1

Topic: extruder having trouble

Not sure what's happening.

I am struggling to get even the simplest part to print. I loaded in a fresh spool of ABS.  It was vacuum sealed and had the gel humidity pellets and everything.

But for some reason its as if the extruder is having trouble extruding plastic.  Before prints were perfect, but now they look like this:

Please help!  I can't seem to figure it out. I've leveled the bed a million times, checked all the settings..

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4963246/3d%20prints/IMG_20130725_074621_025.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4963246/3d%20prints/IMG_20130725_074559_785.jpg

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Re: extruder having trouble

Never quite saw this before...but just a shot, could be a diameter difference on the new filament.  Have you tried increasing the idler tension on the extruder?

SD2 - Stock - Enclosure - Heated Bed - Glass Plate - Auto Fire Extinguisher
Ord Bot Hadron - RAMPS 1.4 - Bulldog XL - E3D v6 - 10" x 10" PCB Heated Build w/SSR - Glass Plate
Thanks for All of Your Help!

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Re: extruder having trouble

ITman496 wrote:

Not sure what's happening.

I am struggling to get even the simplest part to print. I loaded in a fresh spool of ABS.  It was vacuum sealed and had the gel humidity pellets and everything.

But for some reason its as if the extruder is having trouble extruding plastic.  Before prints were perfect, but now they look like this:

Please help!  I can't seem to figure it out. I've leveled the bed a million times, checked all the settings..

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4963246/3d%20prints/IMG_20130725_074621_025.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4963246/3d%20prints/IMG_20130725_074559_785.jpg

Partial clog?
Overheating?

Former Solidoodle employee, no longer associated with the company.

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Re: extruder having trouble

I'm not sure how it could be overheating or clogged.  I literally removed the test filament that was shipped with the printer and hooked my own spool in and the quality suddenly dropped.

Is there some different way that one must use white filament instead of red?

How do I check for a clog, and what constitutes as overheating?

Also, if this helps any, I had it extrude 100mm of filament and as it came out there was a tiny amount of smoke.

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Re: extruder having trouble

Pretty much every color prints different for me, sometimes it is just a couple of degrees and some 10 degrees hotter to make then flow the same... dark colors seem to be the worst. Also the same colors from different suppliers can vary a lot, it's just one of the challenges of 3d printing to learn to adapt to the varying filament I usually start with the minimums and work up from there when starting a new roll then write the pertinent settings on a note taped to the roll when I switch colors.

One other thing, clogs can happen without warning from impurities in the filament to debris sticking to the filament and getting pulled into the extruder while printing.

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Re: extruder having trouble

Now I have an interesting clog.  The filament broke right above the peek thingy, and whenever I inset new filament it gets shoved sideways and into the sidewall and strips.

What do I do?

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Re: extruder having trouble

you can reach straight down with a small allen key or a long toothpick with the end cut flat after releasing the filament pinch roller and manually push the filament through with the hotend up to temp.

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Re: extruder having trouble

Got it.  But it seems just.. Is it possible to get bad plastic?

It worked so well with the stuff that came with it, and this new stuff just.. is terrible.

When it extrudes it seems to get all fuzzy and not pure.  The plastic that comes out is a bit lumpy.

When it prints it does the first layer fine but the second layer on seems to be like.. the extruder can't keep up with the printer. I've tried temps all over the place and it doesn't matter.  It just can't seem to feed plastic fast enough, but I know it's capable because it did it with the red filament just fine.

Any advice?

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Re: extruder having trouble

Yes, it is possible to have bad ABS... SD actually had a bad batch of black quite a while ago.

Have you done the auto calibration for the extruder heater? What does your temp graph look like in repetier?

Natural filament have always worked the best for me( lowest temp for good extrusion) but I have successfully used quite a range of colors from at least 5 or 6 different suppliers.

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Re: extruder having trouble

http://www.soliwiki.com/PID_tuning

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Re: extruder having trouble

The temp looks like its holding fine, stays within the line that it sets ~1c

This is the filament that I purchased.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3D-Printer-Fila … 27d160ac4c

I got white 1.75mm abs


Also, I cleaned the extruder gear thing, and raised the temp way up, and calibrated the flow so 100mm = 100mm

but it still fails!  It's like it just doesn't have enough flow.  At least I stopped the lumpy plastic issue by clearing out the extruder.

I'll try raising the flow way up and see if that helps, unless you have a better idea.

Thanks!

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Re: extruder having trouble

Wow I'm dumb.

OKAY for anyone who has this problem.  The filament diameter being actually set to 1.75 is VERY important.

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Re: extruder having trouble

what did you have it set to?

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.

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Re: extruder having trouble

3mm.  aha. 

No wonder it didn't work.

The thing is that somehow I got confused or during a transfer of programs the default solidoodle filament thing turned into 3, so I thought 'well I know my filament is 1.75.. but the solidoodle settings that were preloaded say 3..  must be some weird thing'  and then I finally changed it and BAM it works perfectly!

A bonus to this misadventure is that I fixed the other aspects of the printer so well to get it to even marginally work with the setup incorrect, is that now that its correct, it works great!

I dont think its warping at all with my new enclosure.

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Re: extruder having trouble

Woohoo!

Still need a slight amount of Z adjustment but look!!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4963246/3d%20prints/IMG_20130725_205335_006.jpg

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Re: extruder having trouble

Glad to see you have got it set and running good smile

Just goes to show you sometimes it's the little things that cause the most problems... That I know all too well wink

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Re: extruder having trouble

I still have a tiny issue of bed warp, but..  I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4963246/3d%20prints/IMG_20130725_224252_431.jpg