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Help with ColorFabb XT

Discussion in 'Printing Filament' started by nol b, May 29, 2020.

  1. nol b

    nol b Member

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    in the below picture, i have my XT print on the left and my PLA print on the right. the XT was printed using around half the speed of PLA. can anyone tell what i might be doing wrong here? i'm not sure what the inconsistent layers would indicate as far as print settings go. i believe the settings i used were 240 nozzle and 80 bed. cooling was either off or low and disabled for first few layers. i am using an E3Dv6.
    xt vs pla.jpg
     
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Attached is the profile I use for Simplify3D -- you can read it with something that can look at XML files (notepad worst case) and find all the settings.

    Basic ones:
    extruder temp: 240
    bed heater: 80
    print speed 3000
    fan speed 100% after the first layer
     

    Attached Files:

  3. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Problem is that almost all settings that affect filament are printer ad/or environment dependent so Your Mileage May Vary

    Maybe don't slow down? I do not -- and unlike ABS, leave the cooling on after layer 1
     
    #3 mark tomlinson, May 29, 2020
    Last edited: May 29, 2020
  4. nol b

    nol b Member

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    Thank you I'll try that!
     
  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    It is really PETG, but it has some unique properties. If you take it and add a coating you can turn it almost perfectly transparent.

     
  6. nol b

    nol b Member

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    the settings i'm at right now are:
    extruder: 252
    bed: 80
    cooling: 60% and disabled for first layer

    this is actually working pretty well. the only issue i'm running into now is that if i don't set my acceleration crazy slow, M201 X250 Y250, then i get some skewing. even at these limits the y-axis seems a little skewed.

    i am printing a calibration cube that are 10mm in each dimension. i think what is going on is that when the extruder reverses direction, it is slowly slipping in one direction.

    could this mean that i need to increase the current on my A4988 to give it more power so that it can better reverse direction? or would i likely just burn up the stepper?
     
    #6 nol b, Jun 5, 2020
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2020
    mark tomlinson likes this.
  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    You can't (or shouldn't be able to) burn up the stepper motor with a stepper driver -- the driver will die first.
    If the belt tension is good then the driver is the next thing to deal with.
     
  8. nol b

    nol b Member

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    Yeah, I'm pretty confident that my belt tension is good. So should I try adjusting the potentiometer on my driver's a little?
     
  9. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Sure, it will not hurt. Absolute worst case is that the stepper can run a bit hot. The stepper is rated a bit higher than the driver.

    One thing to check is that the heat sink is installed on that stepper driver card. Without the heat sink they will limit the current that they can provide (to roughly 1 amp rather than the 1.5 they can do).
     
  10. nol b

    nol b Member

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    Do you know of a good brand replacement in case I need to go that route?
     
  11. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    If you mean the stepper drivers (well, really any of the electronics) nope -- sorry.
    I know of no one brand of any standard parts (arduino/RAMPS/Stepper drivers/stepper motors) that is better than any other.
    The Arduino Mega is the only one that you can buy directly from the Arduino foundation and pay a premium, but most times the cheaper clones work just fine too. All of the other electronics are cheaply made in China/Asia and the quality is pretty much the same on all of them. The only thing I have noticed is that I have had better luck buying the All-in-One parts bundles that include all of the electronics than buying the individual components. I had a hard time believing it took me 4 RAMPS boards to get one that worked...
     
  12. nol b

    nol b Member

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    my Vrefs measure between 0.412 and 0.434 V. it looks like they're tuned for 1A. since i do have heat sinks, i'm going to bump them up closer to 1.4A. i ordered a bigger fan for cooling and i'm going to replace the single 40mm fan with 2 x 80mm fans. they'll still be 10mm thick though.
     

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  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    excellent idea
     
  14. nol b

    nol b Member

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    wow...that worked way better than i expected. i'm gonna try a longer print and make sure the motors don't get too hot and then i might bump it up slightly more to 1.5A. my cooling fans come next week so i should have plenty of cooling on the drivers then.
     
  15. nol b

    nol b Member

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    x-axis motor is getting up to 121F. that doesn't seem to crazy hot. not sure how the drivers are doing.
     
  16. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    The rule of thumb is -- if it is painful to touch then it is probably hotter than you want :)
    That doesn't seem to be too hot, if you ever need to you can add heat sinks to the motor casing and help cool them.
     
  17. nol b

    nol b Member

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    So I'm having a new issue. Somehow it appears that a chunk is getting dug out of the filament and then it stops feeding. Any ideas how to prevent this?
    [​IMG]
     
    #17 nol b, Aug 4, 2020
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2020
  18. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Partial clog. Maybe caused by heat creep.
    You need to confirm that, but start by checking that the fan on the side of the hotend fins that cools the hotend is running 100% speed, all the time.
     
  19. nol b

    nol b Member

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    two things i forgot to mention:
    1. i recently put an enclosure on my R1. it's the one that Printed Solid sells https://www.printedsolid.com/products/robo-3d-safety-enclosure-kit
    2. when i slowed the retraction speed down, it delayed this effect.

    i think it's heating up because it's in the enclosure now so everything is getting hot. the fan on the hotend is always at 100%. the only thing i can think of is lowering the heated bed temperature which will reduce the overall temperature of the enclosed space. i'm running the hotbed at 95.

    is there a hobbed bolt that's not made of metal that would be a reasonable replacement? i'm thinking maybe that would prevent it from heating up as much. i tried searching but couldn't find anything. i'd hate to have to put a fan on to somehow cool the bolt.
     
  20. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Not that I am aware of, about the best you could do is to maybe put a small flex tube out of the cover that pipes air to the hotend fan. That would insure it is only getting room temperature air and would be minimal enough to likely not impact the chamber heating too much. Other than that your idea of lowering the heated bed temperature is about the only adjustment you have that will change much.
     

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