Good prints and settings

#9

Hmm, 3DPrintEvangelist, if you have the same problem that I have (long story short… I have located the problem today, but still havent have time to fix it)

After cleaning the nozzle for the 3rd time today with harsh chemicals and drill, my print still feels like having a differential in extrusion speed… after careful observation without the heating block and nozzles I found out that even with just the solid filament, the extrusion gears for the left extruder cant grip it firm enough; resulting to slipping from time to time for a few seconds. The print result looks like this…

DSC_0040.JPG928×800 243 KB

I wonder if it is the same issue, but just worst.
It is strange, because this happens only with my left extruder, my right extruder is working like a champ.
I will take it apart tomorrow to see if I can fix them.

Have someone fixed the extrusion gears before ? @@ is it easy to do?

#10

I have further analyzed my problem and can exclude a clogged nozzle and slipping gears.
Its a brand new nozzle and with manual extrusion control (100mm/min) extrusion works perfect, even for longer periods of time. So no clog and no slipping.
I put my finger to the motor and drive and it simply does not move enough. Often for seconds its even stands still.
Furthermore I have inserted the filament directly from top, so that the bottom motor is unused. No change. Still too little feeding.
So definetly a filament feeding problem.

But I have not found a setting to set the filament extrusion speed.
Is there a command for setting the filament feeding speed, similar to limiting the Z-Drive speed (M203 Z5 ;mm/sec) or any other trick?

I have a dual extruder. Both extruders behave the same.

Repairing the gear. I am using the custom motor carrier from thingiverse and that is working fine with me.
If the gears still slip I can only think of somehow sharpening the teeth of the gear.

#11

Please post your Slic3r / Repetier printer settings, especially the retraction settings.
I left it on default 40mm/sec and it made a strange noise with manual control retraction. Now the motor wont move anymore, just makes clicking sound.

So what is the correct retraction speed?
Why is manual control retraction way faster than extrusion, although with 40mm/sec it should be less than 100mm/sec I used for extrusion?

#12

Hey 3DPrintEvangelist
I have saved a configuration file. not sure if this includes the G-code setup.

My retraction is at 1mm with 40mm/sec and this is the most current test print for my printer with that setting

DSC_0049.JPG1720×1640 1.04 MB

Currently, the printer is on the process of printing something bigger 10cm diamenter x 4 cm height disk like thing. So far it seems to have the into the issue of the idle extruder running into some excess heights (avg 10 minutes i can hear it pushing the spring loaded plate down) from previous layers that the other extruder printed… other than that it seems to be so far so good…
I am thinking to just screw the idle nozzle in more… to prevent it from hitting in the future until I want to experiment with 2 nozzle printing

#13

After a lot of testing and debugging there are several problems at once.

I checked every cable for defects and replugged all connections.
Afterwards the motor was running again. Don’t know if its just coincidence.
Then tried printing again. Result was inconsistent. Some areas no filament and some perfect.
So I removed teflon tube and printing was better.

In the end I removed the top cover and made sure all cables and teflon tubes are bent as little as possible.
Now one 10x10cm print is running and it seems to work.

winstondon:
your print looks fantastic.
What did you change to have a more consistent result?
Thank you for the settings file.
But its only the slic3r config again.

For Slic3r there are three settings files:

  • printer
  • filament
  • slic3r
#14

Hey 3D, is it the export bundle?
if it is, try this link https://www.dropbox.com/s/59dfnqwdlecvi7s/Slic3r_config_bundleWW.ini?dl=0

My mileage is quite low on ZeePro, with about 2 days of use after a week and half of troubleshooting (got a salvaged unit on cragslist).

This unit did not work well with the ZeeProShare interface. Due to a very specific Zee board problem which resulted in Z stepper motor random stepping at higher RPM. I could print at low RPM (2-3mm/s) but after 2 days I replaced the board with another salvaged ZeePro printer. Which solved that crazy motor stepping issue. With the slic3r default, and preset mentioned here my right nozzle was printing well.

Then I tried to print with the left nozzle, and problem surfaces once more.
After few days troubleshooting I found out the gears that’s driving the filament is having serious slipping issue. Sometimes it lose the grip for a few seconds even without any resistance, core filament not advancing while the motor still turning. resulting in this kind of stuff

DSC_0040.JPG928×800 240 KB
people thought it was nozzle clog, but it wasn’t. I cleaned the thing inside out, with drill bits and sonicator. put everything back together, and exactly the same cube prints.

just some pictures to share while I was doing the take apart.

