1 Topic by gwfami

  • gwfami
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  • Registered: 2013-03-11
  • Posts: 142

Topic: Squeaky sound

The original barrel that I received with my kit was bad, actually scored the auger up on the back and made lots of squeaky noises while moving the tip of the extruder in 1/2 inch circles when the motor was on.

Tim stepped right up and shipped out another barrel, coupler and auger.  That's the way to  build customer loyalty guys.

Anyhow, I installed the new parts and started up the extruder, no noise, filament came out, yea!

In about 5-10 minutes, I heard another squeak.  This time, the  barrel didn't move in funny little circles, but I noticed a buildup of resin pellets in the wood cutout between the thrust bearing and the fitting on the auger.  Apparently what was happening was a resin pellet would somehow get pushed out of the back and wind up getting caught between the wood and the auger fitting causing the auger to be moved slightly out of alignment with the barrel (my conclusion) and the auger would then contact the barrel causing a squeaking sound, plus lots of metal shavings.

I disassembled the unit and using my dremel made the hole in the wooden block a little larger, and put a funnel shape at the bottom of it so the pellets would drop out.

This worked great.  I ran it for 5 hours or so with no squeaking, and had about 20 pellets drop out.  Then it happened.  I had just received 10 pounds of PP resin to test.  I filled up the hopper with the resin and proceeded to run.

the filament extruded fine at 195 C, and eventually became clear.  It then slowed down, turned grey, then black and the squeaking started again, and very quickly the barrel began to twist.  I immediately shut it off and disassembled it.  Inside was a big wad of black plastic, that was very magnetic and the tip of the auger was slightly scoredI have just cleaned out the barrel and will reassemble it tonight to see if this problem continues, although I will use the included resin for now and not use the PP.

Anyone else have anything similar happen?

2 Reply by gwfami

  • gwfami
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  • Registered: 2013-03-11
  • Posts: 142

Re: Squeaky sound

Update:  I reassembled the filastuder, making sure everything was straight, then proceeded to heat it up to 200 C and run PP through it, eventually lowering the temperature to 192 C.  No squeaking, no black residue, everything worked fine.  Ran it for 2 hours on PP, then switched to the ABS resin provided with the kit and ran that for another 1/2 hour.

Everything is working fine, although I'm still getting a lot of "kickout" resin from the area around the thrust bearing, but with my modification, that isn't a problem.