1 Topic by Speckinator

  • Speckinator
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Topic: Having a couple of issues

I got my filastruder about a week ago and have some things happen that I have not heard of before. Not sure if one is causing the other so I'll just list them.
1) There seems to be pellets falling out the back of auger do to there being a small gap between the black metal thing and wood. (I checked that it is spinning in the correct direction)
2) The white nylon  washer seems to be slightly ground against flange, though I have not seen it move at all.
3) There is a pile of black metal particles below thrust bearing. (picture below)
4) The nozzle moves in a periodical circle as the auger turns. The circle is about 1mm in diameter. Could it be a slightly bent auger? (the auger turned freely during assembly)
5) After over 10 hours of extruding there are still plenty of particles, but they are getting fewer in number.
6)  The extrusion rate is very low. It is about 8 in. per minute with the provided abs at 190C. (nozzle is 1.75mm) The PID is staying at 190 very consistently.

On the upside it does have very good tolerances and does work otherwise. It would be nice to have these issues sorted though

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2 Reply by IanJohnson

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Re: Having a couple of issues

For starters, on each bolt there should be one black spacer on each side of the flange, rather than both spacers in front of the flange.  Check the picture at the bottom of page 3 of the assembly PDF.

3 Reply by elmoret

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Re: Having a couple of issues

1.) this is because you assembled it wrong, as Ian alluded to.
2.) this is normal and by design, it is "bedding in". It is also intentional. It allows the thrust bearing to have the load distributed equally over the entire surface in light of any misalignments during assembly.
3.) this is also normal,
4.) this is also normal.
5.) normal, but they should be below 0.6mm in diameter. As noted several places, you need a melt filter nozzle if printing with a nozzle smaller than 0.6mm in diameter. all extruders (commercial and at-home) wear, which is why commercial extruders and the Filastruder utilize melt filtration.
6.) this is not "very low". advertised rate is 6-24in/min, depending on a number of factors. things that will increase output rate:

- insulating entire barrel (something I've been experimenting with, but not ready to recommend officially)
- increasing temperature (this will decrease average filament diameter)
- assembling it correctly, as the tip of the auger is 7/16" further back than it was designed to be based on how you assembled it.

Relevant instructions:

7.)    Lay out 4 main bolts, put a washer on each, then a black spacer.
8.)    Slide bolts through the flange, then put a black spacer on each bolt, then slide through the wooden support, and then the flange.
9.)    Put a washer and nut on each bolt. Tighten by hand. Be sure to not crush the nylon spacers.

You've created quite a problem by assembling it incorrectly, as you will need to figure out a way to move the auger further into the barrel even though there's plastic in the way now, without bending anything. I would pull the main bolts, put the spacers in the right place, heat to 190, and tighten bolts one turn at a time sequentially until the flange just barely holds each spacer against the wood.

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

4 Reply by Speckinator

  • Speckinator
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Re: Having a couple of issues

well at least it is fixable. I was wondering why it did not look right. I guess I'll fix it tomorrow and see if it helps, seems like it should.

5 Reply by Speckinator (edited by Speckinator 2014-03-23 21:38:26)

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Re: Having a couple of issues

So I fixed the washer issue and the filastruder started working great, but not for long.
I made another 20 feet of filament and then it slowed down a ton. I now get about 1in per minute with the previous settings.
I cleared the hopper to make sure there was no backup or jam there. The motor was also at the normal speed.
So I let it cool off then started it up again. It started to form bulbs (picture below) from the nozzle which led me to believe that some air got trapped inside or the nozzle got clogged. After a couple hours running like this not much has changed. On a strange note the bad filament is incredibly clean and void of any specks of stuff.

Any ideas on the situation?

EDIT: Upon removing the nozzle there was a large chunk of small metal pieces that clumped together. After removing all the junk and clearing the nozzle completely it seems to work again. Lots of work to fix though.

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