I just bought a second hand lulzbot taz 3 printer. I’ve installed the lulzbot edition of cura, latest version (17.01 I think?) anyway, when I go to print then it pops up the wizard but it doesn’t connect. When I press connect the lulzbot seems to reboot and then says ready but then the software, after saying connecting for a while, says closed.
It’s def on the right com port (com port 6) according to device manager etc.
I don’t get any kind of error, at least not in the gui, does it log somewhere?
I managed to get the rocktopus printing from the SD card, which is great, but would really prefer to use my laptop if possible. It’s down in the shed and I’m watching it print via teamviewer/webcam:
This is what I mean when it says “closed”
Any help is appreciated. (PS, what is the trick for getting the filament to stay on the reel? It says something in the instructions of the TAZ 3 but I can’t understand what it means?)
Sorry if these are beginner issues but this is my first 3d printer.
I figured it out I just had to set the machine settings to AUTO for serial port and baud rate, which I think might be the default anyway.
But I did have a strange outcome, it seemed to print all of the object, maybe even all of it, but then it stopped with the print head still touching the job. When I came back I found it like that. The head had melted the job a little. The printer still said “Printing…” but cura on my laptop wasn’t connected anymore.
I think I’ll just print from SD card for now, seems more reliable?
I’m glad that you figured out your comms problem. Unfortunately, the stopped job is probably because of the lap top going into a power saving state.
As far as the filament coming off the roll is concerned, that is a problem many of us face. the problem is that the manufacturer fills the spool all the way up so that when you open it and the tension that the packaging has used to hold it in place is released, the filament naturally relaxes and uncoils a bit. Once you have used a few meters of filament it will start behaving.
I have toyed with the idea of building a shield to keep the filament in place. Unfortunately, since every filament manufacturer/supplier seems to use slightly different spool sizes, a “one size fits all solution” has not occurred to me yet.
It’s funny I figured out what it was, it wasn’t the power mode, I made sure to set it not to sleep, but it was because I had started the upgrade to win 10, at least, I had started the download, but the stupid auto installer must have dropped all connections once the download finished and it was ready to upgrade, even though it was waiting for me to hit next. I printed from my laptop again this morning no issues now. But it might help someone else one day you never know lol.
Also I came up with a solution for my spooling problem, it’s a book case end and a book!
This issue I’m having is because the plastic feed is right on the edge of the machine, but the spool holder is out maybe 5 cm from the machine, the filament naturally want’s to unwind from the reel. The actual holder for the filament tube was snapped on mine so I just zip tied it for the mean time, but I think if I print a new one that sticks out in line with the reel better that will help. Also like you said some kind of shield that can clip on. Like I said I’m using a book case end and it works well. I might make a design up and test it.
