1 Topic by stein.inge

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Topic: Heating of the extruder is erratic

I have the Solodoodle 2 printer and it has worked fine for about 2 weeks. Now the heating of the extruder to 210 degrees has become somewhat of a problem.

-    Sometime the extuder will not heat even if I click the button to heat it.
-    Sometimes it don’t stop at 210 degrees, but just keep going until I unplug the power cord - wait for it to cool down and try again.

In order to “fix” this, I have turned the PC and the printer off and on a nunmerous of times until it suddenly works for a print – and then its back to get it working next time. This morning I just had to give it all up.

Do you have an idea of what I can do to correct it – or what to check in an attempt to track down the root course for this behavior? All feedback is good feedback

Best regards Stein

2 Reply by stein.inge

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

Me again. After spending a fair amount of time searching the forum, I found many entries about bad connections. So I opened the two connections going to the nossle/extruder, bent the pins just slightly to make a better connection and put it back again. Simple really.

For a bit it actually came back to life and I was happy....for a bit that was. Then it lost heat again. And then I got the following error:

47 : : Extruder switched off. MINTEMP triggered !
20:06:13.747 : Error:Printer stopped deu to errors. Fix the error and use M999 to restart!. (Temperature is reset. Set it before restarting)
20:06:13.747 : @:0
20:06:33.231 : Error:checksum mismatch, Last Line:14
20:06:33.231 : Resend:15

The extruder temperature now shows only 3 deg. See the attached screenshot.

Now Im totally lost. What is the next move to the get printer operational again?

Best regards Stein

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3 Reply by grob (edited by grob 2015-04-23 22:44:19)

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

These boards use 100kOhm NTC (negative temperature coefficient) thermistors, with 4.7kOhm pullup resistors (to 5V). The controller measures voltage between 0 and 5V.

The result is, if the thermistor is unplugged or the wiring is broken (which resembles a very high resistance), the machine reads 5V which it thinks is a very low temperature.

I guess you still have a connection problem - keep playing with those connectors, check the resistance of the (unplugged) thermistor (at the plug where it connects to the board) with a multimeter, and make sure it's reasonable (100 +/- 20 kOhm at room temp).

SD3. Mk2b + glass, heated enclosure, GT2 belts, direct drive y shaft, linear bearings, bowden-feed E3D v5 w/ 0.9° stepper
Smoothieboard via Octoprint on RPi

4 Reply by stein.inge

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

Hi grob

Today I cut the connections and soldered them together again. Bob's your uncle - and the 3 degrees on the extruder is gone and showing normal temperature. So that is good.

But, its not all happiness. When heating the extruder and bed, the bed is raising like normal, but the extruder just stays at the same temperature and is not rising a bit. See attached picture.

Any suggestions of what I should do now to awake the extruder and raise the temperature?


best regards Stein

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5 Reply by heartless

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

I would start by verifying all the extruder connections are good - it is possible that you may have knocked something loose while fixing the bed problem.

SD4 #1 & #2 - Lawsy carriages, E3D v6, Rumba controller board, mirror bed plate, X motor fan, upgraded PSU & Mica bed heater
SD4 #3 - in the works ~ Folgertech FT-5, rev 1
Printit Industries Beta Tester - Horizon H1

6 Reply by stein.inge

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

Thank you heartless for your input.
I cant not see any loose connections now. It all seems very good. Saying that, are there any schematics or drawings showing how to do fault finding?

Best regards Stein

7 Reply by stein.inge

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

Me again.
Was thinking of ordering a new nozzle, the extruder (where the cables are connected) and a new board, just in case something is broken on the board itself. When trying to order these parts from the website of Solidoodle, I was not able to find the nozzle with the cables as it looks on my 2nd generation printer, in their web shop. Do anyone know where to get the part where the 4 cables are connected to the nozzle with some sort of cement or glue? See the attached picture

Best regards Stein

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8 Reply by heartless

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

Personally, I would not bother ordering anything directly from Solidoodle - there are much better alternatives out there in the aftermarket.
Yes, they take a little bit more work to get installed properly, but once they are, your printer will work much better.

for a controller board, Ramps is a fairly popular choice and budget friendly. Rumba is another popular choice, costs a bit more, but has more capability for future upgrades than the Ramps board does.

