3D printer help

[FalseShepherd]

I intend to use this thread to ask specific questions as I learn my way to 3D printer excellence.

I did a ton of trouble shooting, trial and error, and watching of youtube videos and thought I had my settings dialed in pretty well. Then, today, three hours into a print it failed and spaghettid all over the place. Now when I try to get it going again, the filament won't stick to the plate. When I start a print, I get this:
idk how clearly you can see but instead of touching and sticking to the plate, the filament has decided to curl up and stick to the nozzel/ itself. It then just makes a bigger and bigger tangled ball of filament as it goes. I didn't change anything and I was getting decent prints last night.

Does anyone know what happened? Or how to fix it?

EDIT: to clarify, I have an ender 3 pro and am currently printing 1.75 PLA.

 

[nerdman234]

Hard to tell, but it looks like your filament isn't adhering well, and the nozzle is a tad high.
Couple things to check:
- Make sure your bed is level. This will need to be done periodically since printers drift out of level. I couldn't find a Ender 3 Pro specific tutorial from a source I recognized, but these apply to most printers:
- Ender 3 (Pro/V2) Bed Leveling – A Simple Guide | All3DP

- You can also try "level test print" (ex: Ender 3 Bed Level by Elproducts). These are normally a single layer print that spans the entire bed and you can use to see that your bed is even. If it's level, the line extruded should be full adhered and even across the whole print bed.
- If the ambient temperature is lower than normal in the room where your printer lives, you might want to bump the bed temp up 5-10 degrees.

Hopefully this helps.

Edit: Forum ate one of the links

 

[Angus314]

I would raise your bed just in general. see if you can't get it to stick then.

 

[SI3RRA 117]

A piece of spaghetti didn’t get into your z stop limit switch or the part of the printer that contacts z stop did it? But like everyone’s saying..... it’s something to do with your nozzle height.

 

[FalseShepherd]

Hard to tell, but it looks like your filament isn't adhering well, and the nozzle is a tad high.
Couple things to check:
- Make sure your bed is level. This will need to be done periodically since printers drift out of level. I couldn't find a Ender 3 Pro specific tutorial from a source I recognized, but these apply to most printers:
- Ender 3 (Pro/V2) Bed Leveling – A Simple Guide | All3DP

- You can also try "level test print" (ex: Ender 3 Bed Level by Elproducts). These are normally a single layer print that spans the entire bed and you can use to see that your bed is even. If it's level, the line extruded should be full adhered and even across the whole print bed.
- If the ambient temperature is lower than normal in the room where your printer lives, you might want to bump the bed temp up 5-10 degrees.

Hopefully this helps.

Edit: Forum ate one of the links

Hey so slowing down and resetting everything helped. I realized that I was using scrap card stock to do the manual leveling rather than printer paper. Also, I vamped down my heat settings. I was finally able to print the level test and do some further leveling on the fly. That video was super helpful. His calibrating website should be the first thing anyone does when they get a new printer. Thanks for the feedback. I have a print currently printing and it's going fine so far. I will see how it finishes up. I encourage others to use this thread to ask questions about 3D printing, but please make them more specific than "which printer should I buy". I will also continue to use this thread to ask questions as they arise.

 

[FalseShepherd]

Finally got my printer back up and running. The short version of my issue is that I tried to install a BLtouch and did it wrong. After like 10 days of emailing with tech support we determined that the BLtouch was defective and needed to be returned. We got the printer up and running again and I returned the BLtouch. While I wait on the new one to arrive, I have resumed printing.

Which leads me to a new question. After leveling and doing a first layer test print and making sure the bed is as leveled as possible, I started a print. The first layer was going well, then it did this:



It continued to print over the little pokey bumps and now looks perfect but I wonder if there is something I can do to prevent this. I don't even know how to google this issue bc I don't know what to call it...


Thoughts?


Edit: later in the print it did this:



It doesn't feel like it's related but it did also happen. The print seems to be continuing ok with no issues so idk why these weird specific things are having problems. Still looking for suggestions.

Edit again:

Final edit. The print continued and printed over the weird holes. I guess it's not a problem but I would still be interested in understanding why it happened and preventing it if anyone knows...

 

[FalseShepherd]

Hopefully this video will load. My printer started doing this and idk why. It doesn't seem to affect the prints but it's annoying as **** and certainly sounds bad...

I have disassembled it and looked at it and there's nothing in contact with the fan, but it seems to not do it if the carriage is unscrewed. I got no ideas left. All the screws are tight.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[PlanetAlexander]

Looks like you've got an auto bed leveler? I was watching a video of motor dampeners recently and the guy had one as well. A lot of the vibrations came from the pin in the extension.

Try doing what he does, and hold the pin still with something such as rubber bands to see if it is the issue

 

[SI3RRA 117]

Get a pack of replacement fans. I’ve gone through a handful of these. They are low quality fail and go out of balance. I now buy higher quality ones from Newark. I have a heated enclosure and got tired of failed fans.
Sometimes a good smack while it’s spinning will snap it out of it. But it’ll come back and you can only do it for so long

 

[FalseShepherd]

Looks like you've got an auto bed leveler? I was watching a video of motor dampeners recently and the guy had one as well. A lot of the vibrations came from the pin in the extension.

