Hi guys,
I currently love printing with XT-CF20 and the like as the results I have are fantastic.
What is not however fantastic is that I have to babysit the print, if I leave it for any length of time a big blob builds up on the nozzle and no settings I have tried have managed to get rid of this. Eventually that big blob sticks to the part somewhere and eventually it sticks in a bad place and will cause a hard collision with the print head, usually resulting in many steps being missed and the whole print being ruined.
So I want to build a wiper that the print nozzle can run over every so often to clean itself, hopefully meaning I can leave it alone to do it’s thing.
Looking in Slic3r I can see that I can set a custom G-code on every tool change and every layer change, but I am neither changing tools nor do I really want to run over to a wiper on every single layer as that would have aa significant negative effect on print times I would guess (although longer print times are far preferable to having to babysit the thing).
Ideally I’d have it run over to the wiper every eg 5 layers.
Is there any way to achieve that, or am I stuck with doing it every layer change?
Cheers for any help.
1 Like
Need more info:
The nozzle, in effect, wipes as it prints, so how is it accumulating a blob?
To answer your question, If you can program, or know a programmer, you could write (or have written) a utility that adds to your gcode some additional code that runs some gcode for a wipe every number of gcode layers. Sort of a gcode post utility.
However, I think if you give us some additional information, we could help more. What printer is it and have you modified it?
For example, when I modified my Flashforge with a metal hot end, so I could print at higher temps, I screwed it up, and the nozzle was leaking from around the nozzle, creating random blobs that would eventually accumulate enough to drop on the print. I wonder if that is what is happening here? I never heard of a blob accumulating at the nozzle hole on a hot end…
It’s fairly common with this particular material from what I can tell, it’s just a very sticky material and creeps up the nozzle slowly forming an ever growing blob until picked off with tweezers or it attaches to the part. You can see it forming from the tip. The flip side of the stickiness though of course is great layer adhesion…
It’s a makergear m2 with e3D hotend and titan extruder, runs standard marlin firmware. Printer is fine with other materials.
My plan is simply to construct a little wipe block at the far end of the X axis travel with two silicone strips that the nozzle will rub itself on as it crosses over. That should be sufficient for clearing the tip…
I hadn’t thought about editing the G-code after the fact… perhaps I can find a program someone has made. I’m a completely numpty when it comes to code.
Cheers for the input.
