Posts made by re_tour

@infiniteloop I'm back after some rest and I can gladly say that this saga ends here.

I realized that wiring it straight up to the board fan wasn't a great idea, so I configured two separate fans: one of them is the part cooling fan and one of them is the hotend+board fan. The latter turns on when the hotend reaches 30°C, which means both the hotend and the board gets cooling whenever there's job to be done. The part cooling fan works as intended, I just separated it from the hotend fan.

I dare to post these results after 4 test prints, all of which were successful with no issues whatsoever.

I thank all of you, especially @infiniteloop and @oliof. Because of you guys I now have an insight which I didn't before and now can troubleshoot much more stuff on my printer as before. There's always something new under the sun I guess.

@infiniteloop I've wired the hotend fan to the board fan, which also turns on at 45°C.

Seems like the biggest failure in this rebuild was me. Never mind, at least now I'm (almost) completely aware of how and why my 3D printer functions and hopefully I can troubleshoot almost anything that happens which is extrusion related. Thanks again!

@infiniteloop Yet again, I must say that I did something really stupid, which I just came to realize....

So...the thing is, that to make my life easier during wiring, I put the part cooling fans and the hotend fans on the same step down module...which means that unless I manually turn the part cooling fans on, the hotend fan won't be on until like the second-third layer or so...which I guess is plenty enough time for a clogging to happen, but correct me if I'm wrong.

But anyway, yes. Extruder stepper motor is working, motor gear fixed in place, marked with a sharpie to know if its slipping. Ptfe tube check, hotend is good, coupling is good. I've tried different PLA-s, Gembird, 3D Jake eco PLA and filamentum. Hotend was set to 220°C with the filamentum one and 210 with the gembird and 3DJake.

@infiniteloop I cheered too soon...

Now that I started printing a part that I made, I started having problems.

It seems like I've got some heat creep going on, however, I can't reproduce the issue manually. I already set like 0,5mm retraction, I have the same result.

I tried pushing the ptfe tube as far as I can down the hotend but it won't go any further...

@oliof That noctua has been there for almost half a year and there were no issues with it.

@infiniteloop So...today I got back to troubleshooting after leaving my printer alone for a few days so that my frustration would go away somewhat. I also picked up the phaetus dragonfly bms hotend today and put it in my printer.

I set it up and everything, bought a new generic ptfe tube (no fancy capricorn stuff) and after I put everything together I started the print...and yet again...the issue was the same...I couldn't believe my eyes...I was in utter disbelief...how, what, why...I have changed everything, there can't be any issues...I even pulled the ptfe tube out and put the filament in directly to check if there was any clogging, but there wasn't. And then...when I clicked on extrude on the duet surface, I heard the extruder stepper moving, but the gear didn't turn...then it hit me: I have upgraded the extruder part with a metal kit, which included a new gear for the extruder, but instead of the factory pressure fitted one I now had one with two miniature screws...which I didn't tighten strong enough, which (sometimes!!) led to the gear slipping...not always, just randomly.

So, turns out that I have been very negligent when putting the printer together the last time, it could've been one mistake or multiple failures at once which caused the print failures.

At long last, I can finally present a fully printed test cube! I really hope that this is where this story ends and that – at least for a while – I can print my creations in peace again.

Thank you @infiniteloop ,@oliof , @Exerqtor ,@jay_s_uk and @deckingman for the help and keeping the spirits up!

@re_tour said in My printer stops extruding randomly, what am I missing?:

@infiniteloop I will look into the issue a bit further during this week, I have ordered the dragonfly, but that will only arrive on the next week. Until then, who knows, maybe I find the offending factor and can eliminate it. I will be back with updates and hopefully with a complete benchy!

After two failed attempts I let the hotend cool to see why the filament gets stuck and guess what! The ptfe tube has no molten pla in it. So whatever happens, it happens below the ptfe tube. Since the thermistor and the heater are working fine, I can only guess theres clogging...which is just not possible, I already changed the nozzle and saw no sign of residual pla in the entire hotend which could cause clogging.

