Hi lpercifield,
Yes it has a notch on it where the extruder gear is eating into it, yeah I tend to agree that it is lots of little movements and extrusions. By screw type extruder you mean the one you can adjust with an allen key to change the tension?
Ok thanks I will try some stuff out and get back to you.
Cheers
Andrew
Hi Doug,
Thats interesting, I found that I had to bump up the bed plate in winter to keep more heat in the enclosure to stop warping. Ok thanks, I will try a few of these suggestions out and get back to you.
Cheers
Andrew
SOLVED!
Hey guys, My thermistors (so -called thermocouple) came in and I replaced both of them and still getting print failures. What it turned out to be is where the MotherBoard fan plugs in, or rather where the wires go into the plug. When I jiggled/pushed/pulled on the wires and plug I could get the MB fan to stop. I just had to strip the insulation back on both wires and tighten them both down. While I was in there I added a fan on the right side panel blowing in over the motherboard. Hope I am not premature as my first print is only 47% done at this point but I THINK it’s fixed!
Update: PROBLEM SOLVED… see above text.
Ran a 2hr 15min print perfectly!
Hi Drydock,
Was every single of your prints failing before you replaced the thermocouples and tightened the wires? I was getting sporadic failures only, could you let me know if you have any failures after you have printed a few more objects? (just to confirm this fixed it)
Cheers
Andrew
Ok thanks Nathan, I’ll have a play around and get back to you.
Cheers
Andrew
Andrew, here is a link to show how to replace the thermal tape, in the file there is a view of the print head from underneath, the nozzle is surrounded by kapton tape, this is the thermal tape. You can purchase this from Amazon etc.
I have the same problem, I suspect a temperature problem so I am awaiting Thermistors (Thermocouples as CTC/Wanhao calls them) to be delivered. In the Makerbot program it stops with just a generic “Print Failure” window and with RepG it just stops printing with no change in the program. Any help would sure be appriciated!
-Bill-
UPDATE: Problem Solved. see elsewhere in this discussion.
Thanks drydock
Actually the thermocouples and fan wires were 2 different problems (lucky me!). The faulty fan wires would allow a 10-15min print job but the thermocouples would throw a temp failure. Both thermocouples went out withen a week of each other and I would continue to print because when 1 went out I set the machine as a single extruder (Tool Count = 1) in the sailfish firmware. Trace your fan wires to the plug on the MB and move them around trying to get the fans to stop. If you can get them to stop, you have a problem. I am, of course refering to the MotherBoard fan and NOT the extruder fans (of which I thermal epoxied alum heatsinks w/fan on the back of the extruder stepper motors).
eBay item number:
351047246939
-Bill-
UPDATE
Ok so I stopped directing the lamp into the enclosure and I also took an old bedsheet off the top of the enclosure (which I was using to keep the heat it) and it seems (don’t wana jinx it) to have fixed it. I have run 9 prints with no stopping extruding including two 4 hour and one 13 hour print. Although now there seems to be a tiny bit less adhesion between layers but I will still keep tinkering with the settings.
Thanks to everyone for the advice and suggestions especially to @bumsarama who suggested running without the lamp.
Cheers
Andrew
EDIT
Ok so the first print I ran after this failed after about 30 mins (typical) but this was using the left nozzle (standard makerbot) and all the other prints that worked were using an upgraded nozzle on the right hand side. So I am going to try the right nozzle with the same print and see if it works
I was just having this same “notch” problem with the replicator 2x as well. Glad to see it has already been addressed. Raised the temp to 240 and am going to try it now. Excited and hopeful. Great site here!!
Hey Andrew,
I seem to have the same problem .The extruder gear is eating off the filament coz of the continuous tiny movements. And it makes a notch and it is not able to extrude further , usually freezes off after 3 to 4 layers(usually the supports). Did changing the thermal sheet in the extruder work? Or reducing the temperature work? I tried to reduce the velocity of the print to 10mm/sec(from 90mm/sec) to reduce the viscosity. It did not quite work for me. Any suggestions on how to fix this problem ?
Hi Manush,
I found that my fans were installed the wrong way around, they were sucking rather than blowing onto the heatsinks, so I switched these around and also upped the temperature. Upping the temperature seemed to work. I still have the occasional failure but nowhere near as much. Also clean the extruder gear (where it is notching the filament), hopefully this works for you too.
Cheers
Andrew
