Assembled Version- Weaving (Page 1 of 2)

Can you upload a picture of how you have the filament guide set up?

Twitter is your image host of choice? Ha.

I've summoned Rob to this thread. What temperature are you extruding at?

It probably has to do with the positioning of the two guide bars. Rob will know more once he gets here. For starters, take a look at the pictures on page 6 of the manual. It looks like your two metal guides are too far out, try putting them more central to the bar. Basically replicate page 6/7.

Edited post above.

Ahh yes the SIN wave. This is caused by waves in the filament and will keep going until you straiten out the filament. This was happening a lot to me when I first started out. But once you figure out how to get everything set up, you should not see it again.

What I do when I start a new strand is grab onto the end with tweezers when it is first coming out. Then I pull on that until I have a good foot of filament. Don't pull too much to stretch out the filament. Then place the filament on the two metal guides. It is important that there is some filament hanging over the end to apply some weight. After this, your filament should feed properly.

Another trick I learned is if you take a strand of filament and poke it into the nozzle. It will fuse to the strand coming out. This way you don't have to sit around and hold the filament as it slowly comes out.

Wow. That is definitely not acceptable. I am sure that Rob will be contacting you to send you new parts. It is hard to see - is the hopper physically cracked, or has it deformed to that shape? If the latter, I am disappointed because that means PLA is still being used for hopper material even though I've asked it to be made out of ABS.

Since you've run plastic in it already, it would be a pretty big pain to take the coupling off. You'd probably have the take the flange off, which would result in possibly bending the barrel. Best bet here is a new center section from Rob. My apologies, Harry.

He'll contact you.

hvalner,
I sent you an email.

I don't know if your hopper was like that when you received it, but this appears to be another flaw.  My "hopper" is tight when the unit is cold, but is easily tipped side-to side when the unit heats up.  It's possible (and the photos seem to indicate) that it is simply melting, and when any movement of the hopper occurs while the pipe is hot, it's deforming the fit.

One of the first things I did was to cut a couple of pieces of material to hold the "hopper" in position, as the enclosure has a large, oversize hole, which does not do this.  So far, so good.

As for the waves, when starting the unit, I pull the filament out as indicate above, but it really doesn't matter if you stretch it.  In fact, I usually pull it until it is very thin, and baby it a bit until it follows the guides.  Some have used a wooden clothespin on the end to make sure there is enough weight to keep it taut until there is enough filament to do that on it's own.

I was sent a replacement unit, and the first one was grey, and of the newer design.  The replacement I was shipped is black, like the OP's and of the older design.  Both exhibited this twisting when the barrel was hot. The grey one isn't deformed like the OP's, but is no longer as tight.  I have not examined the black one, which is currently in use.

Understood.  But a think a good addition to the fully assembled version would be a couple of small sliding parts to hold the hopper part in position.  The hole in the top is too large (which I assume is to allow for ease of assembly) and it allows that part to tip.  Not a big deal if the hopper is used as is, but when larger amounts of plastic are placed in a funnel above it, it tips to the side during operation.  It would take very little to fix this annoyance.

To help people know what hopper is what. The gray hoppers are ABS and black hoppers are PLA. Everything after FA59 is ABS but in a variety of colors.

The experiment I set up looked at what temperatures is the hopper seeing (during normal use) and observing the hopper. I found that the hopper got loose as stated above but it never deformed. Even when the machine was set to heat to max temp.  We have a few machines set up here with PLA and have no issues. But in the long run, ABS hoppers are more stable and a better solution. 

If anyone is having issues with their hopper, please send me pictures so I can document thoroughly. Thank you

Rob