If the issue will be the same with the dragonfly there may be some petrol and cigarette lighter involved in the following troubleshooting step.

@infiniteloop I will look into the issue a bit further during this week, I have ordered the dragonfly, but that will only arrive on the next week. Until then, who knows, maybe I find the offending factor and can eliminate it. I will be back with updates and hopefully with a complete benchy!

@infiniteloop Alas, failiure. Around layer 40 it yet again got stuck inside the tube and couldn't move further down the hotend. I've had enough with this hotend, as @oliof said I'll try the dragonfly and see if this keeps occuring with that hotend also.

Deep breaths.

@oliof To be honest the tube came with the machine, I just dug it out of the box and changed the old one. I had my suspicions tho that it may be a crappier replacement, since the one which was fitted to the hotend looked different.

I bought a new coupler as @infiniteloop pointed out that it may be shot(which it absolutely was) and now I'm printing a calibration cube. I don't want to jynx it, but so far its seems to function normally again.

The cooling fan is a noctua 10x10 fan with a step down converter, which I don't think is an issue(but I've been wrong before sooo...)

I may buy a dragonfly if I have this issue again though since the coupling cost me 5€ and the dragonfly is around 40€ but would eliminate this kind of problem altogether.

Thank you for the tips!

@infiniteloop Seesh the coupling is done for. I can just pull the tube out with no resistance at all. I'll be ordering one asap, will post results when that arrives.

Thank you for the help, I'll update as soon as I can!

@infiniteloop

After two failed attempts (extruding stopped yet again at both cubes) and several bed calibrations, I THINK I finally know what the issue could be... It seems like the filament gets melted inside the ptfe tube (?!) which gets stuck and thus no extrusion.

I...wtf? Is it possible that I just have a sh*t ptfe tube? Am I pushing the tube too far into the hotend? Am I not pushing it far enough?!

I'm so bummed at the moment I can't even describe...

@infiniteloop
Okay, so... I have made so many amateur errors that I can't even comprehend how I made these mistakes.

First thing is, that during the reassembly I forgot to tie the hotend down properly and it was wobbling like crazy (I have no idea how I didn't notice that before...), no wonder I had layers shifting all over the place

Second thing was that during reassembly I probably pulled a bit on the ptfe tube, which pulled it back like half a centimeter, which caused heat creep and got the filament stuck all the time.

I took the whole hotend apart and thats how I discovered the issue.

Moral of the story: after a major rebuild ALWAYS double, triple, quadruple check everything. Luckily I had a new ptfe tube which I could replace and nothing clogged/broke/strained to the point where its unusable. I'm printing a calibration cube just to be sure everything is in order.

@infiniteloop

Sorry to hear that. Excluding most of the culprits should - in theory - eliminate clogging.

It was a fair advice, I would've ended up doing these steps anyway I think just out of sheer frustration.

If that's the case, it would be a perfect reason for a heat creep. Can you re-fit the tube and run a test print?

Yep, I'm in the process of doing exactly that right now, I'll be posting in a few with the results.

@infiniteloop I have a stock ender hotend, I think thats full metal as well but I'm not sure.

Okay, so, I have reduced the printing speed to half, reduced retractions, increased hotend temp to 210 and stopped the part cooling fans. All of that for naught. I'm started to think that there may be a problem with the file itself, but I remembered just now that this was an issue before too.

One thing tough, after I rebuilt my printer I've fitted a new duct for my hotend, but since I turend off part cooling I don't think that should have any effect.

