SkyArcher's Tantillus

Well, almost did it. Bought a set of printed and lasercut parts off eBay. The parts ranged from pretty good prints to pretty bad. I'm guessing that the guy set up the printer overnight and started out printing good parts but the quality went down progressively overnight. Anyway, cleaned the parts and patched up split parts and as the vitamins showed up in the mail, assembled the pieces and hooked up and tested the electronics one by one. I didn't have any trouble assembling the Tantillus due to the excellent instructions. Ran the break-in gcode to set the cables and then did a dry run of the calibration cube. All was good.

But then I inserted the 3mm filament and no go.

I bought 5mm OD x 3mm id PTFE tubing and the filament was a snug fit that eventually jammed just 1" before it reached the hotend. One inch! So I've got both 1/4"x1/8id and 1/4x3/16ID tubing on order. Don't buy 5mm x 3mm tubing for 3mm filament, it won't work.

Great to hear you got it built. If you check around you will find a few suppliers of 2.8 and 2.9 +/-0.1mm filament which should fit fine through the 3mm tubing. But otherwise the 1/8" should allow 3.0 +/-0.1mm filament. Also be aware the tolerances on the tubing are not always specified and may be as high as +/-0.15mm

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Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Here is a quick picture.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2013 09:07AM by SkyArcher.

Here is what I'm getting...
I saw a similar picture somewhere and I can't for the life of me find it again. What do I need to look at?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/07/2013 09:44AM by SkyArcher.

It looks a little like a jam after the first layer.

Are you still using the smaller tubing?

Maybe the temperature is too low and it uses up the molten plastic during the first layer and then can't melt it fast enough. Try increasing the temperature.

Maybe the hobbed bolt is slipping when it speed up after the first layer. If you hold the filament while loading it, does it stall the motor or does the hobbed bolt slip and grind a notch in the filament? If it skips steps really easily you may need to increase the torque. If it slipped and ground a notch in the filament try tightening the extruder idler. In the end the motor should stall when you hold the filament and not slip and grind a notch.

Can you extrude into free air without a lot of curling or popping? If it curls you may have debris in the nozzle hole. If it pops a lot then the filament may be moist.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Yeah, there appears to be something going on with the extruder. I did replace the tubing with a larger tubing and it appears that the filament is hanging up somewhere at the connection to the hot end. I'll investigate some more tonight.

If the tubing is close to the size of the filament be sure to drill out the end of the tubing after the nut is threaded on.

Also what hotend are you using?

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

I'm using the recommended J head from hot ends.com. The extruder stalls and grinds notches into the filament. I was able to push the filament into the hot end by hand and get a good extrude. I'm thinking of making another hobbed bolt. What do you think about using a 48mm nema 17 motor?

The 48 fits fine on the extruder of the laser cut machine (not the printed case).

If it grinds the filament I would try tightening the idler bolts. You want the springs almost entirely compressed when the filament is installed in the extruder. A larger motor will not help if the hobbed bolt slips. Did you cut the hobbed bolt or get it from me? I use a #8 imperial tap to cut mine.

Then it may stall the motor and you can try increasing the current on the driver a little.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

So I loosen the bolt a bit, retweaked the driver and tightened the idler gear and upped the temperature.

Getting there. Is messy. Needs more tweaking.

But why is the machine not finishing out the cube?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2013 10:48PM by SkyArcher.

It still looks like the filament is slipping or the flow is way off. Did you follow the extruder calibration step in the tutorial page of Tantillus.org?

If the E steps per mm are correct then I would tighten down the idler bearing more so it grabs the filament better and then I would try increasing the temperature.

Also if you have another roll of filament to try that is always a good idea as every so often you will get a roll of filament that does not extrude correctly.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2013 12:23PM by Sublime.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Check it out! I made a new hobbed bolt using a new 8-32 tap and using a jig in my drill press. I did it by hand last time and the teeth were not very good so I redid it with a new tap and used a jig and the teeth came out MUCH better.

Re assembled the extruder and re calibrated the extruder and printed my first full cube.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2013 03:53PM by SkyArcher.