Unresolved missing sections in layers

After a year of printing, my Robo has starts making strange missing sections in prints. Prints are in PLA, Shaxon brand from FRY'S Electronics but seems to be in the other filaments I have on hand. Printing at 207 for hot end and 50 degrees for print bed.Missing section seems to be in different place each time. I thought it might be a bad spot on the Z axis but I don't see anything on the threaded rods. Any help is much appreciated!

 

I had an oiler on earlier but it seemed to put too much oil on and it was spitting. I will give it a try again and see if it helps. Do you have a preferred design oiler that you use?

 

Yup. Either a partial clog/needs oiling/hydrated filament.

I suggest investing in some of the cleaning filament, adding an oiler, and if the filament is old try dehydrating it a bit.

 

I haven't heard of a cleaning filament. Do you have a link to a good one?

 

Here ya go:

http://printedsolid.com/collections/filament/products/extruder-cleaning-filament

It's some kind of nylon type filament that supposedly pulls out gunk

 

Thanks Mike! That looks interesting. I ordered some and will give it a try.

Here are twp prints. First was without and second was with oiler in place. Looks a bit better.

 

With oilers, what is the recommendation for how long to go between drops added? I started with a single drop on mine so not to overdue it, but do you add another per roll of filament or something like that? Mine sits in the slot on top of my Robo and I guess I can just monitor the shine on the filament, but just wondering for ones like Mark posted that you can't see the filament as it comes out.

 

so the oiler has helped a little but the prints are still rough and uneven on the edges. I am thinking that there has to be a partial plug that is causing the plastic to be extruded as a rough edged ribbon instead of a smooth tube. Can I buy a complete replacement hot end so I can just swap one out while I try to clean the other?

 

Just buy an E3Dv6 nozzle instead of a whole new hot end. Easy swap

 

Thanks Mike. Is this the nozzle? http://www.filastruder.com/collections/e3d-spare-parts-and-accessories/products/e3d-spare-nozzle-v6

And would either V6 lite or V6 work in the Robo? I really like how they hold the components on the end and require no capton tape or anything else. I'm not sure there would be room for the fan shroud though..

A back up extruder could be good to have on hand.

 

Yes the V6 works great on the robo but I don't find it necessary tbh. The hexagon is just fine. Only reason I'd swap to a v6/lite6 would be if I was printing flexible materials all the time.

 

Because you want to support the innovators and not buy chinese clone crap?

 

yea i tink my robo r1 did a layer skip think it was a problem with filiment not going throught... applied a little bit of preassure when i noticed it doing the layer skip.. and it started feeding through again... good thing im new to the 3d printer and keep glancing at it every few minutes otherwise it would have gone unoticed till after the print was done but my current print is better sppol holder to mount on the top so ti will feed easier. maybe this is the promblem... well find out as i do more prints but ill also look into the oilers as suggested in this thread.

edit:


so the print finally finished... i figured the skipped layed wouldnt have matered too much for its purpose... and that ended up happending when i removed it from the print bed...which i could probably fix with some super glue and some clamps... but it does concern me for when i start doing larger prints....some other minor issues im running into is the first couple of layers are really thin almost to the point where the plasting to see through engough to see the grid...and the other is that the plastic sticks a little too well to the bed to where even using the chisel isnt easy... but rather have it stick to well then not at all lol