There are indeed differing levels of 3D printers on the market. when I bought my CTC, I could have had a cheaper option like a Prusa I3 which required much much more assembly, set up and calibration.
OR I could have gone for the much higher end of the spectrum and got a stratasys or something like that (enter very expensive brand name here)
I’d never used a 3D printer before let alone knew anything about them, operations or materials. I opted for the CTC because it was already assembled taking out a lot of the work.
Straight away though I had issues, exactly as you’ve mentioned. The nozzles would clog, the prints wouldn’t stick, I couldn’t get replacement Kapton for the bed cheap, the extruders would skip on the filament.
Over all, it was a terrible machine which I couldn’t trust to run more than an hour without messing up.
It was from that I persevered with it, I replaced the stock fixed extruders with spring loaded ones which has solved the skipping on the filament. I replaced the PTFE tube with that which is 1mm longer so that it’s compressed in the thermal barrier tube, no more clogging or jamming.
I’ve since made a TON of other modifications and the print quality is fantastic but is still only as good as the settings I use.
My point being, no matter what level of user you are, no matter what level of machine you have, it’s still developing and there’s still a lot to learn.
I’ve recently built a Rostock legacy and had masses of issues with it, so much so I started to design MY OWN printer to repurpose the parts I bought for the Rostock. But I persevered with it and now it’s at a point where I’m happy with it. Just further reiterates my point above.
You’ve made 6 comments, and they’re all about how bad your CTC dual extruder is. You understand that it’s an exact copy of the MakerBot Replicator 1 dual, right? Just like the FlashForge and a half dozen other inexpensive Chinese-made printers.
Jams happen, that’s just how it goes with FDM printers. Doesn’t matter if it’s CTC or MakerBot. But I’ve had my printer for eight months now, and it’s only jammed once. If you wanted a maintenance-free printing experience, you should’ve spent a couple tens of thousands of bucks more.
As for all the problems you’re having with your CTC, have you tried checking to see if the #P38K4C register is set to 1?
My CTC has MK7 extruders (which are common) and after over 500 printing hours I didn’t had any problems. I had to exchange the PTFE tube only once (I bought 1m for 3€, so I can change it as often as I want) and two times the nozzle was jammed/blocked, but this happend when I change my Filament from ABS to PLA or TPU or vice versa. CTC is a pretty good printer! An you get it these days for < 400€ with dual extruder
I am so surprised at how many replies this topic has gained. This topic was made in order to fix this part which i have now done with plenty of ptfe tubing I can use for the future.
The thermal barrier tube is held by a set screw. Unscrew that and take it out you’re done. Btw you shouldn’t mess with ptfe lined tubes…AT ALL… EVER. There’s no possible way to print reliably with this printer unless you get threaded thermal barrier tubes with no ptfe, and with thermal paste on the cold side of tyre tube ( not the side that screws into the heater block) , and thermal paste where the heatsinks touch the block. If you stick to ptfe lined barrels all I can say to that is good luck!
With all due respect, although its a “clone”, makerbot released drawings to their replicator 1 that were wrong on purpose so all the Chinese clone makers got suckered. Original makerbot had threaded thermal barriers and worked.
My new CTC (one week old) clogged last night. I just removed the tube completely. It still printed just fine. I had done the same thing to my Da Vinci 1.0 and it always seemed to work fine.
Don’t remove the tube. Buy a new one and put it in there if not you will have nothing but clogs. Also a but of baby oil helps a ton. I usually have it on a lint free cloth piece and when the filament is being pulled it passes by the baby oil just enough to keep things lubed. Not really needed for oily filaments like abs, but pet, pla, XT and so on do need it and makes it print very smooth. Haven’t had a clog since I started doing this baby oil trick.
Anyone else find a good US supplier for the 3mm x 2mm PTFE for CTCs? I found this thread when searching and ordered some from here http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F64O7ZS 5 and got it quick and it was enough to replace the tubing in both heads on my CTC Dual and I have just enough left for 2 more, but this is one of the only US suppliers I found.
At $11.99 for such a small amount, I think it’s better to just order from China and wait. Order a bunch so you have plenty on hand. I ordered some and cut one piece so far, and it looks like I have enough to cut plenty more if needed.
