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Extruder Temps Fluctuating....

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by John M. Fruits, Nov 19, 2013.

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  1. John M. Fruits

    John M. Fruits Member

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    My extruder temps are across the board. If I reach in and adjust anything (tapping on the carriage with my wedding ring will even do it) will spike the readings drastically. There isn't any "loose" wires" but my fear is there is something malfunctioning within the extruder itself.

    Any ideas?
     

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    #1 John M. Fruits, Nov 19, 2013
  2. polylac

    polylac New Member

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    there's for sure something wrong.

    on what "carriage" do you tap exactly?

    the soldering contacts are all well?
     
    #2 polylac, Nov 20, 2013
  3. Deadly Z Driver

    Deadly Z Driver Member

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    It's seems more like your heaters aren't coming on or something if it was a problem with the thermistor I would think it would either go to 0c or ~285c
     
    #3 Deadly Z Driver, Nov 20, 2013
  4. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    you probably have a loose connection of the thermistor itself or it has come loose from the bed.

    A reading of 0C indicates that there is a loose wire and the circuit is opening or has opened this will cause a the printer to shutdown as 0 indicates no temperature is available to be read so for safety it stops heating the extruder because it would not know when to stop and could cause a fire. That circuit should at least read ambient room temp and if it is something is wrong.

    A reading of anything above 230 generally indicates a short someplace and as the thermistor is a basically a resistor that changes based on temp it is reading teh short as a temp but would be fluctuating as the bed moves or you move the bed again this points to the wiring of the thermistor that may be shorting out.
     
    #4 tesseract, Nov 20, 2013
  5. Deadly Z Driver

    Deadly Z Driver Member

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    I'm confused... which line is the extruder temp?
     
    #5 Deadly Z Driver, Nov 20, 2013
  6. John M. Fruits

    John M. Fruits Member

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    Thanks for all your help guys. I ordered a new thermocouple for my extruder (the red line temps) and a roll of the gold tape. Thanks to "deadly Z Driver" I was able to order what I needed from mouser (although his post is not showing up here, I did get the info via email!). seems like an easy fix and although I am sure robo would have sent me one.... for 2 bucks..... I save them the headache!
     
    #6 John M. Fruits, Nov 21, 2013
  7. Deadly Z Driver

    Deadly Z Driver Member

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    lol Yeah I went to edit it and it went bye bye when I saved it...
     
    #7 Deadly Z Driver, Nov 21, 2013
  8. Deadly Z Driver

    Deadly Z Driver Member

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    I don't want to poke holes in your boat but I'm not certain that a new thermistor would do it, when I typed all that out I was thinking for some reason that the blueish line was your extruder temp and that it was a zero... (I havent really messed with the temp mapping yet) If the thermistor was shorting causing the heater not to come on your graph would go to zero. Looking at your picture it shows what looks to be two lines red and orange pretty much right on top of each other what is that?
     
    #8 Deadly Z Driver, Nov 21, 2013
  9. Deadly Z Driver

    Deadly Z Driver Member

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    I re-read your original post, I guess if you were tapping it that might be a bad thermistor... I don't know I'm a hands on type of person I have to know something pretty well to troubleshoot with out being in person and I'm not there yet... lol
     
    #9 Deadly Z Driver, Nov 21, 2013
  10. John M. Fruits

    John M. Fruits Member

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    You guys can correct me if I am wrong, but as far as the temp chart lines....

    The dark, thin, red line is the actual temp of the thermocouple, and the fuzzy, thick, orange line is the span between when the extruder's limits.

    The blue lines work the same way, and are for the heated bed.....

    It is apparent that my temperatures cannot drop or rise that fast, so I figured I either had a wiring issue, or a thermocouple issue. Since my printer is new, and was assembled by ROBO, I figured I just have a defective coupler.....
     
    #10 John M. Fruits, Nov 22, 2013
  11. David Mortlock

    David Mortlock Active Member

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    If you open Repetier Host and choose Preferances - Colors - Temperature Colors it will tell you exactly which color shows what.

    You can also change them to suit yourself.
     
    #11 David Mortlock, Nov 22, 2013
  12. Deadly Z Driver

    Deadly Z Driver Member

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    #12 Deadly Z Driver, Nov 22, 2013
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