3D printer help

[FalseShepherd]

Ok. Next question!

For those who have not been following my ODST Build, I am beginning to print the SMG model I modified and am printing it in ABS. The first part failed epically over night. I cleaned the bed, releveled the bed and reapplied my ABS juice for adhesion. The second piece is the barrel. I have been printing it since 2200 last night and just 30 mins ago or so found it spagetting. It ran no problem for 12 hours. I was able to stop the print before wasting too much filament but I don't understand what went wrong.




When I found it failed, the smaller piece had been completely knocked over and the taller piece was wobbling as the extruder ran over it's top. Both pieces were attached to their rafts but the rafts were detached from the plate. I think I can salvage the piece and print the remaining portion of the barrel separately but still kind of annoying.


Why would a print randomly become detached from the bed after 12 hours? I have it in an enclosure so it should all remain the same temp the whole time...I am also concerned because the barrel isn't round... It's kinda ovular and idk why... The file is round...

 

[FalseShepherd]

So, anyone using this thread for their own troubleshooting- I was able to fix this issue by increasing my bed temp. I didn't initially think this was the problem bc I had printed a lot of other stuff at the lower bed temp with no problem. Those things weren't quite as tall tho. I did just pump the temp up to 80 °C and then printed some other tall things with no problem.

Moral of the story is: it takes longer than you think to dial in the best settings for different materials. I got complacent and was rewarded with several failed prints.

 

[SI3RRA 117]

Glad your getting your settings dialed in. I run 100°C for bed temp with abs with abs/acetone slurry and definitely a raft for anything tall and skinny. No idea on your oval barrel tho. Maybe because it was moving back and forth as it printed?

 

[SI3RRA 117]

Hey FalseShepherd mind if I toss this printer problem on your thread? Yours is the most recent printer help thread going. I’m getting print bed min temp errors. Looking at my bed temp readings I’m thinking I have a bad thermistor. Here’s a screenshot of the reading. Bed thermistor reading seems all over the place when heating or trying to do a PID auto calibrate. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[SI3RRA 117]

I went and changed the bed thermistor. I’m pretty confident that was the problem. So if anyone starts getting min temp errors look into your temp readings. This new thermistor reads much smoother and consistent.

 

[FalseShepherd]

Aaaaannddd we are back.

New question. After fighting my printer for a while and getting it back set to print ABS I was successful for a while then ran outta of filament. A friend gave me some leftover that he had kicking around and I have been trying to dial in the settings for this new stuff ever since.

Most recently I determined that I needed to clean the build plate and so when I removed my glass plate I found this lovely deterioration underneath.



This appears to be disintegration of the heated bed that's attached to the machine and idk what the fucj to do about it. It doesn't seem to be affecting the bed's ability to heat (at least for now). Has anyone seen this before?

 

[FalseShepherd]

since nobody seems to know whats going on with the bed.... new question. My recent prints are having an unusual issue that makes no sense to me. I am trying to print the rest of the upper receiver of my SMG for my ODST. I am printing in ABS and using a raft. I suspect that the donated filament from my friend is kinda poor quality, but it mostly works. I have my settings pretty well dialed in. My issue these days is that the prints are warping off of the raft. Makes no sense to me. The raft is adhered to the bed decently well, but the print itself is warping and lifting off of the raft.

I dont have a pic bc I destroyed the last failure in anger. sorry. Anyone know why the print would warp off of the raft?

 

[S225]

since nobody seems to know whats going on with the bed.... new question. My recent prints are having an unusual issue that makes no sense to me. I am trying to print the rest of the upper receiver of my SMG for my ODST. I am printing in ABS and using a raft. I suspect that the donated filament from my friend is kinda poor quality, but it mostly works. I have my settings pretty well dialed in. My issue these days is that the prints are warping off of the raft. Makes no sense to me. The raft is adhered to the bed decently well, but the print itself is warping and lifting off of the raft.

I dont have a pic bc I destroyed the last failure in anger. sorry. Anyone know why the print would warp off of the raft?

My only thought on this would be the spacing between raft layers and/or the height of the first layer. While I tend to print at .2mm, I set the first layer to .16, sometimes .12 . I may have had the same problem which lead me to increasing the bed temp and trying these settings, I just don't remember if that was the reason or something else. Maybe see about increasing the first layer width too. A little extra surface area might help.

