Solved Grinding Filament - help, ready to get rid of this thing

Robo3D R1. Printed several parts today just fine, then all of a sudden filament won't come out and now seeing filament grinding (grinding creates a "notch" in the filament and stops advancing). So I cancel the print, keep it hot, raise the extruder and I manually turn the cog and it extrudes just fine. I turn the cog 4-5 times and all good, extrudes just fine so long as I turn the cog by hand. But as soon as I start a print and the motor is turning the cog then it starts to grind the filament and won't extrude anymore. Again, it is not clogged, because I can turn the cog manually and see it extrude. So when I turn the cog wheel by hand, it extrudes just fine (I even do it really fast, faster than the motor and it extrudes fine), but as soon as the motor is turning the cog then it starts to grind filament and nothing comes out. Worked fine a few hours ago. Makes no sense. Anyone have any ideas? Or if you live in San Diego and want to buy it, I'll sell it to you for $200, I'm kinda fed up.

 

Have you tried loosening the springs on the filament feeder? If they are too tight the filament will always grind quickly ive found

 

i'll give you $250 shipped.

Check your filament diameter and tension on the hobbed bolt. I fought that same problem and ended up replacing the Hex for an E3d hotend on and it's fixed most of my problems. Other than that not really sure why it would extrude manually like that.

 

FWIW, I always tighten the screws all the way. The only time I have this problem is when the filament won't extrude for other reasons. Could be a partial clog, or running too low a temperature, or trying to print faster than the head can actually melt the filament. I work almost always in PLA, so this may not apply to ABS. YMMV, IANAL, ETC.

 

Update: I went back and re-printed one of the parts that printed successfully before, and it printed that part just fine. But then I try to print another part and it immediately starts to grind the filament. Seems to grind the filament only when printing certain parts, and prints other parts just fine. Why would it grind filament when printing certain things and not others? Is there a problem in the STL file? For background, I'm printing the miniature Mars rover, files came from NASA, many people have printed these before w/ no prob. Why is my R1 choking ?

 

Update: Possible problem solved. The computer I'm running on right now has MatterControl v1.5.0 (presumably the latest, I downloaded yesterday). And I've been seeing all these problems.

Well I decided to connect to an old computer w/ MatterControl 1.2.1, and IT WORKED! - No filament grinding, it's printing right now, hooked up to the old PC.

I'm going to keep running it throughout the day and see if it remains consistent. But it really boggles my mind that the filament grinding was caused by SW bug (note to self: don't use the latest ver MatterControl). I thought it was just a mechanical or clogging issue and spent many hours trying to clean it and all that. Still doesn't make sense, but oh well.

I'll update by end of day whether going back to the old version of MC really fixed it. I guess if it still works I'll keep it after all.

 

SOLVED! I confirmed that the reason the machine is not working is all due to software MatterControl v1.5.0 (as mentioned above).

Proof: I have two Macs, one has MatterControl v1.5.0 and the other has an older version of MatterControl v1.2.1 It works fine with the old version 1.2.1 consistently, printed several parts. Then I just switch the USB cable over to connect to the Mac running v1.5.0 and it immediately starts grinding the filament and will not extrude. Then I just switch the USB cable back to the other Mac running v1.2.1 and it prints fine. So again, nothing to do with mechanics, nor clogging or anything physical, it's just the SW causing the machine to malfunction and grind the filament.

Don't ask me why this is, I'm baffled too, doesn't make much sense (which is why I didn't think to try this in the first place), but here's the proof.

Also, I don't know if this is a universal problem affecting anyone else, but at least from my perspective I will STOP USING MatterControl v1.5.0 and keep using the old version. If anyone has a better SW (than MatterControl) that works reliably with Robo3D, please comment.

Oh yeah, also I'm going to keep the printer (not for sale), since I convinced myself the printer itself is fine.

thanks for reading.

 

One more thing I forgot to mention which I also discovered here that I thought was really really weird:

As mentioned above, as long as I'm using MatterControl v1.2.1 it's all good, works as expected. And when using v1.5.0 I could not get it to function properly or consistently (I did get a couple of partial prints that came out severely deformed though).

But the really weird thing is when I was using v1.5.0, that whatever I did manage to print would stick like superglue to the bed and I had LOTS of trouble prying it off the bed. It's like the PLA welded itself to the glass bed. (actually the parts did look melted, like the bed was too hot even though the screen showed it was 50degrees.) I had to use a sharp scraper tool and actually had to slam it a few times. The PLA seemingly fused with the glass like it got welded, so much so that when I finally popped it off a bit of glass (from the bed) chipped off was was fused with the printed part. So now there's a small nick on the glass bed.

But all the parts that I did print with v1.2.1 came out fine and I was able to easily remove them from the bed.

I don't understand why the PLA would stick to the bed like super glue when running v1.5.0, but when running v1.2.1 the part comes off easily. All I can think of is maybe v1.5.0 also has a bug in the temperature control SW, maybe overheating the bed.

 

So since I got my motor issues under control (bad fan, failed stepper board and drifted adjustment) I've been printing all night and all day today under MC 1.51. Something you may have missed, when I installed 1.51, it nuked all my settings. I suspect if you export your settings on the 1.2 machine and load them on the 1.5 machine, the mystery bugs will evaporate.

 

What do you use?

 

Thanks a million. I have V1.5 Matter control and I am about crazy with the filament grinding. Some parts print amazing other wont do anything.

 

This is going to sound crazy. I am brand new to 3D printing. I am not sure how to check level in Cura. when I tried to print my model it actually extruded...no grinding the filament but It wasn't printing on the bed. Is there a good video for bed leveling and PLA settings?