1 Topic by BluPrintz

  • BluPrintz
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Topic: Filament problem or more?

I'm a first time printer owner (the solidoodle 3) and I've had the thing less then a month. Been largely smooth printing, but I have no clue what I did wrong here. Not certain if I should be blaming the filament or the extruder. I'm attempting to avoid removing the extruder, but if I have to I will.

It was printing great yesterday, and as you can see the more finished print was done first, it started failing in the middle of the print. All attempts afterwards fail in the first ten layers. I've tried removing and putting the filament back in. It extrudes great but than does this when printing. I'm not sure what other sort of things I should be trying to check first before I attempt to take the thing apart.

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2 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Filament problem or more?

It looks like the extruder is extruding just fine...if you try extruding manually in RH does the filament droop straight down as you are pressing the extrude button? if so then that should be good. From the pics it looks like there is no shifting/losing steps so I would guess it is either filament not bonding to the previous layer or partially clogged nozzle which could give the same effect... you may have to turn up the extrusion amount or extruder temperature...  Could you provide more specs of the prints you are trying... temps, print speeds, etc...

3 Reply by BluPrintz

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Re: Filament problem or more?

Well I don't really mess with the settings all that much. I leave it at defaults and only mess with them to click support material or not.
When I make it extrude it comes out straight, when it's sitting there it comes out slowly and curls back up towards the nozzle if that matters?
Also here is are the screenshots and the final product that printed correctly twice before it started fubbing up.
Sorry if it's a simple answer, I just know so very little about the printer I'd like to know roughly what I should be doing before I attempt to fix it.
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/sh … 282%29.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/sh … 282%29.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/sh … 282%29.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/shot4.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/shot5.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/shot6.jpg

4 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Filament problem or more?

Since it comes out straight when you hit extrude that is a good thing smile it means you shouldn't have to take apart the extruder!!!

Other questions.. do you have a way to measure the filament on the spool? if so take a few measurements from a foot or two apart you may need to change the filament size setting in the slicer config if the spool has turned to a smaller diameter which would mean you are getting less filament extruded... one other thing is how hot are you extruding? you may need to bump the temperature up a few degrees if it is extruding enough filament.

5 Reply by BluPrintz

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Re: Filament problem or more?

195 is usually what I have it set at. Though I haven't checked with my little temp gun to see if it's truly 195. I'll try measuring it and seeing what happens. I believe I have a tutorial or two bookmarked on that.

6 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Filament problem or more?

I would bump it to 200 just to see what happens... Have you done the PID calibration? ie.... how much does the temp flex in the temp graph window on RH?

7 Reply by BluPrintz

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Re: Filament problem or more?

I have not done a PID calibration BUT the temp keep pretty consistent and corrects itself pretty fast when it starts dropping.
Tweaking the filament settings worked for one small print (a circle keychain) then went right back to not feeding enough. I'm going to try checking if the bed is level as the print that worked didn't lay down a good first layer but after that was golden. I'm not certain if that is the reason, but it can't hurt to try that simple tweak. I'll also do the calibration and get back to you on that.

8 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Filament problem or more?

The temps in RH should not vary more than a few degrees otherwise you should do the PID autotune ---> http://wiki.solidoodle.com/pid-autotune … luctuation this will make your prints more stable and eliminate the possibility of a temperature spike that could cause an error and ruin a print.

So are all of your failed prints failing the same way? or do some of them get knocked off the bed and some just turn into spaghetti and so on...

9 Reply by BluPrintz

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Re: Filament problem or more?

Yes and no. The first two prints I had a problem with failed in a way that has happened before.
First Fail:
Tried to print a batch of things over night and when I woke up in the morning it had disconnected from plate, turned into spaghetti and was getting shoved all over the place by the extruder.

Second Fail:
Was the first pictures I shared where it had gotten rather far along in the print before it started doing weird things.

And since then all the other prints look like this. dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/flaw.JPG at the start(that was about 5 layers). The print that came out okay corrected itself by layer 2 with no other problems.

Readjusting the plate did nothing, and the heat was reading pretty consistent while it was on for my adjustments. I'll run the autotune to be sure and try another print tomorrow. I've been banned from trying to tweak the printer by my spouse.

10 Reply by destinymolddesign

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Re: Filament problem or more?

BluPrintz wrote:

Well I don't really mess with the settings all that much. I leave it at defaults and only mess with them to click support material or not.
When I make it extrude it comes out straight, when it's sitting there it comes out slowly and curls back up towards the nozzle if that matters?
Also here is are the screenshots and the final product that printed correctly twice before it started fubbing up.
Sorry if it's a simple answer, I just know so very little about the printer I'd like to know roughly what I should be doing before I attempt to fix it.
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/sh … 282%29.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/sh … 282%29.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/sh … 282%29.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/shot4.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/shot5.jpg
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/shot6.jpg

From the screenshots, I see your first layer is set to .35mm, but your layer height is .20mm.  You may want to set the first layer to the same as the normal layer or smaller (to help it stick to the bed).

I think you are too far off the bed with the first layer.

11 Reply by BluPrintz (edited by BluPrintz 2013-09-28 15:46:24)

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Re: Filament problem or more?

Alright took your advice too Destiny. Tweaked the first layer, ran the pid autotune, remove the filament again. Cut off a good chunk that was looking oddly kinked. Also extruded a bunch just to get it out there.
The results were much better but still unusable. Played with the filament settings a bit more, even though before all the flawed prints they were perfect.
Does this mean that maybe it's the filament that's bad somehow?
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/IMG_1230.JPG
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/IMG_1231.JPG

Also here is a picture of my heat tab, finally remembered to get a screencap.
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59741387/heatView.jpg

Edit:
Also I noticed a pretty consistent noise from the filament feeder bits. Sometimes they were pretty quiet and other times it sounded like it was skipping on the filament. I've not played at all with this part of the machine and I can't really remember if that's normal. Is that something I should worry about?