This sounds like a broken wire in the stepper motor. Have you tried messing with the wires as its printing?
Don’t mess with the wires that’s a good way to wreak the stepper driver But it is a good possibility that the driver is already damaged. test the wires with a meter then Maybe swap the driver with another one
Is the wooden version with the wood extruder? Because it has a lot of issues, make sure that your nozzle is clean and do some extrusions test before each print, try to change the extruder head for a alu head because it works better for pushing the plastic. If nothing works, check all the electronics, maybe something doesnt work well.
Good luck, i have a printrbot simple, i always have something new to learn about these machines lol!
mmark
July 6, 2015, 9:22am
12
Interesting…! My motor doesn’t click - it only moves too slowly. But that could be related to the hot end of course… I think I’m going to take my hot end apart and completely clean it. I live in Europe so ordering a new one from the US is somewhat expensive - but a good plan B
Curious that the cleaning the old (removing debris) one didn’t had an effect, but buying a new one had. What do you think is the reason for that? Didn’t your hot end got hot enough?
mmark
July 6, 2015, 9:34am
13
Oh, forgot to tell; I got the Alu upgrade. I bought it in the hope it would resolve the same issue I had back than. It did, but only till now ^^
I think I’g going to clean out the hot end and nozzle again.
I have my Printrbot quite some time now and I’ve to say that Printrbot doesn’t seem to stand for sustainability and reliability but it’s perfect for a ongoing hobby project (what also could be fun ^^)
mmark
July 6, 2015, 9:36am
14
I’ve some knowledge of electronics. I have’t meshed with the wires. It there would be a faulty connection the motor would not rotate (completely) and I would see this happening when It retracts (witch it does how it should) or when I extrude manually.
Thanks for sharing this view though!
mmark
July 6, 2015, 9:37am
15
only… you can’t swamp printrbot’s drivers
mmark
July 6, 2015, 10:01am
16
I thought the same initially - but raising the extruder wont make a difference…
mmark
July 6, 2015, 10:23am
17
Hi Bulet, Thanks.
I did. And I have a dust remover warped around my filament (sponge)
mmark
July 6, 2015, 10:25am
18
If it was jamed - manual feeding would also be a issue I think… No, my extruder does not make use of a ptfe liner
okay, if this is PLA, you should be using Blue Tape… If it’s ABS, is the bed hot enough? Not directly related, I know, but just to clarify.
This looks like the Jr V2 with the Aluminium Extruder upgrade and I have worked with one of these for ages and they’re quite stable. Have you tried different sliced models? do you have some previously sliced GCODE that you can try and print with?
The first layer does normally print slower, but parts of the print look okay, apart from a little squashed and not sticking particularly well (which is why I asked the first question).
Run the GCODE command M503 and check the line beginning M92. The value for E should be in the 93-96 region. If it is, then the motor should be turning as it should.
Physically, check the screw is not overtight and the temperature not too cold. I normally make sure there is enough tension to provide friction, but not overly tight as the drive gear will start to dig into the filament.
A few ideas there, you may find more answers on help.printrbot.com or by opening a support ticket if you get really stuck
Ian
mmark
July 6, 2015, 10:33am
20
1: As I said - I did this. I even added a new printer etc.
2: As I said - I did this also
3: On my to do list
4: Cura doesn’t have a extrusion multiplier (?). Slic3er does though - no improvement.
6: As I said - did this also; both usb as direct SD.
This isn’t a copy-paste message ^^?
mmark
July 6, 2015, 10:35am
21
Good point - sometimes you oversee the simplest things. ‘Unfortunately’ for me - I didn’t
Yeah, it still could be the issue even if your motor doesn’t tick. The ticking is from heavy resistance that overpowers the motor.
I’m still not sure what the exact cause was. I’m leaning towards temperature issues though because it’s as if the melt zone never reached the tip anymore. I cleaned the crap out of that thing and it still jammed so I can’t think of what else it would have been.
When it got to it’s worst, there was a weird symptom when it got jammed. I wouldn’t be able to feed it by hand unless I pulled the filament out, trimmed it flush and reinserted it. That made me thing the tip wasn’t getting hot enough anymore and the filament was solidifying at the tip. So when printing rafts and simple parts, it would print fine because the flow was constant. The jams would start when there was constant retracting in the print process - so the filament at the tip just sat there and solidified.
My issues started when I used a new spool of filament that I just so happened to buy on eBay. I can’t prove it was the cause and it might have only been a coincidence. Needless to say, I threw that spool out just in case. With that spool, I had a bad print which somehow caused the print to detach and stick to my nozzle. This saturated the fiberglass sock with plastic and may have contributed to my issue. I tried flipping it around to see if the heat was being released too fast, but it didn’t help. It’s possible some plastic got up to the thermistor but I haven’t checked yet. One person in another thread suggested that I hadn’t screwed the tip on all the way. Thing is my issues started before ever messing with the tip. I could have made it worse by doing that though. Also, when you disassemble, make sure you have some spare ptfe tape for the tip. They use it on the threads.
1 Like
Can you post a picture of your hot end? Not familiar with the Printrbot, but this kind of sounds like an issue i experienced.
This is the hot end I use. http://printrbot.com/shop/1-75mm-ubis-hot-end/
I’m waiting very impatiently for the metal one to come back in stock…
does it come apart? I took my nozzle apart last night (different kind) and thought i had it back together, but i was having issues with it not feeding, checked it while it was hot and it was not all the way back together, there was cooled plastic in the threads during reassembly. There was a space between the barrel, and the nozzle, which was catching the filament and not allowing it to make it to the nozzle. I disconnected the hot end from the “x” carriage and let it heat up to temp, and re tightened everything. Worked like new after that.
Piet3r
July 6, 2015, 6:18pm
26
Mark,
I had the same issue with my printer this weekend. Turned out the room was too hot! (because of this heat wave in Central Europe) The fan on my extruder couldn’t handle the job and this caused the filament to overheat and melt in the upper part of the extruder, causing a blockage. I started noticing gaps in my print and it got worse. When I extruded manually, it worked fine, because the nozzle only warmed up temporarily. When printing automatically, the extruder overheated after 10-15 minutes.
Then I moved my printer to the cellar (where it’s still cool) and everything worked just fine! Since you mentioned that the problem started when you moved your printer, I thought this may be related…
Hopefully you’ll find the solution! Remember, from every problem you’ll learn something
Pieter
bilsch
July 10, 2015, 2:23am
27
Did you get this figured out?
A few other possibility
Printing too close to the bed
Clog in the hot end
Clogged extruder hob ( eg bits of plastic in between the teeth )
1 Like
mmark
July 12, 2015, 6:49pm
28
Hi Derek,
Thanks for sharing your story!
It sounds indeed you had a heating problem.
My extruder heats up well - I got burned by it the other day ^^
-Mark