 

[FalseShepherd]

My only thought on this would be the spacing between raft layers and/or the height of the first layer. While I tend to print at .2mm, I set the first layer to .16, sometimes .12 . I may have had the same problem which lead me to increasing the bed temp and trying these settings, I just don't remember if that was the reason or something else. Maybe see about increasing the first layer width too. A little extra surface area might help.

What slicer do you use? I have just been using the one that came preloaded when I bought my printer. It's good but it's simple and I don't know how to get it to do some things...

 

[S225]

What slicer do you use? I have just been using the one that came preloaded when I bought my printer. It's good but it's simple and I don't know how to get it to do some things...

I switched over to CURA almost as soon as I got my printer. The Creality slicer worked but it didn't provide nearly as many options. CURA has loads of nice settings that you can add to your main list and it will also say what they do which is a big help

 

[FalseShepherd]

Ok so, I still haven't gotten cura slicer to work quite right. I like the interface and the optimization of the settings but when I go to print it doesn't respect my bltouch and tries to print off the bed. It prints too low and off the bottom left (from my view) side. Very annoying.

But! I decided to deal with my weird warping by modeling a raft onto the piece. That way there is no gap between the raft and the first layer of the piece. No gap = no warp. And it worked! Made for some interesting post processing but hey, I do what I gotta do. I will post some pics of the smg when it gets done but probs on my ODST build thread. Kind of an annoying solution but it worked.

 

[FalseShepherd]

So... a couple days ago I finally got fed up with ABS and switched my lovely printer back to finish off an old roll of PLA. Long term I think im going to upgrade to an all metal hot end and work primarily in PETG for props, but aint got no money for that right now. Anyway, while in the middle of a 4 hour test print, I was watching to see when it failed and the screen blanked and shut off and then everything came back on. It offered to resume the print, but I said no, because i thought it was screwed up. It was eerily quiet and i realized that the hotend fan was not running. After cooling it and removing the print. I turned it off and back on and the fan would not come on. I went into the temp settings and saw that the fan was set to 0 so I turned it up. Regardless of what level I set the fan to, it would not turn on. I figure the fan must be fried so I replaced it and still can't get it to turn on.

I suppose my question is: is it possible that the weird power issue was a surge that burned out my mobo and ruined the fan stuff? If so, would it be obvious to the eye? How can I trouble shoot where the problem is? The fan seems to be the only part not working...

Edit: Same questions are still being asked, but more info. I replaced the fan with a brand new one and tested all my connections. They were secure. I even reflashed the firmware onto the machine and still no luck. I can't get the fans to spin.

Still asking the same questions just wanted to provide more troubleshooting info.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Coreforge]

If you have a multimeter (or know someone who has, a cheap one is plenty enough for this), measure the voltage across the fan at 100%. If something got fried, it might be fairly obvious (like a hole in a mosfet), but it might also not be visible at all. If you can post some pictures of the board in decent lighting that would help.

 

[FalseShepherd]

If you have a multimeter (or know someone who has, a cheap one is plenty enough for this), measure the voltage across the fan at 100%. If something got fried, it might be fairly obvious (like a hole in a mosfet), but it might also not be visible at all. If you can post some pictures of the board in decent lighting that would help.

I will see if I can get my hands on a voltmeter. I have been avoiding getting one but it's probably inevitable. I looked at the board last night and it really doesn't look like anything. Was low key hoping there would be a bit scorch mark or something.

 

[Coreforge]

Unless something really blew up, the most you might get is a small hole in a chip or transistor. They're still pretty visible though. But if for example the gate on a mosfet breaks, you can't see that.

 

[MrBlueDot]

Aaaaannddd we are back.

New question. After fighting my printer for a while and getting it back set to print ABS I was successful for a while then ran outta of filament. A friend gave me some leftover that he had kicking around and I have been trying to dial in the settings for this new stuff ever since.

Most recently I determined that I needed to clean the build plate and so when I removed my glass plate I found this lovely deterioration underneath.

View attachment 310930View attachment 310931View attachment 310932

This appears to be disintegration of the heated bed that's attached to the machine and idk what the fucj to do about it. It doesn't seem to be affecting the bed's ability to heat (at least for now). Has anyone seen this before?

That looks to me like the magnet sticker sheet for a flexible buildplate, or maybe some black PEI type material maybe? It should be safe to clean/scrape off, and you might want to because those air pockets are going to be cold spots on your build plate. The pcb heating element on Ender beds is on the bottom of the buildplate. You can see where the leads are soldered on the back left corner.

