1 Topic by nicho1as

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Topic: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

It's a little early to be condemning my new Press, but so far I'm pretty annoyed. It's jammed twice, ruining two models.

It looks like the main extrusion advance wheel is getting too hot and melting the abs. I can see white residue building up on the wheel and it looks like it is now so slick it won't feed the string. To make things more annoying, there's no good way to get the second wheel at of the way to clear the jam. It looks like earlier models had a way of pulling the 2nd wheel way back. I see no such mechanism on the Press.

Anyone else experiencing this?

2 Reply by nicho1as (edited by nicho1as 2015-01-16 06:02:02)

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

Beyond frustrated at this point.

There's no good way to clear a jam. The remaining nub is flat and deformed. Either the wheels were too hot or applying too much pressure, possibly both. Regardless, there's not a clean edge to push against with extra filament or some other tool.

As there's no flat edge or surface near the jam area, there's also no way to cut the nub to get a clean edge. Trying to cut it with a razor just pushes the nub around.

Guess I'm going to have to contact support.

3 Reply by Fredjikrang

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

I had this happen once. You can get easy access to this part of the printer by using the thumb screws on the front of the extruder. You should be able to grab the little bit of filament with some tweezers and get it out. A word of warning: The hot end will fall right out when you do this, but it is easy to put back in.

4 Reply by nicho1as

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

Fredjikrang wrote:

You can get easy access to this part of the printer by using the thumb screws on the front of the extruder. You should be able to grab the little bit of filament with some tweezers and get it out.

Yeah, I removed the front, clear plastic cover, but the included tweezers don't have enough grip to pull out the stuck filament nub. My needle nose pliers don't fit. I managed to use two exacto knives to "scissor" the nub off and get a flat surface. I then used the tweezers to push the filament through the extruder.

Fredjikrang wrote:

A word of warning: The hot end will fall right out when you do this, but it is easy to put back in.

The hot end of what will fall out where?

5 Reply by thatdecade (edited by thatdecade 2015-01-16 16:45:10)

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

There are two thumb screws, the top one is to remove the front clear plastic cover.  The second lower screw removes a section of the extruder.  With both pieces removed, you can easily get your tweezers in there.

As Fredjikrang said, the second thumb screw also releases the hot end so be careful as it falls.


PS. I too have an issue of my feeder grinding into the filament.   I'll let you know if I figure out a long term solution.

6 Reply by nicho1as

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

Aha! The second thumb screw!

Though I definitely saw it, somehow I never thought about actually turning it. I thought it was there to simply support the plastic shielding. Thanks for this self-evident tidbit ; )

Do let me know if you discover something about the grinding and thank you again.

7 Reply by cpsmicahel

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

it took me a week to get my Workbench Apprentice printing and its still not 100% I  have been waiting 2 weeks for a replacement part these things only have a 60 warranty but i did fine the phone # to the main shop in NY so i call then everyday

• Solidoodle Workbench Apprentice
• Creates plastic parts up to 6" x 6" x 8"
• Heated Aluminum Build Platform with Glass Bed
• Dual extruder

8 Reply by jagowilson

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

cpsmicahel wrote:

it took me a week to get my Workbench Apprentice printing and its still not 100% I  have been waiting 2 weeks for a replacement part these things only have a 60 warranty but i did fine the phone # to the main shop in NY so i call then everyday

Don't do that. Solidoodle is swamped and while you might be pissed, were lucky they provide a phone number at all. Don't abuse it. They will help you, just be patient.

9 Reply by thatdecade

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

Try this post.  I have had moderate luck with the default temp of 250 and white filament.  I extrude 20mm on my press before printing to ensure no shredding.

soliforum.com/post/7279/#p7279

IanJohnson wrote:

This might relevant, from the Google group-

Hello Solidoodlers!

This is TJ from Solidoodle. After hearing and reading about clogging issues from our black filament, I thoroughly tested a few known "problem" rolls of filament that were sent back and initially had similar results. At first, I too believed it was clogging, which in turn was causing the drive gear to to shred the filament. After some experimentation, I noticed the drive gear was shredding the filament, but I could still easily push the filament through, which ruled out a clog. This lead me to believe that rather than the filament being 'bad,' It just needs different calibrations.

1) The black filament is generally softer than other colors making it more prone to shredding. When this happens the filament no longer pushes through via the drive gear, which may look likeWhen I tightened the idler swing arm on the extruder, the filament stopped shredding, but the motor would periodically skip steps. Which leads to:
2) The melt temperature for good extrusion is almost 10 degrees hotter with black filament than other colors. My hot end is set at195C for our blue/green/red/natural, but for the black I use 205C. To solve this issue, I tested the black with PID off which causes a sinusoidal temperature swing of about 10 degrees. I set extrude amount to 100mm and observed that at the lower end (190C-195C) the extruder motor would skip steps, yet at the higher end (195-200) the motor would skip little or none.

Essentially, If you think you have problem filament, give the following a try before tossing it.
-First, tighten the swing arm, but make sure you leave the spring enough room to compress. Otherwise the extruder will not be able to compensate for variations in filament diameter.
-Increase your temperature by 5-10 degrees. Don't push it to high (210C MAX) otherwise the barrel might become hot enough to soften PEEK retainer.
-Lower your print bed and extrude 100mm of filament. If the filament comes out smooth without any skipping or shredding you should be good to go. Try printing a couple small parts as a test.

I will not say this will fix issues for everyone, because I simply don't have a sample of everybody's filament. But it has worked with all the problem filament I have tried so far.
If you want to give your problem filament another go, follow these steps and respond with your results

Cheers.
TJ

10 Reply by krel

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

I've had problems with it skipping/shredding and I have the natural/white filament.  Extruder temp is at the default 250, should I turn it up a bit?

11 Reply by worldburger

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

krel wrote:

I've had problems with it skipping/shredding and I have the natural/white filament.  Extruder temp is at the default 250, should I turn it up a bit?

No, you should turn it down. Solidoodle changed the default temp in SoliPrint from 250->215.

12 Reply by hotony

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

I have done this, small prints are fine.. anything longer than 60mins, it will start skipping/shredding.

13 Reply by schappjy

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

I have been having the same issue with my press as well. I found that you need to leave the top cover or the front door open in order to have a long term print. If i print with all closed, i usually get about and hour in and i have a jam and complete mess on my hands. You might need to increase the bed temp 5 degrees in order for the prints not to warp due to the thermal difference.

14 Reply by mrb

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

I've got this same problem. Filament being shred by the drive gear. And I've updated SoliPrint and have the 215 temperature. When I push hard on the filament while the wheel is turning it will force some filament out of the nozzle but nothing like what it did with my first two prints. This started with my third print and now I can't get anything to print from the my Solidoodle Press.

I did remove both thumb screws and the hot end of the extruder tilted and had to be careful held in place with pliers while I put the holding piece and screw back in place. But there was no jamb below the wheel. Could replacing the nozzle, holder, and thumb screw misaligned the inlet of the nozzle so that the filament can't flow easily into the nozzle?

15 Reply by neiledit

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Re: Press - Three hours printing & Two jams

I was having similar issues. I have had success with the Extruder temp at 240 deg and the the doors open.   I was using the natural color starter filament with the print bed at 90. My prints at lower temps like 215 would skip after about 30 minutes.