Extruder Temp Drops (Page 1 of 2)

have to agree - spot on Carl

sounds very much like something is either loose or broken wires.

Check board connections as well.

Just got a communication error.  Machine froze after 23 1/2 hours into an 11 1/2 hour print.  had 43 minutes left to go. Repetier said originally - 11 1/2 hours that was at about 430 PM yesterday.  The actual print quality on the unfinished piece seems better than before,  I assume that's from the PID changes.  Now I need to work on making the support easier to remove.  Lemee see if I can go track down the commo error...

I thought of the same thing just about the same time you posted.  This printer was made essentially to print using Cura and an SD card, which I don't like either.  I like having the control that Repetier offers.  I may print something over the weekend.  I'm still pissed over wasting 24 hours and about 3 miles of filament.  I'll probably try again with the SD card.  I'll let ya know...

Well, I believe I have other problems along with me not being able to produce an acceptable print.  I tried a test print ~1hr in length.  Got the same failure notice about 20 min in.  I am beginning to wonder if it's my old USB hub.  If I am charging one of my phones, the printer does not recognize anything until I unplug the phone.  Along with that, I periodically get an error - 'Samsung - the device is either unplugged or not responding', and the phone is not plugged in, don't get the error with the Apple Iphone.  The error may go deeper into my machine. It's an 8 year old HP 740 something that is still running the Windows version that it came with, used to be the wife's machine, I was stuck with the POS IMac.  I am getting dumb little faults, errors, etc.  The OS has constantly been upgraded but it's old.  HP will not allow you to format the drive.  So I bought another 2TB drive that I think I'll start over with, using the original as a backup until I'm satisfied with the new install...make sense? 
I hope to get started  on that venture soon, it will take some time,cuz along with the 2TB factory drive, I have 5 more TB's of krap to sort thru....
Sorry for being so long winded.

It's really not good to run a printer from a hub. Most even tell you not to in the manual. But to also charge from a hub at the same time is just asking for trouble. Modern phones require too much current to charge from a PC or laptop usb port. You can but it will be slow and puts a major load on the port.

You really should have a dedicated charger. With that said your symptoms point to a hub that just can't handle the printer and charging. If you must use a hub then get a powered hub so the charging is actually handle by a wall adapter.

I hear ya on the getting back up part, LOL

and powered hub ports can go south as well.. not sure how many slots yours has, but you could try a different slot...

I have a 10 port hub i use to run keyboard, mouse, and a few other things... one or two of those 10 ports is bad - they just dont work anymore.

Running a phone and a printer off the same hub has never caused probs before.  I have printed from two phones to two printers thru the existing hub at the same time more than once before with no problems besides, the only thing plugged into the hub is the 3D printer.
I believe my problems are with the printer alone.   If I can post the short vid I just took, you can see the temp going all over while it's printing, and printing from an SD card with no computer connected at all.

Well, so much for the video - started with 30 meg, then 15 meg and finally 6 meg - won't let me post it.  The temp jumps on the machine readout from 178 to 182 to 196 to 102, etc while it's printing.  It's set at 186C.  I have no idea where to look next.  The Ender forum is a joke.  May look for a new motherboard.  I don't think it's the thermistor cuz it maintains the heat setting til I print.  Same with the heating element, I assume it reads an actual temp and there is no element that can jump from 102 to 190 to 170+ instantaneously. 

I may try to contact the company, but I think that's a waste of time.

The BS continues...

Yea I did mention it..

Just to give it a try.
I also changed the com port settings on the computer on another failed try, Repetier kept throwing a 'corrected temp...' or something error, can't remember the verbiage.   It threw 50 or 60 of these errors, it was still printing. I stopped it.  I had it assigned to port 5, I changed it to 'Auto'  which both worked in the past, but the above failure was with an SD card and no external connections. 
I think if it was a part failure, the temp would drift down to the failure point, but these temps are all over less than 1 or 2 seconds each and the machine didn't fail, again I stopped it but it had printed 3 layers of a small part. 
Maybe if I get brave tomorrow or so, I'll take apart one of the E3D's I have (v6 & Lite) and swap the heat element and the thermistor... Who knows???

Well, I took it all apart again and found what might be causing the temp fluctuation - see the pic (I hope). 

When I got the thermistor screw out, you could see some 'leakage' on both sides, probably indicative of shorting to ground.  Also the heater wires look a little 'crunchy'.   
I did what Heartless suggested - ran it to 191 and steered it all around the build platform - no problem. 
I'm done with scooching with this, I just ordered a handful (3) of 24V 40W heaters and thermistors from Amazon for 9.00.  Be here tomorrow.

More later...

The thermistor was not loose at all. I do recall a thermal runaway, actually overheat,  I caused a couple of months ago that probably started the thermistor's demise.
If you look at it, what comes with it is all metal, not as pretty, but no plastic.  $63.xx is a little much with no electronics. I am gonna ask a couple of friends if they can fabricate a mount of some type to affix either E3D's I have to the Ender. Maybe, who knows.  I have all the parts for a direct drive also.  I gotta see first if the a heating element and thermistor solves the problem, otherwise it's a motherboard, and I don't have much luck with 3D motherboerds, it's not the boards, it's the firmware.  (And I was a programmer for over 17 years... go figure)

communication and mintemp errors are unrelated...

mintemp errors were most likely caused by the bad thermistor

communication errors are most commonly caused by usb issues.. so i would not rule them out & "fixed" completely just yet.
new usb cable might resolve things if they come back... and worst case scenario is the usb port on the printer might be going south. This is what happened to my original SD4 with the stock Printrboard. I had to replace the board on that one, and went with something better when i did.