1 Topic by 3dcad

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Topic: extruder motor is not moving correctly

The extruder motor is not working as it should, I have had this problem before. This happend before and after turning my computer and printer off and on the problem disappeared. Now its not going away by simply turning the computer and printer on/off.

Some notes:

- The filament is not jammed or anything and cam move freely
- As you can see in the video the motor is not making a full rotation but extruding about 3mm than retracting 3mm over and over again.

Is it something that can be solved with "Instructions for Adjusting the Stepper Motor Chips"

Does anyone here know how to fix this?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cs02z8mzeuz4k … .54.31.mp4

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2 Reply by 2n2r5

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

I am having a hard time seeing what is going on in the video. Can you use a sharpie or something to draw a line on the filament gear? That way we can see the movement.

SD3 w/ mods:
Glass bed with QU-BD heat pad upgrade, threadless ballscrew w/ 8mm smooth rod, spectra line belt replacement, lawsy MK5 extruder, Lawsy replacement carriage, E3D hotend, Ramps 1.4 w/ reprap discount controller, DRV8825 drivers, 12v 30A PS, Acrylic case, Overkill Y-idlers, Filament alarm, Extruder fan + more.

2n2r5's Website

3 Reply by 3dcad

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

2n2r5 wrote:

I am having a hard time seeing what is going on in the video. Can you use a sharpie or something to draw a line on the filament gear? That way we can see the movement.


Ok, Thanks for the reply,  I have drawn a line with a pencil and the video url is in the text file below (cant post a url at the moment)

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extruder motor problem2.txt 67 b, 7 downloads since 2013-05-21 

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4 Reply by 2n2r5

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

Looks like your hotend is probably clogged. There is a pretty good set of instructions for cleaning your hotend on the Official wiki. http://wiki.solidoodle.com/unclogging-procedures

NOTE: Be very careful when tightening up the acrylic pieces or removing the hotend. The acrylic pieces WILL BREAK.

SD3 w/ mods:
Glass bed with QU-BD heat pad upgrade, threadless ballscrew w/ 8mm smooth rod, spectra line belt replacement, lawsy MK5 extruder, Lawsy replacement carriage, E3D hotend, Ramps 1.4 w/ reprap discount controller, DRV8825 drivers, 12v 30A PS, Acrylic case, Overkill Y-idlers, Filament alarm, Extruder fan + more.

2n2r5's Website

5 Reply by 3dcad

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

2n2r5 wrote:

Looks like your hotend is probably clogged. There is a pretty good set of instructions for cleaning your hotend on the Official wiki.

NOTE: Be very careful when tightening up the acrylic pieces or removing the hotend. The acrylic pieces WILL BREAK.

No the hotend works fine. I removed the filament from the extruder and the same thing happens. (New video below)

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extruder motor problem3.txt 67 b, 4 downloads since 2013-05-21 

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6 Reply by 2n2r5

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

So does the motor move freely with out the filament?

SD3 w/ mods:
Glass bed with QU-BD heat pad upgrade, threadless ballscrew w/ 8mm smooth rod, spectra line belt replacement, lawsy MK5 extruder, Lawsy replacement carriage, E3D hotend, Ramps 1.4 w/ reprap discount controller, DRV8825 drivers, 12v 30A PS, Acrylic case, Overkill Y-idlers, Filament alarm, Extruder fan + more.

2n2r5's Website

7 Reply by 3dcad

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

2n2r5 wrote:

So does the motor move freely with out the filament?

Ow sorry, no the same happens.. extruding about 3mm than retracting 3mm over and over again. (There is a video in the text file below the last reply)

8 Reply by IanJohnson

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

Check the voltage on the driver chip.  Go to the troubleshooting page at Solidoodle.com, there are instructions near the bottom.  If you don't have a multimeter, you can at least see if the driver is the problem.

With the power turned off, unplug the extruder motor from the board (marked E) and swap it with another motor, like X.  Then click the X arrows in Repetier and see if the extruder turns.  If not, then there is something wrong with the motor.  If it turns properly, then there might be something wrong with the driver chip.  It might be as simple as adjusting the voltage, or the chip might be bad.

9 Reply by 3dcad

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

Thanks for the reply,

IanJohnson wrote:

Check the voltage on the driver chip.  Go to the troubleshooting page at Solidoodle.com, there are instructions near the bottom.  If you don't have a multimeter, you can at least see if the driver is the problem.

I checked the voltages

Extruder= 193 proper voltage should be 192

IanJohnson wrote:

With the power turned off, unplug the extruder motor from the board (marked E) and swap it with another motor, like X.  Then click the X arrows in Repetier and see if the extruder turns.  If not, then there is something wrong with the motor.  If it turns properly, then there might be something wrong with the driver chip.  It might be as simple as adjusting the voltage, or the chip might be bad.



I swapped the Y axis motor with the Extruder motor and now the extruder motor is working as it should. So I guess its the chip then, should I buy a new chip or is there anything else I can try to make the printer work again?

10 Reply by IanJohnson

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

You could ask Solidoodle for one, but there is not telling how long they will take to send it to you.  There are better ones out there, the drivers at http://www.panucatt.com/product_p/sd8825.htm a pretty good, and have 32x microstepping which may give you smoother extrusion.  They are $12.50, and it may not hurt to get a couple extras to have on hand.

11 Reply by 3dcad

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

I don't think the chip is broken. I switched the z axis chip with the extruder chip and now the zaxis works fine but the extruder motor is still not rotating. (I also changed and checked the voltages with a multimeter again)

I'm going to uninstall the repertierhost and driver for the printer and install it again to see if that helps. If anyone has some suggestions about how to solve this please let me know.

12 Reply by 3dcad

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

Something I might add: The printer was broken during shipping (I recieved it recently) the printerbed was broken. I fixed the printerbed and the printer was working fine 95% of the time.

Could it be a part on the motherboard thats broken?

13 Reply by 3dcad (edited by 3dcad 2013-05-21 19:50:58)

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

So I uninstalled the repertierhost and driver for the printer and installed it again but that didn't help.

I'm trying to solve this problem for 2 days now and I have seen some screenshots of the repertier host, it seems with my printer the green graph is lower then some others are showing (is it correct the green graph shows voltages?)

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14 Reply by Briggs

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

Ian, are those panucatt 1/32 drivers plug and play, or do they require further set up? Thank you.

15 Reply by 3dcad

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

I checked with a multimeter again and also detatched the motherboard from the printer and attatched it again. Strangely enough the extruder motor is now working again but only it extrudes when it should be retracting and it retracts when it should be extruding.

Does anyone here have had this problem?

16 Reply by raystream

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

i have the same problem when i slice with skeinforce.
but when slicing with slicer it is working the way it should.

17 Reply by 3dcad

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Re: extruder motor is not moving correctly

The printer is working again..

I checked the wires and they seemed fins so i put it back together again and suddenly the extruder was working again. One small problem.. the motor was extruding when it should be retracting and retracting when it should be extruding. Later I found out that after checking the wires I put them back together just like the other motors for the Z, X and Y axis.. the problem is that the extruder motor wires connect to the board differently.

Anyway, its working again but I still don't have any idea what caused the the motors to move like they where.


Thanks anyway for the help,