Please Help

Look at the photos below please. It was printing fairly fine and suddenly that. Does this mean the extruder is clogged?

 

What's your temp?

 

Are you able to push filament through fairly consistently?

 

200 / 190 It was going fine for an hour or so. I haven't push the filament without loosening the two screws that hold the hobbed bolt.
Wondering if its a fan that the arduino board needs.

 

I don't know why the page wont show the photos right in the thread. Not working on a mac.

 

Because its a mac...lol.

Try 200/200
Whenever you suspect a clog...take a sharpie and make marks on filament every inch or so....then you can easily watch it and see what's goin on.

 

That is classic under-extrusion. You're probably getting some kind of clog or the hobbed bolt is skipping.

 

Thank you. I will try it tomorrow.

 

After two frustrating months my robo is now printing reliably. I had to add 10 degrees to what everyone was telling me. It must be a thermistor mis calibration. For pla I use 220/210 bed 35. For abs 240/230 bed 95. And of course I recently made the bed leveling springs to get the bed as level as the glass will allow. And I use hair spray. I see that you are making the dial indicator tool. I made a slightly different one that is flat on the ends and not with the magnets for bearings. I found that my rods must be stainless as the magnets would not stick and the tool therefore wobbled. Mine is as wide as the dial indicator and is much more stable. You are welcome to it if you like.

 

Thanks, I will try your suggestions. I can try your dial holder! I didn't found the magnets for the one I was printing. I printed the bed levels and order the spring but I need to buy the screws.

 

Tried to push the filament by hand @ 215 and it was extremely hard. I had to tighten the screws that hold the filament and retract several times until it started to actually retract. This is the filament it's probably clogged right?

 

I used the springs from pens. Here is the picture of my dial indicator holder. I will follow with the stl for it

 

Try heating up the nozzle to 230 then with a freshly cut filament push by hand to see if you can get it flowing

 

I will do that once I install everything back on. I removed the extruder and the plastic thing PTFE. Looks like it has a crack on it but I don't see it very clog. I wonder why the filament was so twisted. ​

 

here is my dial indicator holder. I printed it at .2 with first layer .2 . You should rotate it 180 deg on the z axis to print the dial indicator lug bracket at the bottom ( first ) You will have to hit the centering tab after you flip it in repitier.

 

That looks really good! I want to do that. I'm thinking about buying the damn E3D but how am I going to print the fan mount with my cripple printer?

Thanks a lot for the file!

 

it may be that the nozzle wasn't hot enough and the force of pushing the pla in faster than it could extrude caused the pla to bunch up and force out to the sides causing the liner to crack.

 

I thought about the e3d also, but for pla and abs, I believe that the standard nozzle works fine. it may be that the nozzle wasn't hoe enough for the pla that you are using. I have tried three types of pla and all of them I needed to be in the range of 230/220 where everyone else was telling me 190-200. as I played with the temps I found that as my temps went up I got better adhesion between layers and less stringing. So now I think that my thermister is a little off or not completely seated properly in the head.

 

Going to try it right now hotter. Thanks

 

As far as the spring bed levelers, I initially used the original screws with pen springs and it worked but I didn't like that there was ever so slight movement in the x-y directions and then I tried to remove the printed part and the bed would move up and down slightly. So I changed it slightly. I went to Home Depot and purchased 4x25 and 4x30 screws nuts and lock nuts. I ended up using the 4x25 for the front two glass supports. I did not use the dial indicator to level the front but carefully measured each side of the glass to the base . What I was after is the glass to be square with the vertical rods and parallel with the base that the vertical rods are mounted on. See enclosed sketch. So I adjusted the #2 and #3 nuts to get both the same height from the base. This served two purposes, bed was firmly attached and perfectly level. So I then adjusted the left z screw (making sure that the right screw didn't move) until I got the nozzle assembly parallel to the glass. With that accomplished , I used the dial indicator and adjusted the back spring loaded screws until I could get the back level to the front. Then i reset the z switch to get the nozzle the correct height from the glass ( i use .002" feeler ) being careful that there is no pla sticking out of the nozzle when making my adjustments. I have since printed a dozen things without having to change a thing.