do the tweaking
and the Da Vinci Junior is not such a printer.
1) The extruder is encased in plastic and unreachable without voiding you're warranty
2) U Can't use better PLA
3) The software sucks, we can't change temperature and due to it not working with .gcode we can't use an alternative
4) Not many people have a Da Vinci Junior, so I ain't counting on a hack or mod anytime soon.

5) All of the above shouldn't be a problem, they promised a plug and play 3d printer. Instead they delivered a piece of hardware
they probably designed assuming the standard facts about PLA you find on the internet:
-PLA prints at a temperature of 205°c (well guess what on the box of the PLA I own it says "melting point: 175°C, nozzle temp: 190°C-220°C" and it prints best at 190°C and it's the same with their proprietary PLA)
-You don't need a heated Print Bed for printing PLA (Their proprietary PLA I've printed on the Da Vinci junior with just the use of their painters tape warps even worse then a bad case I've seen on my UP printer)

They probably even shipped it without even testing it for more then 2 times...

Another downside: The printer is really slow compaired to my UP printer
advantage: I bought the Da Vinci Junior without knowing much about 3D printing because I just needed it to print some models for school and it said it was "plug-and-play" but I've learned alot in the past 3 weeks

HyruleJedi86: If I were you I would ask the refund and go for the Robo3D R1, I don't know much about it but at first sight it looks really good for the price. It looks alot more hackable and it prints in ABS which is a huge advantage because apparently printing in ABS is a lot easier (I didn't know this untill I got my UP-printer).

What you should pay attention at is how easy is the removal of the support structures? I was really surprised about it when I got my UP-printer how easy it was in comparison to the support structures of the Da Vinci Junior. (So perhaps you should also consider the Up-mini, I like it ALOT, it's in the same price range and I bought mine second hand for half of the price and it still works good.)
Disadvantage of the UP: you need a mod to be able to change temperature, make sure the ROBO lets you change temperature.
Advantage of the UP: It prints the layer between raft and actual model a little cooler which makes the raft super easy to remove (perhaps the ROBO also has this option)
Advantage of the UP: It prints on a Perforated print bed (= No warping of ABS and no use of tape or glue, but you do have to push out some holes now and then )
Disadvantage of the UP AND THE ROBO: they have a feeder stepper close to the nozzle, so it can become really hot (the stepper) and start skipping on PLA. But the ROBO is without case so it might cool down better.

Let me know about your choice

The temp is dictated by the RFID chip in the filament spool.

Just like on the other Da Vinci machines that use a EEPROM instead the temp, color, type, and a few other specs are stored on the chip. That way they can change parameters based on the the color and type loaded and the user need not do anything. My guess is you got a spool that was programmed wrong. It is not the first time as you often find the cartridges programmed as white but loaded with natural or visa versa.

Well that could be a major issue as a Jr cannot use ABS. You must have a heated bed to use ABS. It will not stick to a cold bed snd will just gink up on the head. Sounds to me they have had a mix up and sent ABS out with some of the Jr. machines. The Jr. is PLA only.