DSC_0044.JPG3840×2160 2.44 MB

DSC_0045.JPG3840×2160 2.61 MB

DSC_0046.JPG3840×2160 2.84 MB

DSC_0047.JPG3840×2160 2.72 MB

Anyways, pretty much disassembled the block, cleaned the gear teeth, reassembled everything tightly yesterday, and today the “right nozzle” is working great, was able to get a 6 hours of printing none stop.

IMG_2987.JPG4000×3000 2.16 MB

This is one of the print I did today, too bad I can’t show you guys other stuff due to NDA.

I havent get around to get another spool of filament to test the left extruder, which was the bad apple “slippage problem”. my other spool is coming tomorrow, I will let you guys know how it goes, if it is gone good news, if it is still doing this kind of shibang

then I really dont know what to do with the slipping problem.

Zim customized software/hardware quick guide
#15

Thanks a lot.
Those are a lot of settings you already have and all is there printer, filament and slicer.
This evening I am going to start testing as well.
What I noticed yesterday with my one test print, that I have a lot of vibration for some head travel (if its a long straight line).
As I did not have that with Zeepro interface, it must be some speed setting. But maybe your config already solved this.

Your print really looks great.
How did you manage that? Did you use the fan for cooling?
Once I use the cooling fan, it mostly cools my hotend and results in a fast clogging.
And I can see your Fan outlets are not melted or warped. You are lucky.
I can see you are still using the cartridges?
Drop that and at least use this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:740639
With the right spring tension you will have a lot better grip from the gear.

But either print it in ABS or use extra cooling for the motor and drive housing. Because with the temperature of the motor PLA will warp a lot and look like this and stop working:

20150707_192324.jpg2322×4128 2.77 MB

And if it still fails, you can always fall back to only using the upper motor in the head and feed filament firectly from the top.

#16

Hey 3D, thank you for the tips on the sprig tension. at this moment the setup is actually with jpod’s side spool attachment feeding it directly into the top stepper motor that squeezes the filament in, Oh, and thats why I was asking if we are not using the bottom stepper we should change the current input on the motor drive. I figured wiring the filament directly from top might be less troublesome with less winding of the filament. :smiley:

How did you manage that (nice prints)?

  • After bed leveling or making any changes to slic3r I do a 1cm cube test to check if that change makes it better or worst. I might be lucky, the printer have some issues that I was able to figure out, other than that perhaps my printing mileage is not too high yet, so everything is still working.

Did you use the fan for cooling?

  • My left fan for some reason can’t be turned on (with M106 S#) :frowning: . So I hooked the fan on to a 9V battery and turn the fan on manually when it is doing a lot of overhang,

Once I use the cooling fan, it mostly cools my hotend and results in a fast clogging.

  • what temperature do you usually do your prints at? so far I have been experimenting only with PLA (no higher than 220c blue hatchbox brand)

And I can see your Fan outlets are not melted or warped. You are lucky.

  • Ya, I saw one of the salvaged unit with PLA/ABS fused all over the fan outlets, impossible to recover. Scary stuff…It haven’t melted prob because I haven’t done any printing with ABS which require a higher temperature.

Anyways, good luck! It requires a lot of patience and time. just a general advise, but you prob know. hand-tight everything and make sure it is firmly tight!

#17

Ok, thanks.

I am printing mostly PLA with 215 on first layer and 205 for the rest.
But I did some ABS prints as well with 245 on first layer and 240 on the rest.
My fan outlets where not correct from the start. They mostly blew inside the head cover. Thats one reason I had so many clogging. Now all fan outlets are melted and warped and useless. I tried to salvage with blue tape and cover all holes, but without the head cover it still cools down my hotend quite fast. So I cannot use it. Interestingly enough the blue tape did not mind the temperatures and remained intact.
I need some replacement or adapter to make the air flow more precise on the object and as little as possible on the hotend. But lacking the 3D design skills…sadly I have to turn off cooling and hope for someone to design an alternative bottom part (air outlets) for the fans.
Something like this seems better, that have a big fan directed 45° on build plate:

Or an adapter like this:

But what printing material could take the heat and not warp?

#18

Hey KingMartin, I tried to slice with KissSlicer but result was bad. Could you please share your settings ?
thanks

#19

Hi!
That´s my model of the Filament driver that you use! That really makes me kind of proud…
As the first guy on Thingiverse wrote that his Part warped a lot after a certain time of usage, I didn´t believe it. But your picture shows the problem very clearly!
In fact, I still use the first one that I printed before uploading the parts without any problems. I don´t use the cartridge-cover or the electronics-cover at all and my steppers never heat up more than about 45°C, even in night-long prints.
Maybe you should check why your stepper drive is so hot!? (Or just put a piece of an old CPU cooler to the backside of the motor to give it cooling-fins)

#20

I’m having problems printing with octoprint and could use some help. I’m using simplify 3d to print. i created the gcode and upload to octoprint. once my right extruder t0 reaches temp. it just turns off and my print never starts. I’m not sure why.