Try doing what he does, and hold the pin still with something such as rubber bands to see if it is the issue

I checked. It's definitely the fan on the hotend carriage (whatever you call that).good suggestion tho I hadn't thought to check that yet.

Get a pack of replacement fans. I’ve gone through a handful of these. They are low quality fail and go out of balance. I now buy higher quality ones from Newark. I have a heated enclosure and got tired of failed fans.
Sometimes a good smack while it’s spinning will snap it out of it. But it’ll come back and you can only do it for so long

I do have a box of replacement fans but their cables aren't long enough to go from the hot end all the way around to the motherboard. Any suggestions on where I can get a good fan with a nice long cable (for not too much $$)?

 

[PlanetAlexander]

I'm starting to have the same issue now, finally got some more filament in and now the fan is shaking like in your video, except mine is only over quick movements. Kept me up most of last night. I put some 1mm foam between the fan and the print head which made a little difference. Did you resolve your issue by any chance?

 

[FalseShepherd]

I'm starting to have the same issue now, finally got some more filament in and now the fan is shaking like in your video, except mine is only over quick movements. Kept me up most of last night. I put some 1mm foam between the fan and the print head which made a little difference. Did you resolve your issue by any chance?

Not as of yet. I also tried buffering the fan to no avail. My plan is to replace the fan I just haven't gotten around to getting a new one yet since the ones I have cables aren't going to be long enough.

I have kinda been only printing small things and/or on days when I can go to other parts of the house all day.

 

[PlanetAlexander]

So uh, I will say this; don't pop off the cooling fan to see if there's any issues. I did, oiled it to reduce friction, put it back on and now it ain't spinning. I gotta wait a week for replacements to come in.

I would say this blows, but I wish it did.

 

[Hein B287]

 

[FalseShepherd]

So uh, I will say this; don't pop off the cooling fan to see if there's any issues. I did, oiled it to reduce friction, put it back on and now it ain't spinning. I gotta wait a week for replacements to come in.

I would say this blows, but I wish it did.

I popped it off to check already. When I put it back on it went back to normal functioning (well normally abnormal functioning). Idk what happened to yours. My bigger issue is that it's secured in the motherboard differently than I have dealt with before. So when I do replace it I have to figure out how this connection works:

. Looks like screws. I can undo screws.

 

[PlanetAlexander]

Looks like what you'll need to do is strip off the ends of the wires of the new fan so that the metal is exposed. Then unscrew those wires from the motherboard (make sure you note which colour is in which slot!), insert the wires from the new fan, matching the colours, and tighten the screws again.
I'm assuming, I've seen this sort of connection before for speakers, so I guess it's the same

 

[FalseShepherd]

Looks like what you'll need to do is strip off the ends of the wires of the new fan so that the metal is exposed. Then unscrew those wires from the motherboard (make sure you note which colour is in which slot!), insert the wires from the new fan, matching the colours, and tighten the screws again.
I'm assuming, I've seen this sort of connection before for speakers, so I guess it's the same

Yeah that was more or less the plan. I have also done something similar with speaker cords so I am feeling confident about it. Just gotta get a new fan. I have basically just been procrastinating it.

 

[marinesniper]

if you try blue painters tape on the bed i have tryed everything the tape worked for me but make sure you use a posted note to adjust the height you should feel the nozzle lightly touching the bed...

 

[FalseShepherd]

Still havent gotten new fan yet. But new thing: I got myself one of these Trainglelabs filament runout sensors. It looks pretty good, but I have encountered two main issues. First, I have no way to mount the thing. I can't find a good mount for an ender 3 anywhere so I guess I will have to model or edit one myself.

Second, I don't know where to plug it in on my board. My board is a 4.2.2 and I can't seem to find any information about where I can plug in this little upgrade. I had previously read that this board came with a designated slot for filament runout sensor but I can't find any information on that anymore.

Has anyone else used this sensor/ know where to plug it in?

 

[Wattage2308]

If you're still having trouble with stuff sticking to the bed a good thing to do before the start of a new print it to wipe down the bed with Isopropyl Alcohol (also called IPA). This gets rid of any oil from your hands and anything else that might be stuck to the build plate. I also check my bed level after every couple of prints, I'll get a BLTouch eventually haha.

I had a very similar noise coming from my hot end fan a few weeks ago and after carefully pulling the fan blade off the motor I found it was covered in dust and very thin strands of filament were wrapped around the shaft. I'd still order some spare fans just to be on the safe side, I had a fan die mid print (rip) and had to wait 2 weeks for it to come in so its handy having spares lying around.



As for the Filament sensor this STL might be a good one,

TriangleLab Filament Sensor Mount For Ender 3 and others by robobuilder_c

A simple mount for mounting a TriangleLab filament runout sensor on and Ender 3. Just print the mount, press it into the top 2020 extrusion and bolt the filament sensor with the included nuts & screws. You'll want to move your spool holder to the top right side of the printer. Using a filament...

www.thingiverse.com

I haven't used on of these myself but I imagine there should be a spot on the Ender 3 motherboard that you can plug the sensor into. Is your Ender 3 running the stock motherboard?

Hope that helps out mate!