Abandoned 3D trying to get working (Page 2 of 3)

I think you have under-extrusion issue. Since you only getting half the height, I would suspect your step/mm setting is incorrect in your firmware/epprom setting. You can set this using gcode or using LCD panel.

for LCD panel:
Depend on what firmware you are using, usually it is in settings-motion-step/mm, try double your z-axis and extruder step/mm and see if it improves. You can google model of your machine for a good start number and calibrate/fine tune after that.

For g-code:
http://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M092.html

For the extruder traveling direction, post assambled machine picture first so that our left and your left is in same page. if the direction is inverted, you can also change it in firmware.

The size of the nozzle should be stamped in the side of it. It needs to mach your setting or you'll never get it set up. If you tell it its a .5  and it is a .4 you'll get grinding. Its trying to put more out then will fit the tip. That would explain why the hottest one looks better. Reset your slicer to .4 and see what it looks like. I could be wrong but I think the .4 is the most common.

Bushy,

I cannot find anything written on the nozzle. It probably is there I just having trouble seing anything written. I measured the OD of the nozzle. It is 5 MM. I measured the thickest extruded plastic. It is about 2.5 to 3 mm.  I will try setting it up with a 2.5 mm and see what happens with the height.

Carl,

I tried the speed that came with the software and then reduced the speed by 50% and 25% with no real increase in value/quality. At last look I thing I have 30 mm/s.

Tin,

Since the cube is measuring correctly length and width I'd assume that the extrusion thickness is to blame.

YiZhou,

The model of my machine was/is the million dollar questions for a newb like me. Besides the Arduino  there is no other writings except for an enscribed chihuahua head above "opensource hardware". Given that it is a "chihuahua" it just might mean that it has a very small nozzle.

On another note my friend just said he got a 3D printer. Nope but close, I helped him unpack it. It was on back order for a year, he bought himself a Glowforge. So cool. But I think most of you could just make the same out of a 3D printer and a laser.

Yes it is based off of that. I actually talked to a reprap tech in Europe who got me started. It is definitely different in the details. Here is a somewhat blurry pic of the nozzle. I put an SD card there for size.

It doesn't matter what size nozzle it is, you can replace with 0.4mm nozzle and it is very cheap even on amazon. 0.4 mm nozzle is the most useful nozzle size anyway. Smaller nozzle size improve resolution at cost of huge increase in printing time. (You might want to try it after your printer is up and running for a long time but not for now.) In the worse case, you buy an direct drive E3D clone to replace later (unless you are big fan of authentic E3D hotend, which will cost around $70-100, E3D clone cost less than $10 and work well for all my 3D printer). I think you should ignore the nozzle issue for now and get step/mm calibrated first.

I have tried to print on 0.4mm nozzle and set nozzle size to 0.3 mm and 0.25 mm in slicer, it print just fine when layer height is set to <0.2mm. The overall quality is slightly less detail but definitely much better than what you have right now.

So if you suspect nozzle size is smaller than 0.4 mm, try lower the nozzle size in slicer, if you nozzle is smaller than 0.4 mm, this should fix the problem, otherwise, it should not make much difference and suggest the step/mm for extrusion is wrong and need to calibrate. I would suggest you start with the step/mm setting for reprap prusa i3 for extruder and further fine tune base on the print results.

yizhou.he - Please stop giving bad advice. What you are advising is just wrong - on so many levels. It is painfully obvious you do not know nearly as much as you think you do.

From the looks of his setup, he can not just "replace it" with a cheap amazon nozzle - of any size. It looks to me like he would have to replace the whole hotend for something more mainstream in design.

tebera.david - the OD of the nozzle is of little consequence here - it is the ID that matters. That is what you need to try to find out.

The correct steps/mm for the extruder is also of major consequence. How much/how fast the filament is being fed in has a direct correlation to how much is coming out. getting that properly calibrated, along with finding out the actual nozzle diameter will go a long ways in helping you figure this thing out.

never saw a nozzle with extended spout like that before.
is it partially clogged starving extrusions?

If you want your printer to work correctly with the least amount of headaches dont go CHEAP like suggested. With clones you get what you pay for, some people just dont mind the inferior quality. You definitely want a good hotend to keep the amount of possible weak links in the system to a minimum

My comment was not an "attack" on you - it was a plea to PLEASE, STOP GIVING BAD ADVICE!




I think someone needs to go back to the Facebook Groups they like so much.

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I have to agree with Kronikabuse - do NOT buy cheap junk. It will just end up frustrating you in the end. Yes, a genuine E3D costs more, but it is worth every penny. I have them on ALL of my printers and very, VERY rarely have a problem with clogging, or anything else for that matter - and I swap materials constantly. If anyone was going to have problems, it would be me - with the constant material swaps.

I go from ABS, to TPU, back to ABS, then PLA, might do a little Nylon in there somewhere - all in the same week... so yeah - if there were going to be problems, I would be the one having them.
Thing is - I don't have problems with my E3D hotends - any of them. I have 3 of the V6's, a lite 6 and a Volcano. They all just work. Period. End of discussion.
The only time I have ever had problems it was specifically material related - a bad spot in a spool (have had this happen a few times), or just a bad spool in general.

There are people here that will give good advice, and a few that give not so good advice. Learn to differentiate between the two and you will be much better off in the long run.

1. I'm here to share my thoughts and experiences. I have no experience with genuine E3D, therefore I have no idea what the benefit it will provide over the clone. I never trying to stop people buy genuine E3D, I just want people to know if they don't want to spend that 7000-10000 penny, what the other choice is. 

2. I'm still primary on facebook group, only post here occasionally. People do give bad advice on facebook group too. It usually trigger long and healthy discussion, and many people learned a lot from the discussion. So I personally don't want to discourage other people give bad advice, otherwise there will soon be no advice from anyone anymore.

3. Thing is - I don't have problems with my E3D clone - any of them. I have 8 of the V6's. They all just work. I do admit the longest one I have is only 10 months, and I can not promise it will not give me problem in the near future, but I'm pretty happy about the quality of the prints and how long they last so far. As matter of fact, I think layer cooling fan, bed adhesion and extrusion control have more impact on the print quality for me rather than the hotend itself. 

4. I do understand some people want the best of everything on their printer, lots of people like that on facebook too. But before you get a 3D printer up and running and calibrated, there are many mistake you can make to damage your hotend during the process, nozzle scratch over the not perfectly leveled print bed, hotend overheat due to bad fan or themostats issue, accidental break the wire for heating element or themostat. The risk is usually higher in people that don't have much experience with 3D printer. If I would upgrade to genuine E3D one day, I will wait until the printer stably print well on E3D clone for a while and then upgrade.

I'm pretty sure I'll get flamed for this, but this wouldn't be the first time, so here it goes.

For someone who's been here for only 2 days you certainly have taken some of us to task and told us how less than useful our input is, because of the crappy 3D printers we've been hacking.

I know I don't speak for anyone else, but with an attitude like the one that permeates your statement, I doubt that I'm interested in joining your secret cult of professionals.