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Answered Printer went crazy

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by znet3d, Apr 18, 2016.

  1. znet3d

    znet3d New Member

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    So, I started printing the Robo3D tool holder from Thingverse:

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:913811

    I watched it do the first layer and everything was fine. its a long print so I left it and went about my day. I then hear a banging coming out of the printer, I run down and what do I see. The hot end is jammed at the very top right of the long screws extruding plastic while the bed has constantly banging forward. I tried to stop the print but it would not stop. I then just hit the power switch to turn the printer off. I used the long screws to lower the extruder down. Of course it is now all out of whack, I tried to run it again but It started to do the autolevel in midair. I remember seeing a post about that so I looked it up and watched this vid:

    http://community.robo3d.com/index.php?threads/helpful-videos-novice-expert.7478/

    Got it leveled and it did print again. Question is What the hell happened? It only printed the first couple of layers of the tool holder, I know its a tall part but it didn't even get to that point. What would cause it to rise up to the point it falls off the screws? In fact I thought there would be stoppers or something that would prevent it from going to far. And having the bed keep hitting the end does that mean the part was to large and hit the bed printing limit? Any insight would be great. Also any advice about printing large objects would be great, if this was caused by the limit of the print size. I am not sure and now I am afraid to do long prints. Thanks.
     
    #1 znet3d, Apr 18, 2016
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Sounds like a Z home switch got stuck or had a wire get disconnected...
    That would make it report 'home' on the Z (constantly) which would make it want to keep going up.
     
    #2 mark tomlinson, Apr 18, 2016
  3. znet3d

    znet3d New Member

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    Anything I can do, should be doing to help prevent the switches from getting stuck? Or are there things I can make for the screws so that it stops the extruder. I am not sure what would have caused the "home" switch to stick. Is there an optimal orientation or position of the item being printed I should be following. I don't know if that matters. Thanks.
     
    #3 znet3d, Apr 19, 2016
  4. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    If it really was a stuck switch then replacing it is the only solution. Odd are good though that it was just a loose wire so check the connectors at the switches and on the RAMPS board.

    That doesn't look tall enough to exceed the Z height, but... if you try to print a model that is too tall then that is what will happen :) The carriage will fall off of the rods. There is no MAX stop* for the Z (or any of the Axis). All you have is a home switch and a then a MAX X/Y/Z number defined in the slicer configuration.

    In your case I think a switch got stuck (or a loose wire--same effect) and that kept triggering HOME for the Z and it just kept going up.


    *when we built our DLP I added one just to prevent this sort of thing. My son said we didn't need it and I agree, but I felt better :)
     
    #4 mark tomlinson, Apr 19, 2016
  5. znet3d

    znet3d New Member

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    What I think happened was that the tie strap at the top that was holding the wires was to tight and got caught when moving. I have replaced it with this from Thingverse and it has been working great. I also like how now it no longer touches the filament. Thanks.

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:934927
     
    #5 znet3d, Jun 15, 2016
    Geof likes this.

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