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Unresolved Uneven temp across Heated Bed...and warping.

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Burt Geiges, Feb 4, 2015.

  1. Burt Geiges

    Burt Geiges New Member

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    Hi All,
    I'm new to this and any help will be very appreciated!
    I bought the R3D-R1 Jan 8 2015. I have printed with the sample PLA then ordered and have ABS in multiple colors. Using MatterControl. Temps are ABS default 230-C for nozzle and 80 for Heated Bed. My prints have been warping up in the same corner of the Bed on all prints no matter the configuration/orientation of the part. I have tried the Elmer's purple glue stick but still got warping. I just received PET sheets from Amazon and applied that and it seems to be just as bad. I have an IR-thermometer and scanned the bed while it was printing and at rest with the bed preheated. With bed set to 80 and sampling at half way from center of Heated Bed to inside corner of hot symbols, I got these readings starting in upper left and going clockwise around the bed.
    While printing......................... upper left 64-C, upper right 77-C, lower right 87 to 92-C, lower left 68-C. While at rest............................ upper Left 77-C upper right 80-C, lower right 75 , lower left 75 -C
    My print always warps up on the upper left side. Even something as small as the 10mm sample calibration box that comes with the software.
    Great unit, hope I can get this worked out.
    Thanks in advance!
    Burt
     
  2. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    The heater is advertised as 8.2"x8.2". Are you measuring outside of this range?

    I'd need to see a print to know what the cause is.
     
  3. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Warping is quite common with ABS. There are a *lot* of previous threads on this...
    Some people tried to help this by going (a lot) hotter on the bed (110).

    It is certainly something you can do (firmware mod needed these days I think to get the bed above 85) keeping air off the bed helps (@Mike Kelly has an enclosure for this you might want to look into -- entire thread on that as well).

    If it is really only one corner affected going hotter might help (since that corner would then end up hotter as well).
     
  4. Burt Geiges

    Burt Geiges New Member

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    Thanks Mike,
    I just put a ruler on where I measured and it is 3" from center so well within the heated zone.
    Burt
     
  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Even on models that fit well within the center of the heated zone I was never able to completely eliminate warp with ABS. I minimized it a lot*, but never could eliminate it.

    *(I ran the bed at 110 and kept drafts away)
     
  6. Burt Geiges

    Burt Geiges New Member

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    Mark, Yes it is only that one side/corner of the print and I'm not even printing stuff near the limit in size. I'm trying to do prints that are an hour or less to get this worked out. The unit is not hear any vents or windows. I guess my real question was......is that much of a temp swing common in these? This is a 20C difference corner to corner.....close to 30%.
    Mike, Let me know how to get the thread and info on this enclosure. I did a search numerous times but found nothing on uneven temps on the heated bed. please point me in the right direction.
     
  7. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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  8. Burt Geiges

    Burt Geiges New Member

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    Thanks Mike,
    Looks like I have some reading to do ..........
    Nice job on the enclosure
     
  9. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    As for the temp discrepancy, go ahead and press down on the heater/cork board under the bed. It could be making poor contact with the glass which could result in local cool/hot spots.
     
  10. Burt Geiges

    Burt Geiges New Member

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    Thanks..I'll do that now.
     
    #10 Burt Geiges, Feb 4, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 4, 2015
  11. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Also, people have found that adding reflective insulation under the bed helps.
    Anything to trap and direct more of he heat up to the bed is good.

    Really ABS is persnickety (sorry, technical term) and require a lot of patience and playing with. If you can get all of the bed over 80 you will be better off (having all of the temperatures 'even' across the bed is less important). When I ran it at 100+ it was overkill, but the entire bed surface was all hot enough to minimize the lower layer warping.
     
  12. bwalker000

    bwalker000 New Member

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    I'm seeing the exact same problem (temperature variation across the heated bed). I also bought my printer in January 2015. I'll tear it down in a bit and see if there are problems with how the heating elements are attached. I have not put an IR thermometer to this yet, but by feeling with my hand I can feel large temperature differences across the bed. Back left is the coolest.