As far as printing ABS with rafts... don't. Use a 1.5-2.5mm brim instead. There are videos that can explain it way better than I can, but ABS is notorious for delamination issues because the middle of the print cools faster than the top or bottom and it just torques itself apart. And since a raft is meant to be easily detached, that's usually the first thing that's going to delaminate. A brim on the other hand helps seal the first layer down to the bed. Brims are still pretty easy to remove too, I just run a razor blade around the bottom of the print after it's done, and cut it off like flashing from a airplane model.

ABS likes to be very dry. I went to the thrift store and got toaster oven recently to dry rolls of filament in, but I haven't actually had to use it for that yet because I have my filament stored in a dry box with a bunch of desiccant in it. But the idea is that a roll of filament can be dried inside the oven on it's lowest setting for an hour or two, and it keeps me from having off-gassing plastic in the kitchen oven. A food dehydrator would also work for drying out filament, it'll take longer but you won't have to worry about accidently melting the roll and making it unusable. I think if you were to dry out the filament you got from your friend and try it again you would find it prints way better. That roll has probably been open for a long time and absorbed a lot of moisture.

ABS can be tricky, I print a lot of it. But once you get it dialed in, the results are great, and the material is so much more workable than PLA. I'm just gonna toss some ABS tips here and hope that something can help:

Change your fan settings so that it only uses cooling during bridges, and even then it should be a low fan%. My hotend uses two 5015 fans for cooling, and I have mine at 15% during bridges only.

Slow down your print speeds during ABS prints by about 10% or so. ABS can be printed just as fast as PLA or anything else, but I've found that I get much better surface quality, and far less delamination issues if I just slow the print down a bit.

If you plan on printing a lot of ABS (or PETG) an all metal hotend is a must. I print my abs at 240* at the hotend (110* on the bed). I'm running a Microswiss hotend, it's a drop in replacement for the Ender 3, pretty easy install, and decent price.

And if nothing else works, put a big box over your printer and try again. You could buy an enclosure for a 3D printer sure. Or you could buy literally anything else and get a free printer enclosure with it This keeps ambient temps higher around the print, and as a bonus also helps contain some ABS smell.

Hopefully something here can help!

 

[FalseShepherd]

That looks to me like the magnet sticker sheet for a flexible buildplate, or maybe some black PEI type material maybe? It should be safe to clean/scrape off, and you might want to because those air pockets are going to be cold spots on your build plate. The pcb heating element on Ender beds is on the bottom of the buildplate. You can see where the leads are soldered on the back left corner.

As far as printing ABS with rafts... don't. Use a 1.5-2.5mm brim instead. There are videos that can explain it way better than I can, but ABS is notorious for delamination issues because the middle of the print cools faster than the top or bottom and it just torques itself apart. And since a raft is meant to be easily detached, that's usually the first thing that's going to delaminate. A brim on the other hand helps seal the first layer down to the bed. Brims are still pretty easy to remove too, I just run a razor blade around the bottom of the print after it's done, and cut it off like flashing from a airplane model.

ABS likes to be very dry. I went to the thrift store and got toaster oven recently to dry rolls of filament in, but I haven't actually had to use it for that yet because I have my filament stored in a dry box with a bunch of desiccant in it. But the idea is that a roll of filament can be dried inside the oven on it's lowest setting for an hour or two, and it keeps me from having off-gassing plastic in the kitchen oven. A food dehydrator would also work for drying out filament, it'll take longer but you won't have to worry about accidently melting the roll and making it unusable. I think if you were to dry out the filament you got from your friend and try it again you would find it prints way better. That roll has probably been open for a long time and absorbed a lot of moisture.

ABS can be tricky, I print a lot of it. But once you get it dialed in, the results are great, and the material is so much more workable than PLA. I'm just gonna toss some ABS tips here and hope that something can help:

Change your fan settings so that it only uses cooling during bridges, and even then it should be a low fan%. My hotend uses two 5015 fans for cooling, and I have mine at 15% during bridges only.

Slow down your print speeds during ABS prints by about 10% or so. ABS can be printed just as fast as PLA or anything else, but I've found that I get much better surface quality, and far less delamination issues if I just slow the print down a bit.

If you plan on printing a lot of ABS (or PETG) an all metal hotend is a must. I print my abs at 240* at the hotend (110* on the bed). I'm running a Microswiss hotend, it's a drop in replacement for the Ender 3, pretty easy install, and decent price.