Extruder (hot-end) there are many choices out there, with the E3D hot-ends seeming to be the most popular.

We have an SD4 with a Rumba controller board, and will soon be upgrading to an E3D v6 hot-end.
We have also done the Lawsy linear bearing carriages, and really like those - solved a lot of problems we were having with dimensional accuracy & odd looking circles.

SD4 #1 & #2 - Lawsy carriages, E3D v6, Rumba controller board, mirror bed plate, X motor fan, upgraded PSU & Mica bed heater
SD4 #3 - in the works ~ Folgertech FT-5, rev 1
Printit Industries Beta Tester - Horizon H1

9 Reply by grob (edited by grob 2015-04-26 23:05:01)

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

stein, before you spend a lot of money on spare parts:

It looks like the temperature is now reading correctly, but no power is being delivered to the extruder heater now. I would guess the extruder heater wiring is open-circuit, or the heater resistor has died (somehow in the confusion!).

* Use a multimeter to check the resistance of the extruder heater at the connector, it should be a few Ohms (5.4 according to the wiki). If it's open circuit, you might be able to dig the resistor out and fit a new one directly, without purchasing a whole new hotend or a new controller board!

I also second heartless's view on the spares - for only a small extra investment in effort, and definitely no more cost, you'd be able to improve the printer while fixing it - consider a RUMBA instead of a solidoodle board (cost will be similar in the end), and consider a hotend from E3D instead of a solidoodle one (talk to elmoret on this forum or visit filastruder.com to find out a bit more) - they have their fancy E3D v6, and now a budget version that has also been well received.

SD3. Mk2b + glass, heated enclosure, GT2 belts, direct drive y shaft, linear bearings, bowden-feed E3D v5 w/ 0.9° stepper
Smoothieboard via Octoprint on RPi

10 Reply by stein.inge

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

Thank you to heartless and grob. Very good feedback :-)

I understand its time for a major upgrade of a new hotend, board, power supply, the z-axes rod and I need to get hold of Lawsy MK5. That last item will not be that easy as my jigsaw extruder from Solidoodle is totally damaged. Is it possible to order a Lawsy MK5 somewhere online?

Best regards Stein

11 Reply by wardjr

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

Filastruder.com sells them but you may be able to find someone in your area to just print you one.

Printit Industries Model 8.10 fully enclosed CoreXY, Chamber heat
3-SD3's & a Workbench all fully enclosed, RH-Slic3r Win7pro, E3D V6, Volcano & Cyclops Hot End
SSR/500W AC Heated Glass Bed, Linear bearings on SS rods. Direct Drive Y-axis, BulldogXL
Thanks to all for your contributions

wardjr's Website

12 Reply by stein.inge

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

Hi wardjr. I live for the time being on the "other side" of the world - Sri Lanka, so I doubt there will be a 3D printer in the area. It would be good if there are other people "out there" though :-) So I guess it will be online ordering and long distance shipping for all the stuff. Thats the punishment for living in Paradise :-)

Best regards Stein

13 Reply by wardjr

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

I kinda figured as much wink Check your PM

Printit Industries Model 8.10 fully enclosed CoreXY, Chamber heat
3-SD3's & a Workbench all fully enclosed, RH-Slic3r Win7pro, E3D V6, Volcano & Cyclops Hot End
SSR/500W AC Heated Glass Bed, Linear bearings on SS rods. Direct Drive Y-axis, BulldogXL
Thanks to all for your contributions

wardjr's Website

14 Reply by stein.inge

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

I have ordered almost everything online tonight, but are still missing the Rumba board. Do anyone know where to get one board from - a URL for an online ordering page?

Best regards Stein

15 Reply by wardjr

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Re: Heating of the extruder is erratic

reprapdiscount.com

Printit Industries Model 8.10 fully enclosed CoreXY, Chamber heat
3-SD3's & a Workbench all fully enclosed, RH-Slic3r Win7pro, E3D V6, Volcano & Cyclops Hot End
SSR/500W AC Heated Glass Bed, Linear bearings on SS rods. Direct Drive Y-axis, BulldogXL
Thanks to all for your contributions

wardjr's Website