Solved Extruder Bowden Tube alignment (I happened on the links posted my Mr. Kelly, thx.)

Hello,

My name is Dave and I am a new Robo R1 Plus User. The printers
I've used are just the R1. I printed last 48 hours ago.

So I have lurked a lot and learned a great deal from several of you. I finally got around to replacing my Hex with a e3d v6. I found a replacement quick release on Thingiverse and got back up and running. I noticed once I started printing again that the extruder was not feeding through properly. I could raise the print head up on the Z axis and manually feed through PLA but when I went to print nothing came out. I used my hand to give some tension above the extruder and it started to extrude and the results were fine. I printed several parts this way. Then I changed filaments. Once I changed filaments It doesn't want to print. I appears to have to much tension and bad alignment through to the Bowden tube and will sometimes grind right through the filament trying to feed it through. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated and if there is an existing thread please enlighten me because I'm looking for it.

I've read through Mike Kelly's visual pages now and will try the things mentioned.

Thoughts:

Higher Temps are something I considering moving away from because of stringiness. (I'll still try it)
I haven't tried printing at speeds higher than default yet.
The extrusion doesn't seem to be interfered with by a partial clog. It comes out in a nice round extrusion.

Is it possible I have the nozzle to close to the bed?



Its strange, manually feeding it through the hot end using the LCD controller yields a perfect piece of spaghetti

 

Just so I'm clear when you feed this new filament by hand it will extrude fine? Or is there a lot more resistance. If a piece of filament or something is stuck in the tube it can make it very hard to extrude out. If it's difficult to push through by hand drop out the hot end so you can test it like that. Just be careful if you don't have a fan on the heatsink

If you're saying that when it prints nothing comes out, is the nozzle dragging on the bed or is there a sufficient air gap? Might need to increase the z offset

 

Thanks for the reply Mike. I finally got some more time with the printer and discovered an actual break. I had an issue with the spring on a tension screw getting caught in the washer closest to the extruder assembly and making it hard to manage. In the process somewhere I over torqued the screw through the back of the nuts housing! It was bad enough to leave a hairline crack so I'm dead in the water until I get it replaced I'm thinking. I printed a quick release alternative and of course I can't find one piece of it, my luck.

Until I replace the part some things I thought of looking at were as you mentined the z offset I believe is to low with the new print head installed. I read in another post I should be able to slide a sheet of paper under it. Everything is still default except the hot end and a new quick release to regain tension on the e3dv6 I may just have some simple alignment issues affecting the Bowden tube and of course I was probably at the least over torqued on retention.

Before all that by manual extrusion I was talking about manually sending filament through via the LCD control. I could push filament through by hand and it seemed fine. The "perceived" shape of the extrusion seemed to indicate there is nothing partially clogging the nozzle as the extrusion was round and shiny with little evidence of blemish. Bottom line Mike I'm a old hat networking guy and tech nut of many years but once again I find myself a noob My son has done great this past year. When we asked him what he wanted at Christmas. We expected to hear PS4 (he's 13) instead we heard 3d printer and CAD software (I didn't know he knew what CAD was!) The force is strong with this young Padawan.




We only got the printer during the holidays.

 

Thanks to Mike for your replies. You made me re-visit the z offset and yes somehow it had been changed loading a file or whatever. I set it for .9 temp in the LCD and its currently printing a mother beautiful calibration ring with no grind. I also re-thought the tension screws I had over torqued it but because of the way it retains its tension it shouldn't effect it (and it isn't). Now to print some repair parts and then my son and I are off for a week so we must print something diabolical!! You and Marquis et.al have just been awesome. Looks like I need to absorb g-code. Looks a lot more friendly than trying to parse out WMI or some other markup!

 

That's great! Thanks Tom. Like probably a lot of others I have reprap and several others bookmarked but the last quarter has been a lot of after-hours remote work and tutoring my boy. He's started all AP classes this year so "our" workload has increased. I'm dying to build the Mosty Printed CNC for laser cutting etc. I've been really impressed with some of the efficiency gains some members have made with minor config changes and paying attention and learning the workflow. 3D printing and CNC have no boundaries. none at all!