And if nothing else works, put a big box over your printer and try again. You could buy an enclosure for a 3D printer sure. Or you could buy literally anything else and get a free printer enclosure with it This keeps ambient temps higher around the print, and as a bonus also helps contain some ABS smell.

Hopefully something here can help!

Woah. Thanks for all that info. I also came to the conclusion that it was the magnetic layer on the bed coming off. I only came to that conclusion after replacing the bed and being sad that it wasn't magnetic but I'm mostly building on a glass plate anyway so it doesn't matter that much.

I was able to get all the stuff I needed printed. I hadn't found anything else recommending against rafts. Tho that logic does make a lot of sense. I thought I would switch to petg for my prints that needed to be more durable but haven't quite made the jump yet. Some of the abs stuff I did get printed is really nice quality tho I like it when it works. I actually had my cooling fans just off during printing which worked well for me and my hotend is all metal (according to the listing). Also I have a creality enclosure. I got it bc I knew it was recommended for printing abs and whatnot tho I never really noticed the ABS smelling. I probably spent way too much time with the fumes but never really noticed them.

All those tips are awesome and I appreciate you taking the time to write that out.

I may continue with ABS since my cooling fan is burned out anyway and won't turn on. Maybe maybe not. Might be looking to upgrade my mobo anyway. Mostly a money thing at this point.

We will see what the future holds. Tha ks for your input!

 

[MrBlueDot]

Honestly, ABS fumes don't smell that bad to me. It's kind of a sweet scent. I wouldn't want a candle of it or anything, but some people act like it's the most awful thing on the planet and really it's only just awful for your health

Quick question, is your printer stock? I kept wanting to suggest "Use a different fan port!" but then I remembered most stock mobos don't have extra ports. But if you are running the stock motherboard, could be worth it to call/e-mail creality customer support. They are pretty good about giving replacement parts out, even if the shipping time is a bit slow. And it does seem like you have a defective motherboard, what with the fan not working.

 

[FalseShepherd]

Hello again! A little money came in and I bought an upgraded mobo for my 3d printing baby. I went with a silent mainboard upgrade from creality V4.2.7. After getting it plugged in and everything secured I can say that I have begun the arduous process of troubleshooting! I am having 2 main issues. The first is that when heating above 192F I am getting a heating error E1 please restart kinda error. Last time I got this I had to replace the thermistor which was kind of a pain in the butt.

For now I am focusing on printing PLA tho, and the filament I have seems to like printing at 190 so im tabling that particular issue.

The second issue is one that I haven't been able to find ANYTHING about online, and so I am asking here now. When I start a gcode, the machine goes and does an autohome thing with the BLtouch before moving to the first area to print. WHat is weird is that when it does the autohome, the temp turns off on the nozzel and the bed, and they both start cooling. Then, when the printing stage starts, they heat back up during the printing process so the first few border lines usually dont print because the extruder is cold (relatively speaking). I am worried about clogs, but so far it has always continued extruding once it returns to the set temp, and it has not affected any prints (as far as I can tell). Its more just weird, and I would like it to stay hot while autohoming. Anyone seen anything like this before? I lost 12 degrees last time during the autohome process!


Everything else is working great! The fan is running no problem and the silent steppers are amazing. Although, now I can tell just how damn loud my fans are. Thats next on the upgrades list - quieter fans. I love the new interface too, some things are taking some time to get used to tho.

 

[SgtSaint]

The first is that when heating above 192F

The second issue is one that I haven't been able to find ANYTHING about online, and so I am asking here now. When I start a gcode, the machine goes and does an autohome thing with the BLtouch before moving to the first area to print. WHat is weird is that when it does the autohome, the temp turns off on the nozzel and the bed, and they both start cooling.

Degrees F. ? F? Your printer isn't really calibrated in F is it? I've never seen any that were. Are you sure you're not trying to print at 190°c ?
Because 190F probably wouldn't melt the PLA.

2nd:
Look at the gCode. Do you see the lines for it turning off the heating? Just delete them. gCode is just a text file. My favorite editor is Notepad++

Also if its a "heating runaway" error that's a little different. If it doesn't heat the nozzle fast enough, there is a safety concern that the reading is wrong and you're in a runaway state that will burn it all up, so it shuts down. Is your parts cooling fan *ON* the nozzle instead of *just below* the nozzle on the extruded plastic? You will have a hard time maintaining temp if there is a constant cooling blow on it.

I assume you ahve a silicone sock on the heat block to help retain heat.

Also check the grub screw holding the heating cartridge in place. If the cartridge has a loose fit its not transferring heat well.