Hello,

I have a j-head hot end. The heat resistor I had init failed after a few prints. I think this was to me doing a lot of work around the heat end. So any way, I went online and bought a cartridge heating element, and had no problems switching the the old one out with the new. I then tried to print something using the new heating element, and I noticed that the temperature was unable to reach the required temperature. 220.

I did some reserch, and found that most people will see their hotends rocket up if they just put a cartridge heater in. I tried to run the auto PID to configure the new element, but like ways it was unable to heat up.

I am using a 12v power supply,
The cartridge I bought is this one.
3D printer gear
My PID settings are.

// Comment the following line to disable PID and enable bang-bang.
#define PIDTEMP
#define BANG_MAX 255 // limits current to nozzle while in bang-bang mode; 255=full current
#define PID_MAX 255 // limits current to nozzle while PID is active (see PID_FUNCTIONAL_RANGE below); 255=full current
#ifdef PIDTEMP
  //#define PID_DEBUG // Sends debug data to the serial port.
  //#define PID_OPENLOOP 1 // Puts PID in open loop. M104/M140 sets the output power from 0 to PID_MAX
  #define PID_FUNCTIONAL_RANGE 10 // If the temperature difference between the target temperature and the actual temperature
                                  // is more then PID_FUNCTIONAL_RANGE then the PID will be shut off and the heater will be set to min/max.
  #define PID_INTEGRAL_DRIVE_MAX 255  //limit for the integral term
  #define K1 0.95 //smoothing factor within the PID
  #define PID_dT ((OVERSAMPLENR * 10.0)/(F_CPU / 64.0 / 256.0)) //sampling period of the temperature routine

// If you are using a pre-configured hotend then you can use one of the value sets by uncommenting it
// Ultimaker
   #define  DEFAULT_Kp 45
   #define  DEFAULT_Ki 4.2
   #define  DEFAULT_Kd 120

// MakerGear
//    #define  DEFAULT_Kp 7.f
//    #define  DEFAULT_Ki 0.1
//    #define  DEFAULT_Kd 12

// Mendel Parts V9 on 12V
//    #define  DEFAULT_Kp 63.0
//    #define  DEFAULT_Ki 2.25
//    #define  DEFAULT_Kd 440
#endif // PIDTEMP

Can any one help me?

Any one?

For what its worth I ran auto PID today and got:
// If you are using a pre-configured hotend then you can use one of the value sets by uncommenting it
// Ultimaker
#define DEFAULT_Kp 19.08
#define DEFAULT_Ki 1.58
#define DEFAULT_Kd 57.44

a standard cartridge will get really hot really fast even with pid being wrong. (unless P value is really low)

I suspect you have may have a 24 volt cartage. running a 12v system, it wont get very far.

Failing that you may have a damaged mosfet to your hotend.

Check the voltage getting to your heater, check the resistance of your cartridge.

If you getting 12v the mosfet is probably ok.

Presuming its a 40w cartridge (the supplier has listed zero details, no voltage, no wattage, never a good sign)

Your 40W 12V heater should have 3.6 ohms. Your 24V 40W should be approx 14.4 ohms.

This will hopefully shed some light on the issue... or at give us some more clues!

Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2015 07:14AM by Dust.

I Have an E3D Lite6 and im not entirely sure if it came with a 12v heater cartridge or a 24v heater cartridge, is there any way to tell other than having a multimeter? My multimeter recently failed on me

Do you have a fan blowing on the nozzle by chance?

Quote
milkypostman
Do you have a fan blowing on the nozzle by chance?

I saw this rather old thread. I was having the same problems with a E3D lite6 not getting above 180. I am using a fan shroud which cools the print as well as the heatsink (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:839620). When I turned the fan off, it easily got to temperature. This is definitely due to the print cooling affecting the nozzle: if I turn it back on once the head is 10mm or more above the heat bed, it's time. Similarly, autotune with the this fan shroud will only work without timing out if the head is 10mm above the bed. I'm currently looking into either modifying or abandoning this fan shroud.

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See my blog at [moosteria.blogspot.com].

I´ve only played around with E3d-clones and found one golden rule about temp. Never let the heatsink touch the hotend.
I´m using a M6 nut to counter the heatbarrier and the heatsink. New rule: never let the nut touch the hotend.
-Olaf

I had a "big duh" moment a while after I sent the previous post. The E3D lit assembly instructions say set MAX_PWM to 150. And this is what was really constraining the temperature. Once I raised it, it can hit its temperature even with the cooling nozzle.

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See my blog at [moosteria.blogspot.com].

How high did you set the max pwm?

I set it to 256, which is the maximum possible. It isn't really clear to me why the E3D people recommend using a lower value. They talk about "not burning your house down" in the instructions, but I can only see that happening if the thermistor went insane and didn't stop it from heating beyond the temperature you set.

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See my blog at [moosteria.blogspot.com].