Edit: Somthing just ran accross my mind…could this be caused by the ptfe tube not extending all the way down to the hotend tip? If yes, I’m an idiot…

@jay_s_uk

; Configuration file for SKR-RFF-E3-v1.1

; General preferences
G90                                            ; send absolute coordinates...
M83                                            ; ...but relative extruder moves
M550 P"Ender3"                                 ; set printer name

; Network
M552 S1                                        ; enable network
M586 P0 S1                                     ; enable HTTP
M586 P1 S0                                     ; disable FTP
M586 P2 S0                                     ; disable Telnet

; Drives
M569 P0 S0                                     ; physical drive 0 goes backwards using TMC2209 driver timings
M569 P1 S0                                     ; physical drive 1 goes backwards using TMC2209 driver timings
M569 P2 S1                                     ; physical drive 2 goes forwards using TMC2209 driver timings
M569 P3 S0                                     ; physical drive 3 goes forwards using TMC2209 driver timings
M584 X0 Y1 Z2 E3                               ; set drive mapping
M350 X16 Y16 Z16 E16 I1                        ; configure microstepping with interpolation
M92 X80.00 Y80.00 Z400.00 E93.00               ; set steps per mm
M566 X1200.00 Y1200.00 Z60.00 E360.00          ; set maximum instantaneous speed changes (mm/min)
M203 X9000.00 Y9000.00 Z1800.00 E6000.00       ; set maximum speeds (mm/min)
M201 X500.00 Y500.00 Z100.00 E5000.00          ; set accelerations (mm/s^2)
M906 X1000 Y1000 Z1000 E1000 I30               ; set motor currents (mA) and motor idle factor in per cent
M84 S30                                        ; Set idle timeout

; Axis Limits
M208 X0 Y0 Z0 S1                               ; set axis minima
M208 X235 Y235 Z260 S0                         ; set axis maxima

; Endstops
M574 X1 S1 P"xstop"                            ; configure switch-type (e.g. microswitch) endstop for low end on X via pin xstop
M574 Y1 S1 P"ystop"                            ; configure switch-type (e.g. microswitch) endstop for low end on Y via pin ystop

; Z-Probe
M950 S0 C"servo0"                              ; create servo pin 0 for BLTouch
M558 P9 C"^probe" H5 F300:120 A3 T6000         ; set Z probe type to bltouch and the dive height + speeds,the F300:120 first speed 300 second 120
G31 P500 X30 Y11 Z2.16                           ; set Z probe trigger value, offset and trigger height
M557 X30:190 Y30:190 P5                       ; define mesh grid

; Heaters
M308 S0 P"bedtemp" Y"thermistor" T100000 B4092 ; configure sensor 0 as thermistor on pin bedtemp
M950 H0 C"bed" T0                              ; create bed heater output on bed and map it to sensor 0
M307 H0 B0 R0.365 C296.6 D3.97 S1.00 V24.0                               ; disable bang-bang mode for the bed heater and set PWM limit
M140 H0                                        ; map heated bed to heater 0
M143 H0 S120                                   ; set temperature limit for heater 0 to 120C
M143 H0 S120                                   ; set temperature limit for heater 0 to 120C
M308 S1 P"e0temp" Y"thermistor" T100000 B4092  ; configure sensor 1 as thermistor on pin e0temp
M950 H1 C"e0heat" T1                           ; create nozzle heater output on e0heat and map it to sensor 1
M307 H1 B0 R2.845 C121.4:119.4 D5.71 S1.00 V24.0                               ; disable bang-bang mode for heater  and set PWM limit
M143 H1 S245                                   ; set temperature limit for heater 1 to 245C

; Fans
M950 F0 C"fan0" Q500                           ; create fan 0 on pin fan0 and set its frequency
M106 P0 C"Part Cooling Fan" S0 H-1             ; set fan 0 name and value. Thermostatic control is turned off
M950 F1 C"fan1" Q500                           ; create fan 1 on pin fan1 and set its frequency
M106 P1 C"Hotend Fan" S0.01 H1 T45             ; set fan 1 name and value. Thermostatic control is turned on

; Tools
M563 P0 D0 H1 F0                               ; define tool 0
G10 P0 X0 Y0 Z0                                ; set tool 0 axis offsets
G10 P0 R0 S0                                   ; set initial tool 0 active and standby temperatures to 0C

; Custom settings are not defined

M918 P1 E4 E1000000

M122 P200
=== Diagnostics ===
RepRapFirmware for STM32F4 based Boards version 3.3.0_11 running on STM32F4

