1 Topic by curt (edited by curt 2014-08-29 23:29:54)

  • curt
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Topic: After 2 weeks of asking, tech support said they would replace extruder

I am a little frustrated, they say they will replace the extruder, but only if I send mine in first on my dime. then they will upon receipt send a new one out. I figure getting a refund or exchange from amazon would probably be faster, and at this point, I really have lost my faith in this companies ability to produce a working machine by design. seems like they throw a bunch of pieces together any old way and hope some of them work.

To date My machine develops extruder problems hours into a build. my latest crash left me with a beautiful ABS coffee coaster. not one hint of trouble, yet when I woke up this morning the extruder was doing it's business half inch above the model. like the 4th time that has happened on this machine.

another favorite again about 4 times, half way through a print, it starts making a hammering noise and either the plastic balls up on the extruder like a wad of bubble gum, or it starts applying in random ways that look like gross strands of spaghetti. either way I have lost a lot of plastic in those crashes.

there have been countless bed leveling issues requiring reconfiguration on a per print basis. there have been a lot of instances, where the extruder has gummed up in process requiring a pin to clean out the mess.
and then there is the filament counter, that declares I am out of filament when there is about 10 meters left in the cartridge have 3 empty cartridges with that problem.
But I think the thing that aggravates me the most at this point is that the printer will NOT print at any setting bellow .01mm thickness, 30% thick walls, slow build, all this combines to make what should be a 3 hour finished print and make it a 10 hour print if it doesn't get aborted some where along the way. along with a time estimated that constantly misses it's goal by 2-3 hours. it's not unusual to have it say 15 minutes left and it's still printing over an hour later. It's just to many moving parts going in wrong direction... it just is.

PS: after a day to get over the frustration of a 12 hour print dieting in my sleep last night, I decided to give it one more go... began with the Calibration test... It wouldn't start and wouldn't start then I realized, the extruder isn't heating beyond 20C  what is that 75-80 degrees? that explains what happened to the print for there are no signs of error in it at all, it just quit printing even thought the machine kept going threw the motions. it hit a point where it cooled down enough for the plastic to solidify inside the extruder and that was it for the print. delightful.

2 Reply by skywiselh

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Re: After 2 weeks of asking, tech support said they would replace extruder

Ok, so here's how you fix your issues, but unless you're willing to tinker, I'd recommend the Amazon return.

a) Your extruder not heating is due to a poorly design plastic connector on your print head - the black one in the wire. If you wiggle it, I bet your extruder starts heating again. If you're technically savvy, replace the connector or just solder the wires together. This issue is unlikely to be resolved by replacing the extruder.

b) "Invisible" printing and clicking sounds from the print head are the heater loosing connection during a print. See a

c) The build in calibration is a bit meh. $5 at the hardware store for a 0.008 inch / 0.203mm feeler gauge makes manual calibration a breeze. Start the demo print (this may cost you filament, so see d for that) and as soon as the print head is above  the glass and about to start actually extruding (i.e. after the glass has been raised to final print height) turn the unit off and on. Wait for the head to home, then manually move it to the two back corners and adjust until you just barely don't feel the feeler gauge touching the head when sliding below it. Do the same in the center front. You may have to do a final automatic calibration prior to this for the unit to have a Z offset prior to the manual calibration working, depending how effed up your calibration is.

d) Revert back to G firmware and get yourself an arduino and some wires and reset your cartridges to 400m and any temperature you like - and suddenly you can by a kilo of yellow ABS from Amazon for $17 bucks!

e) There are other software options than XYZware and can be used thru various random ways to get gcode directly into the machine. Read the forums, there's also a bunch of optimization you can do.

3 Reply by curt (edited by curt 2014-08-31 00:27:16)

  • curt
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Re: After 2 weeks of asking, tech support said they would replace extruder

Skywiselh...
"a) Your extruder not heating is due to a poorly design plastic connector on your print head - the black one in the wire. If you wiggle it, I bet your extruder starts heating again. If you're technically savvy, replace the connector or just solder the wires together."

Inclosed is a photo pot the extruder assembly with a connecter highlighted, is that the connecter you meant?

Curt

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4 Reply by skywiselh (edited by skywiselh 2014-09-01 03:04:12)

  • skywiselh
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Re: After 2 weeks of asking, tech support said they would replace extruder

curt wrote:

Skywiselh...
"a) Your extruder not heating is due to a poorly design plastic connector on your print head - the black one in the wire. If you wiggle it, I bet your extruder starts heating again. If you're technically savvy, replace the connector or just solder the wires together."

Inclosed is a photo pot the extruder assembly with a connecter highlighted, is that the connecter you meant?

Curt

No, it is further up the wire - see the two big wires wrapped in a cloth like material? Follow those up,  those will go to a black connector; that's the problem - those wire are the power wires for the heating element. Check out

http://www.soliforum.com/topic/6324/xyz … -properly/

There's a great picture where someone has already replaced the connector. I'd show you a picture of mine, but there's only electrical tape where this connector was on my unit, but here's a picture of a new print head with one side of the connector.

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