    I'm noticing that the cooling fan for the extruder seems to preferentially hit the back left corner. If I place my hand I can feel a cool breeze in that area. Would a fan shroud help this issue I wonder?
     
  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    I assume you really mean the parts fan and not the exrtruder fan. The extruder fan only cools the extruder.
    The parts cooling fan shroud is a really nice upgrade.
     
  14. bwalker000

    bwalker000 New Member

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    Mark,

    Thanks for the reply. Yes, I do mean the parts fan.

    I printed this guy last night: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:697200

    It ended poorly. I had a heck of a time removing the support material from the inside. That is a whole challenge that I would love to be directed to good resources to help me do better.

    The part just didn't work for me thought. It seemed to be a little small in each dimension. The fan wouldn't fit in and the part wouldn't fit on the printer. I suspect that I may need to do some calibration of the printer.

    Sorry for the rambling. Three questions.

    1. Can anyone here suggest a good resource for fully calibrating the printer? I've done an extruder speed calibration and that seemed to have improved my print quality, but I think that I need more.

    2. Can anyone recommend a full "getting started" guide that includes calibrations and key parts to print out?

    3. Absent 1 or 2, would someone suggest a good part cooling fan shroud design?

    Thanks for all the help and guidance.
     
  15. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    New software was the only real solution I found to getting supports that worked correctly. None of the free ones did a great job with supports. Since moving to Simplify3D I have never had a slicer issue (I had a few other issues that were all me and I suspected the slicer, BUT I was wrong) and supports work like magic.

    1. There are a number of calibration objects on thingiverse you can use for test prints. There is a lot to fine-tune. The extruder calibration (to insure that it is extruding the correct amount of filament on command) is one good starting point.
    2. I would be laughing and rolling on the floor, except...that is a really good question. Other than reading some of the threads
    @tesseract and others did on here, I don't have a good answer. The FAQ was nice and helped somewhat, but it was not a 'Getting Started Guide' and we really should have one. Perhaps we can get one together, there is a lot of good information here on the forums, but it is often scattered across many threads.
    3. I use a version of the one @Galaxius did here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:270506

    That prints without supports BTW.

    There are a lot of variables to 3D printing and some of them vary by the spool of filament you have loaded (by that I mean not every spool of PLA will print the same). I invariably spend some time when I change spools printing a small calibration object and tweaking the settings somewhat.
     
  16. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    as an addendum to 1. A 10mm test cube is a good basic starter calibration print and you can do a lot of adjustments with that alone.
    Is it really 10mm in all dimensions?
    Are the sides flat?
    Are the corners crisp?
     
  17. jhenager1

    jhenager1 Member

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    That's where my prints pull up as well.
     
  18. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Can you print a calibration cube and measure the dimensions then post pictures?
     
  19. bwalker000

    bwalker000 New Member

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    Mark,

    I bit the bullet and bought Simplify3D. I figured since my wife dropped the money on the printer (gift) it was stupid to be penny wise and pound foolish by being constrained by crap software.

    First print was an absolute bust. Their default extruder temp is 195°C and interestingly enough the extruder doesn't run when it can't push filament. I don't know how the control does that, but after increasing the extruder temp to 210°C it started printing. It is worth noting that their bed temperature default is 60°C and that helped adhesion significantly.

    My second print was really nice. It pulled back a little from a clean bed, but I thought it was very good.

    Next print I added a raft. That didn't go so well as I couldn't get the raft off the part.

    I adjusted the raft to be only 33% fill. that meant that I could pick the filaments away from my part without too much trouble. The result was gorgeous. It was a 50mm test L and I got within 100um. The layers were uniform with no pancaking of the bottom due to the raft.

    I could not be happier. Using Simplify3D feels like I just did a massive upgrade of my printer. I think that is my step 1 in any "How to get the most out of your Robo3D R1" guide.

    Thank you for the excellent advice.

    Bill
     
  20. Marquis Johnson

    Marquis Johnson Active Member

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    I've heard that from a few people, It fits on mine, has even a tad a slop. Did you use PLA and how small is it from the carriage?

    I made the design and I want to re-upload it with a better fit on most printers.
     

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