First print!

Just finished the 20x20x10 calibration box on the Tantillus tutorial page and I wanted to share my results! Thanks to everyone who helped me get to this point. I really appreciate it!

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[www.flickr.com]
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[www.flickr.com]

I included a couple of shots to demonstrate how the print turned out. All in all, I think it went pretty well. I noticed that the corners of the box are slightly raised and I think I'd contribute that to not having any fans hooked up yet to cool the print during the printing process. From the side, I can see that the vertical faces of the box all bow in slightly, which again might be due to a lacking of cooling, but I don't know.

Thanks again for everyone's help and if you have suggestions on calibration or something I missing, please let me know!

Nick

So after a great first build, the rest have been utter failures like the one pictured below:

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From observation, I can see that the filament has a tough time sticking to the blue tape. I think I might have issues with filament flow as well, as it seemed to come out in spurts rather than a consistent flow. During the above print, the extruder also eventually started grinding the filament and would no longer extrude. Could this problem with the extruder be caused by a heat issue in the hot end?

I'm going to keep scanning through the forum for answers but if anyone wanted to throw out any suggestions, I'd really appreciate it. Also, I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to using KISSlicer and Pronterface and am having difficulty finding decent documentation. Any ideas on a good source to learn more about how these programs work?

Sorry I have not been around to answer questions lately. If anyone has anything they need me to answer please re-ask with an @ Sublime at the beginning and I will try and answer.

If you still do not have the fans then you will only end up with failures. The fans cool both the printed part as well as the thermal barrier of the hotend. If the the thermal barrier gets to hot it will cause jams. Also be sure to measure that your filament is not to thick to fit through the bowden tube and connections.

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Hooked up a fan and tweaked a few other things and prints seem to be turning out better. A couple of things I'm noticing however:

1) The temperature reading on the LCD reads ~ 210 degrees throughout a print even though in KISSlicer the temperature settings range from 200 for first layer, to 190 for Main layer, and 130 to keep warm when I'm slicing a file. Shouldn't the printer temp be consistent with what the KISSlicer settings were?

2) The fan will turn on and off on it's own seemingly at random. Now I'm still very very new to properly using my printer but I would assume the fan would stay on throughout the entire print. Am I wrong?

3) Probably the worst thing I'm noticing right now is, especially for prints where I have 100% infill and fine detail (I've been trying to print some Tantillus replacement parts), a large glob of filament will gradually collect at the nozzle eventually causing all sorts of problems from smearing to excess filament, etc. Any ideas as to why this is happening and how I can prevent it?

4) My prints start to deform slightly when they are cooling, which is really annoying. I generally take them off the bed fairly soon after they finish printing and they are often still a tiny bit warm. Should I leave them on the bed longer to cool?

Thanks!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2013 12:31AM by Nick101.

Nick101 Wrote:
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> 1) The temperature reading on the LCD reads ~ 210
> degrees throughout a print even though in
> KISSlicer the temperature settings range from 200
> for first layer, to 190 for Main layer, and 130 to
> keep warm when I'm slicing a file. Shouldn't the
> printer temp be consistent with what the KISSlicer
> settings were?

Check the extruder tab and make sure it is set to be using the correct material. It sounds like it may be set to use ABS.

>
> 2) The fan will turn on and off on it's own
> seemingly at random. Now I'm still very very new
> to properly using my printer but I would assume
> the fan would stay on throughout the entire print.
> Am I wrong?

It is set to be on at a higher speed for the perimeters and slow for infill. But is should stay on all the time and should turn itself on once the hotend is warm. If it does not you will need to increase the min fan speed in your Marlin config and possibly increase the fan speed settings in Kisslicer. Also the fans I find work best are 12cfm each I believe.

>
> 3) Probably the worst thing I'm noticing right
> now is, especially for prints where I have 100%
> infill and fine detail (I've been trying to print
> some Tantillus replacement parts), a large glob of
> filament will gradually collect at the nozzle
> eventually causing all sorts of problems from
> smearing to excess filament, etc. Any ideas as to
> why this is happening and how I can prevent it?

Sounds like you are over extruding a little. Be sure to follow the E calibration tutorials on Tantillus.org
>
> 4) My prints start to deform slightly when they
> are cooling, which is really annoying. I
> generally take them off the bed fairly soon after
> they finish printing and they are often still a
> tiny bit warm. Should I leave them on the bed
> longer to cool?

This may be a result of the material settings and the higher temp of 210. It may also be that your fans are not strong enough or simply the settings are not high enough in Kisslicer like mentioned above.

>
> Thanks!

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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

Thanks for the suggestions Sublime. After playing with the settings a bit more in both Pronterface and KISSlicer, I was able to make sure that the temperature was set properly throughout the entire print and that the fan also was operating as it should. Now my prints seem to come out much better than they had before.

I found that if I control the printer entirely through Pronterface and KISSlicer instead of a combination of the printer's LCD controls and the other software, I get more reliable results for the the temp and fan behavior. I don't know if the two are related or not, but I thought I would throw that out there.

I've also been running into another problem recently with my extruder motor "skipping" or "jumping" inconsistently and I am not quite sure what could be going on there. I've included a video of this behavior and was hoping someone could shed some light on it for me:

[vimeo.com]

It doesn't always happen but seems to occur most often during small movements of the motor. Any ideas?

Nick

From the frequency it happens one thing it may be is the driver going into protection. Do you have heat sinks on the drivers? Are they too hot to touch? They will always be too hot to touch for any length of time but you should be able to touch it without getting burnt for a second. If it is too high you may want to turn down the driver a tiny little bit. You could try adding a heat sink to the driver if it does not already have one. You could also add a small fan to cool them which allows them to be run at a higher current.

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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

Thanks Sublime. My drivers do have heat sinks on them fortunately and I verified that they weren't getting too hot. I did turn the current down a tiny bit on the extruder driver though. I also disassembled the extruder and found a circular wear mark on the motor face nearest the hobbed bolt as well as a loose nut. I tightened everything down and put some spacer washers between the motor and the base of the extruder assembly to give the motor and hobbed bolt a bit more clearance. Tried another print and the "skipping" seems to have gone away.