Early adopter with some GAMMA testing results.
To this point, and despite my best efforts, I’ve managed to "get lucky with a 10x10mm calibration cube. And that’s after 8-10 hours of digging around tryging to make heads or tails of the bizzarro land behaviors I’ve experience with this new printhead
First, preloaded PLA got stuck while retracting. Even if you let the aerostruder get to 205, (which wasn’t easy), the tensioner needs to be tightened from the shipping state in order for the hob not to just chew it up. But, that wasn’t a big deal.
Walked through the install instructions. It was simple and quick to get installed and plumbed up. Unfortunately that was the last of any real progress made.
updated Cura to 2.6.6 and F/W on Gladiola (S/N 10307) to:
2 [02:44:46] M115
3 [02:44:48] FIRMWARE_NAME:Marlin FIRMWARE_VERSION:1.1.5.70 EXTRUDER_TYPE:Aerostruder SOURCE_CODE_URL:https://code.alephobjects.com/diffusion/MARLIN PROTOCOL_VERSION:1.0 MACHINE_TYPE:LulzBot Mini EXTRUDER_COUNT:1 UUID:351487b6-ca9a-4c1a-8765-d668b1da6585
Towards the end of instructions you get a “Heat the hotend to appropriate printing temp. and then remove the included shipping PLA” Yeah, not so much. First attempt at about 200 degrees, temp started fluctuating wildly, down to 191 and then immediately back to 201 then 201.5 then 186 and then:
Error:Heating failed, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0
Error:Printer halted. kill() called!
Hmmm. So, I took the head off check all the connections. Everything was proper. Not really sure what to think, I tried again with the same results. Uninstalled Cura, reinstalled checked firmware. Notice baudrate wasn’t getting set properly, or, if it was wasn’t being reflected properly in settings:
There are multiple threads on the Aleph repo’s and in the release notes referencing the change to the a baud 250000. So I set baudrate as referenced in one of the included links, (but not mentioned anywhere in docs other than the release notes where it was made to sound like a default config). Tried again, and same Heating failed message and killed().
So, I turned to google. I found a bunch of interesting stuff, including a couple threads on the Aleph repos that had reports of both of the problems I ran into.
V3 Heating Failed: (This was actually regarding a V3 dual extruder, but was very similar to my experience with the Aerostruder)
https://code.alephobjects.com/T1624
Eventually I just went to the IT-Works site and tired “Tune PIDs” on the the following page.
IT-Works Thermistor PID Tuning:
I did that, and got wildly different numbers than those included in the defaults and referenced here:
Mine came out to:
AUTOTUNE Therm. PIDto 235C
< [02:48:29] PID Autotune start
< [02:53:53] bias: 226 d: 28 min: 231.25 max: 235.39 Ku: 17.22 Tu: 42.44
< [02:53:53] Classic PID
< [02:53:53] Kp: 10.33 Ki: 0.49 Kd: 54.80
< [02:53:53] PID Autotune finished! Put the last Kp, Ki and Kd constants from below into Configuration.h
< [02:53:53] #define DEFAULT_Kp 10.33
< [02:53:53] #define DEFAULT_Ki 0.49
< [02:53:53] #define DEFAULT_Kd 54.80
< [02:53:53] ok P15 B3
< [02:53:53] T:234.61 /0.00 B:24.01 /0.00 @:127 B@:0
< [02:53:53] USBPrinterOutputDevice: Resending from: 1
< [02:53:55] T:234.22 /0.00 B:24.26 /0.00 @:0 B@:0
(Here’s a reference to similar observations from Aleph QA from the aleph’s Cura repos,…Interesting that everyone testing the aerostruder is using Legacy Cura 20…
Hot End PID: (I thought this would help me, but it just ping ponged to Thermal Runaway)
https://code.alephobjects.com/T1283
I also set fan to 30% and tried again.
Still, got Heating failed errors in Cura. One last try to fan with 15% and attempted print…got to 240C then either Cura or the Mini over-rode the fan 15% setting and blew up to 100%. Printhead dropped to 207 C and:
< [04:28:16] T:207.10 /240.00 B:110.01 /110.00 @:127 B@:114
< [04:28:17] ok N657 P0 B2
< [04:28:17] ok N658 P0 B2
< [04:28:17] ok N659 P0 B2
< [04:28:17] ok T:207.05 /240.00 B:109.98 /110.00 @:127 B@:122
< [04:28:17] ok N661 P0 B2
< [04:28:18] ok N662 P0 B2
< [04:28:18] Error:Thermal Runaway, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0
< [04:28:18] Error:Printer halted. kill() called!
,So,… after the fan kicked the mini from 240 where it was at least trying to print, all the way down to 207,…which is the opposite of Thermal Runaway, killed with a Thermal Runaway. Pretty sure that’s not how any of this works. This is when I quit. Because the Firmware, and Cura are clearly so broken, that trying to figure anything else out is just a waste.
So, I tried with Simplify, there…the heating worked just fine,…until the Mini called Thermal Runaway. It called that while stable at 240C, where it had been for almost 10 minutes with no change. So, I just tried turning the the fan to 10%, and tried printing a 10mm calibration cube. Interestingly, I had to set baudrate in SF3D to 250000 also,…but once it started printing the Mini kicked it down to 115200. Hrnmm, that seems wierd. In the end, the cube printed, but everything is still so weird that I have no idea if that minor success is repeatable.
In summary, I don’t even know. I know early adoption means troubleshooting, but I’m 0 for 2 so far. The modular print bed has been great, but it was a week after it arrived before I could use it. (Check the only other thread I have here.) I’m not sure how anyone could have tested this print head with 2.6.6 and it’s packaged firmware and not seen this behavior.
It seems like there are at least a couple problems. The first is that either the sensor is puking, or the fan in the aerostruder is overpowering the heating element. This is reinforced by dev’s stating that “I don’t have the issue if I turn the max fan down to max of 30%” The crazy fluctuations seem like their most likely related so some comms funk resulting from the baudrate change, or rather, that baud needs 250000 to establish connection, but then pushes that down to 112500 once printing begins…i don’t honestly know, I’m just guessing. The fact that the change isn’t referenced in the instructions or default config doesn’t help. FInally, PID values in the default config are quite a ways away from anything that worked for me. Again, this could be a result of something else, but it’s hard to rule out with all the other problems. I’m going to ping support tomorrow and will update the thread if I get to any real understanding or helpful insight.