== Configurable Board.txt Settings ==
board = biquskr_rrf_e3_1.1  Signature 0x69c59016

leds.diagnostic = E.2
stepper.powerEnablePin = NoPin
stepper.enablePins = {D.7, D.3, D.14, D.10, C.13, E.15, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
stepper.stepPins = {D.5, D.0, C.6, D.12, C.15, E.13, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
stepper.directionPins = {D.4, A.15, C.7, D.13, A.8, E.12, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
stepper.digipotFactor = 0.00
stepper.TmcUartPins = {D.6, D.1, D.15, D.11, C.14, E.14, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
stepper.numSmartDrivers = 4
stepper.num5160Drivers = 0
stepper.spiChannel = 255
stepper.TmcDiagPins = {NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
heat.tempSensePins = {A.1, A.0, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
heat.spiTempSensorCSPins = {NoPin, NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
heat.spiTempSensorChannel = 255
atx.powerPin = NoPin
atx.powerPinInverted = false
atx.initialPowerOn = true
sdCard.internal.spiFrequencyHz = 25000000
sdCard.external.csPin = NoPin
sdCard.external.cardDetectPin = NoPin
sdCard.external.spiFrequencyHz = 4000000
sdCard.external.spiChannel = 255
lcd.lcdCSPin = B.1
lcd.lcdBeepPin = E.8
lcd.encoderPinA = B.2
lcd.encoderPinB = E.7
lcd.encoderPinSw = E.9
lcd.lcdDCPin = NoPin
lcd.panelButtonPin = NoPin
lcd.spiChannel = 4
softwareSPI.pins = {NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
SPI0.pins = {NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
SPI1.pins = {B.13, B.14, B.15}
SPI2.pins = {NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
SPI3.pins = {NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
SPI4.pins = {E.10, NoPin, E.11}
SPI5.pins = {NoPin, NoPin, NoPin}
8266wifi.espDataReadyPin = A.6
8266wifi.lpcTfrReadyPin = A.7
8266wifi.TfrReadyPin = A.7
8266wifi.espResetPin = A.4
8266wifi.csPin = B.12
8266wifi.serialRxTxPins = {D.9, D.8}
8266wifi.spiChannel = 1
serial.aux.rxTxPins = {NoPin, NoPin}
adc.prefilter.enable = true
led.neopixelPin = NoPin
power.VInDetectPin = NoPin
power.voltage = 24
accelerometer.spiChannel = 255

== Defined Pins ==
e0temp,th0 = A.0
bedtemp,tb = A.1
e1temp,th1 = A.2
PT100,th2 = A.3
xstop,x-stop = C.0
ystop,y-stop = C.1
zstop,z-stop = C.2
e0stop,e0det = C.3
e1stop = B.10
x2stop = B.11
IO = E.3
servo0 = B.0
probe = C.5
bed,hbed = B.4
e0heat,heat0 = B.3
e1heat = E.4
fan0,fan = B.5
fan1 = B.6
fan2 = E.5
fan3 = E.6
LCDCS = B.1
LCDENCB = B.2
LCDENCB = E.7
LCDBEEP = E.8
LCDBTN = E.9
LCDD4 = E.10
LCDEN = E.11
Neopixel,PB7 = B.7
TX1,tft-tx = A.9
RX1,tft-rx = A.10
PD8 = D.8
PD9 = D.9
SDA1,PB8 = B.8
SCL1,PB9 = B.9
PD13 = D.13
PD12 = D.12
PD11 = D.11
PD10 = D.10
PA4 = A.4
PA5 = A.5
PA6 = A.6
PA7 = A.7
PB12 = B.12
PB13 = B.13
PB14 = B.14
PB15 = B.15
PSON,PE1 = E.1
PWRDET,PE0 = E.0
LED,PE2 = E.2

