Got this thing installed, very simple, firmware video tutorial was not 100% accurate but I eventually got it to work; however, after it gets the first layer down and it begins the first infil pass it clogs the nozzle everytime. Realizing the filament appeared to be feeding at an incorrect speed I then performed calibration and I still have the exact same issue. Any ideas? Does the z-step need to be adjusted maybe? If so how? I have tried several different components, using slic3r ----> prontface.
Are you actually getting nozzle clogs or is your filament stripping out? I ask, because I upgraded to the new hot end assembly and had high hopes after the first couple of very successful prints with no PLA leakage, but then things went downhill. I’m having an issue where the hobbed bolt strips the filament before the first layer can finish printing. Before this week, I’ve only ever stripped the filament once - on my very first print. Now I haven’t had a successful print in days. I’ve tried tightening the idler, loosening the idler, leveling the bed, recalibrating Esteps, etc, but nothing has helped. I’m using Simplify3D.
I have noticed that there seems to be a lot of friction in this hot end. I have a theory that the filament is just meeting so much resistance inside the hot end that it ends up stripping, but I don’t know. I’d really appreciate some feedback from someone who knows more than I do.
EDIT: mine always fails on the first layer, so I’m wondering if maybe the hex is just super finicky about having a level bed? Or perhaps I’ve just always been printing bad first layers, but the leaky Budaschnozzle 2.0 was less sensitive to back pressure because of it’s leakiness?
The hex extruder likes to have the two screws compressed a bit more than the previous version, and have the hot end at a higher temperature than what the Buda liked.
Orias, thank you very much for the information. I printed with PLA tonight, 225C first layer, 215C subsequent layers (both 15C higher than I printed with the Buda 2) and compressed the idler springs down to 5mm and had good results. Let’s hope that continues!
UPDATE, had a failed print this morning. Same issue - filament stripped at hobbed bolt during first layer. Increased Z stop slightly, tightened idler another turn, and tried again. Working so far. This has happened maybe… 10 times in the last 13 or so prints. Only once was it on a layer other than the first.
I struggled with this a bit immediately after upgrading hot ends. Ultimately I found that a hotter temperature (225 for me) and the correct tension on the idler did the trick.
Are you using retraction? What is your print speed?
Turns out I had bad mini cooling fan causing creep. Even after the repair I had to further adjust the E-Step, so far so good but yes it does take a significantly hotter temp to get the correct flow.
Glad you’ve got it working, @blondeguy08. @chriscaldero, I am using retraction. 1.70mm sticks in my mind but may not be correct. It’s the default value in Simplify3D. I usually print at 60mm/sec, but dropped it down to 50 when I started having problems. Once I determined that that didn’t help me, I kicked it back up to 60.
I’m afraid of increasing the temp too much because of course viscosity decreases as temperature increases, and there’s just a tiny bit of PLA leakage out of the top of this hot end, so I don’t want to overdo it. I seem to only have problems on that first layer, which is printed at 225C, so as long as I don’t have problems later in the print I see no reason to increase to 225.
Eventually I just need to build an enclosure and learn how to print better with ABS, but I had better results with PLA in the beginning and stuck with it. PLA is great because you don’t need to deal with ABS slurry or anything, but I suppose buying some PEI would solve that, too.
I had good luck with abs on the bare glass with a glue stick. Just make sure you give it plenty of time to dry.
The PEI is better though. I’m using the .06’’
Keep in mind that if you print on bare glass, or glass treated with lulzjuice or pva glue it will cause the glass to break/flake/fail eventually. That is not covered under warranty. PET works, PEI works tremendously better.
What are your first layer heights?
I’ve found that I do really well with a slightly taller first layer–0.25 - 0.3mm. I use Cura or Slic3r and I set the first layer extrusion width to 200%–so it lays a lot of plastic down to get the nozzle to squish it a bit. I don’t change the nozzle or bed temperature from normal, keep the fan off, and I use the pet tape. This setup has been working 100% for me with ABS and PLA from speeds as low as 15mm/s to as high as 160mm/s. I’d stay away from bare glass and Elmer’s glue though. Hope this helps.
I’ll give that a shot this weekend. My first layer height is currently set to 65% of typical layer height, so .13 to .195 depending on what I’m doing.
Okay, so I ran out of filament, bought a roll of higher quality stuff because I couldn’t wait 3 days to get the stuff I usually buy, and am getting fantastic results. Everything I did - tightening idler, increasing hot end to 225C, leveling bed extra carefully - helped a little bit, but the better filament seems to have been the last change I needed, and I’m back to printing at 210C. I don’t like advertising brands on the forum, but PM me if you want to know what I bought. Now that I’m in the ~$45 per kilo price range, I’m curious about Lulzbot’s Village Plastics PLA - would love to support them further in that way, but that is a topic for another thread.
The Lulzbot Filliament is excellent stuff. No complaints here other than they won’t sell me 5lb rolls of dark green ABS heh. Makerbot filliament is also usually quite good. Crap filliament can ruin months worth of your printing days. A lot of people making filliament just don’t know what they are doing, or source it from locations that add things like lalcum powder or sawdust filler to the molten plastic.
I won’t buy filliament from people I don’t trust anymore.
I had a terrible time with my new TAZ 5 printer as about an hour into just about any job with all of my filaments the extruder stripped the filament at hobbed bolt, and would stop feeding.
I tried cooling, and adjusting the tension against the filament with no success. I finally figured out that the problem was related to the inconsistent diameter of the filament. I found that if I can get a precise average measure of the filament, I can successfully print large jobs that run several hours and they come out nearly perfect. I used a tool found on thingiverse to make it easier to get precise measurements of the filament diameter. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:903241