I would be open to using the octoprint cura slicer but i have no idea what to use as a profile so I’m kinda stuck.

Can anyone help point me in the right direction?

thanks,
Ryan

#21

dexx0008 i have the same setup
it happens to me too it takes a long time for it to reach the set temp so aborts what i do is i restart octoprint half way through and then click print. It works that way for me especially with ABS with PLA its ok, its not a solution but work around.

#22

fbinabri,

thanks for the info. I found ‘communication timeout’ in octoprint. I just bumped that to 10 minutes and that did the trick for me. Definitely times out.

First print with my new setup going now. (octoprint/simplify 3D)

thanks!
Ryan

#23

I have two zims running octoprint on a raspberry pi b+'s and haven’t encountered this exact issue. I have seen a similar behavior generated by simplify3d in the gcode though. I have a dual extruder profile with heated bed. If I add a single stage to heat to one “tool”, and two stages on another, it appears simplify3d generates a new temperature command for the second tool that disables the first one. For example, if I set layer 1 to 205 and layer 2 to 195 for my extruder, but then only set layer 1 for the other “tool” (heated bed or the second extruder), then the generated gcode will turn off the second tool as soon as layer 2 is hit. This appears to be a quirk in simplify3d. The work around for me has been to always declare the same number of heat stages for all of the tools being used. If I’m doing a dual extruder print with the bed, then I have to set layer 1 and layer 2 for tool 0, tool 1 and the bed, even if the temperature isn’t changing between layers for some of them.

I suppose a similar thing to what you describe could happen if you have two temperature controllers defined in the simplify3d process, but one of them has zero layers. My rule of thumb has been to only have temperature controllers defined for the process for the tools I’m actually using. And make sure the number of steps in the temperature controllers match, even if temperatures aren’t changing.

#24

Yes, thanks a lot.
They where a life saver for me and I know a lot of other users as well.

My Filament Motor gets very hot. If I touch it I get burned.
Strangely even the not used motor gets the same temperature.

I need a cooling fan but don’t know where to get the power from.
Any ideas?

#25

The original two motor design is poor simply from the fact that, if there is any tension generated between them as the head moves around, the holding current for the steppers will go up causing the motors to get hot. The only other option is that they slip. Also the extra Teflon tube creates more heat due to additional load on the motors. Any heat generated is indicative of additional current draw from the stepper driver. For these reasons, unless you are married to the idea of using the lower feed, one motor at the head only, with filament Fed from the top, has been my preferred method. So far no complaints on my 2 zims setup this way, they are printing pretty constantly without feed or heat issues.

#26

I print with both motors driving filament. I’ll likely run it that way for a while.

I am wondering if 3DPrintEvangelist is commenting on the fact that the motors on the opposite extruder remain hot (On an extruder not being used). Mine do.

I was surprised. I was debating either adding a power switch to manually turn them off when not in use or simply unplugging it.

#27

I use both steppers but I designed my own extruder housing and a fan mount for a 40x40mm fan: this keeps the lower fan cold and works very well - at least for the > 10kg of PLA I printed so far :blush:
(the switch on the right is to on/off the fan)

The quality of my prints is really great but due to the heavy printhead with 2 steppers the speed is very limited: on “super high quality” I print at about 25mm/s on the outer perimeter and 0,15mm layers…

ZIM.PNG739×592 95.4 KB

#28

I also had the problem of both lower stepers heating up. The cause for this issue was very strange:
The upper and lower filament drivers are connected to the same electronics. So, they always do the same amount of steps. Also it´s good to know that the motors are switched on once they are used for the first time and they (in Software 1.4) were not switched off, even when not in use. That means, the power of the motor will not be turned off, and the motor is in “breaking-mode” (sorry, I can´t find the right english words).
And you surely know that the left Cartridge motor belongs to the right motor in the printhead and vice versa.
So it happened that the connector for the feedmotor in the printhead was loose, and the lower motor got twice the current. It heated up pretty quickly although it was not in use (otherwise I would have noticed that the motor in the head didn´t work!)
Here´s a picture of the connector which caused the problem. You can see that the position of the small white plastic frame is wrong, so the click mechanism is NOT an idicator for a good connection!

5005654946.jpg1230×681 184 KB

@dexx0008:
simply unplugging the stepper from the wire is not a good idea, because the remaining stepper will get twice the current. It would be better to disconnect the whole harness from the board (connector E0 or E1), so that both motors are disconnected. But still, this would be a workaround and not a solution. The cause for your problem is somewhere else. BTW: Have you tried to reflash the software? Or something else blocks the M84 signal (turn off motors)