== Hardware Serial ==
AUX Serial: Disabled 
WIFI Serial: Disabled 

== PWM ==
0:  Pin B.0 freq 50 value 0.073600 channel 0 next 742 on 1472 off 18528
1:  Pin B.4 freq 250 value 0.000000 period 4000
2:  Pin B.3 freq 250 value 0.000000 Tim 2 chan 2
3:  Pin B.5 freq 500 value 0.000000 Tim 3 chan 2
4:  Pin B.6 freq 500 value 0.000000 Tim 4 chan 1
5:  Pin E.8 freq 0 value 0.000000
6: 
7: 
8: 
9: 
10: 
11: 
12: 
13: 
14: 
15: 

== MCU ==
TS_CAL1 (30C) = 952
TS_CAL2 (110C) = 1193
V_REFINCAL (30C 3.3V) = 1500

V_REFINT raw 5987
V_REF  3.308824

T_MCU raw 3829
T_MCU cal 31.742739
T_MCU calc 29.507614

T_MCU raw (corrected) 3839
T_MCU cal (corrected) 32.592369
T_MCU calc (corrected) 30.332493

@Exerqtor I have a Bigtreetech E3 RRF V1.1 board with reprap 3.3.0_11

Turning up the temperature is a bit weird, I'll try that out tomorrow, however, I've always printed at 200°C and I never had this issue.

Hi guys. At this point I'm frustrated enough to be done with troubleshooting on my own and would like to ask your opinion about the subject, maybe you'll have an advice which didn't occur to me yet.

So my issue is, that after I rebuilt my Ender 3 with the same bigtreetech board which I had, I flashed it with my previous reprap OS, worked like a charm, happiness all around. UNTIL I started having issues with the extruding stopping mid printing. Troubleshooting steps which I tried:

• Checked my extruder motor, it works fine
• Bought the metal upgrade kit for the filament guide, thinking the old one may be too weak to be able to push the filament into the printer
• Checked if my hotend stayed on the same temperature (200°C) during the printing
• Tried unclogging my nozzle with the factory needle
• Replaced said nozzle
• Tried another PLA filament

After all these attempts, I have failed to locate the source of the problem, which is that after about 1-2 layers, the filament gets stuck in the hotend somehow, creating a kind of plug (since when I finally pull the filament back I can see that the last 1-2cm which was in the hotend is thicker and breaks rather than bends) which blocks the nozzle to output anything. Since I changed the nozzle I'm completely clueless what the issue is, at this point I'm thinking about buying a brand new hotend, but before doing that I thought I'll seek some advice, maybe I missed some king of obvious troubleshooting step.

Thank you for reading. Best wishes.

@infiniteloop @jay_s_uk Thank you both for the help! After some troubleshooting I found out that the top two rollers in fact DO have some dimples on them, so I ordered new ones from aliexpress. Also I made sure to balance the bed as well as I can. I hear a bit strange sound sometimes during printing, like someone was pounding on the table very slightly, but I couldn't identify the source.

Anyways, now the printer works well enough, of course because of the rollers there are imperfections, but I hope those will go away as soon as I install the new ones.

Thank you once again!

@infiniteloop So first I have to be able to calibrate everything to have everything in "green" and be able to lay down the first 1-2 layers perfectly without having issues and only THEN should I use the mesh to start compensating?

@jay_s_uk Okay so, I cleaned the rollers, the mesh map looks better. I think the bumps should be compensated by the printer. However, now I cant for the love of god make the filament stay on the bed. I have it heated to 65C since the magnetic pad needs a bit higher temperature, but still the filament won't stick. I tried setting the Z offset to a smaller value, the problem is the same. I think the g-code my Cura puts out is also well configured:

; Ender 3 Custom Start G-code
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G28 ; Home all axes
G29 ; Does mesh probing
G29 S1 ; Calls the mesh
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X0.1 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to start position
G1 X0.1 Y200.0 Z0.3 F1500.0 E15 ; Draw the first line
G1 X0.4 Y200.0 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to side a little
G1 X0.4 Y20 Z0.3 F1500.0 E30 ; Draw the second line
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X5 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move over to prevent blob squish

This is the start code. Am I doing something wrong or its a trial end error thing where I have to find the sweet spot?