Extruder issues

Hi there,

My first time here and first time owning a 3D printer so excuse me if I come across like a N00b.

I got my first 3D printer "Reprap i3 pro b" cheap and cheerful, now I built it and did all the bed leveling, everything works great apart from extrusion.

Now the issue is that the extruder makes a dull clicking noise and seems to struggle to pull the filament through for printing, I have made sure that the temps are good for the ABS and PLA that I am using and that there are no blockages in the nozzle. Also have the blue painters tape on the heatbed is working for me.

I use Cura software to try and print the test cube and Cura test robot then save it SD card then print it from there.

Sometimes I do get a good base about a millimeter then it starts to stop extruding. I have tried different filaments at their required working temps but none seem to work.


If any one can suggest if I'm doing anything wrong or help me in any way I would be grateful for the help.

Really want to get into 3D printing and cant wait to see my first print.

I've attached image of printer because not sure of the model.

Thanks

eekeek
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Does the printer extrude fine into air?

What about your stepper driver for the extruder motor. Does the heatsink on the chip get hot? Do you have an extra one that you could try to make sure it's not the driver?

Also looks like you have a direct drive extruder. It happens occasionally that the motor might be underpowered on those and not be able to push plastic through (it takes more torque for a direct drive motor to push filament). Do you happen to have a more powerful NEMA 17 motor that you could try putting on there?

Stepper motor stays cool and heat sink doesn't get hot everything seems cool that should be, so I may have a under powered motor do you have any recommendations where to get a good NEMA 17 motor from. I'll order one ASAP and report the results.

Thank you for the reply I appreciate it

Eekeek

I've had good luck with ebay for my motors. For example, this looks pretty trustworthy and will arrive fast, power should be ample to drive your filament.

Before getting a new motor though, I'd at least try to ascertain it's really the problem. Could you remove the fan so you can get clear sight of the motor hobbed gear, and check whether it's actually not rotating when your printer stops extruding?

Have you set the ref voltage preset on the driver pcb, if its turned to minimum then you will be under driving the motor.
As a rough setting ,about 30-50% should be ok

Hi, the motor extrudes fine at first then starts do retract then stops extruding and making the dull clicking sound. It also does the same when I extrude the filament manually in the menu option.

Hi obewan, have not yet tried that but I would not know where to adjust it on my board? I don't know if the board has that feature. I have attached a near exact image of my board.

The Vref adjustment is on the stepper driver module. Take a look at this link for info: [reprap.org]

Hi Anvoice,

Yeah I have changed stepper motor with new ones that I got from Amazon, but still the same issue with extruding.

I don't wont to mess around with the board with the voltages of the steppers if I don't need to .

Could I be doing something wrong withing Cura? I'm using 15.4 as it's the only build that will work on my PC lol, this is what I do, I go to Thingiverse and choose a test model which in this case the Cura Robot then I download it and put it on to the SD card then put it in the printer and select print from SD card. I do leave the settings as they are for the chosen model.

I'm at a dead end on what to do next, I really want to make this work .


Thanks for your reply

Eek eek

Do you have a fan blowing on the heatsink of the hotend? It seems you have a partial clogged hotend from heat creeping up the coldend.

There is also a chance that the hotend touches the heatsink. There should be a visible gap of ~5mm between the heater block and the heatsink. See attached picture.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2017 11:56AM by o_lampe.

Hi o_lampe,

I have a fan on the heat sink which is attached to the stepper extruder and it does not get hot just warm to the touch, I have checked for blocked nozzle but seems to be fine every time I go to print. The hot end seems fine to as there is a gap of about 5mm from the heat sink.

attached image of my printer.


Thanks

Eekeek

Quote

I don't wont to mess around with the board with the voltages of the steppers if I don't need to sad smiley

It seems, you have to bite the bullet and check/adjust Vref then. You can't expect this had been done by Chinese child slaves correctly

Hi o_lampe,

LUL that's true so very true , maybe next time I will get a Ultimaker 3 extended $$$$ anyways i'll give it a go but which driver do I alter? I have a image of where the extruder is connected to (I point to it) how do I know which driver to alter other wise?.

Thank you for all the advice


eekeek

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2017 01:13PM by eekeek.

When I drive my car to a gas station, to check tire pressure, I test them all including the spare tire
Just put the black probe to the GND connection of the green connector and the red tip in the middle of the potmeter. You'll see a value around 0.4-0.8V. If the extruder driver is significantly lower, crank it up. ( You didn't tell the spec's of the new stepper you got? )

Hi o_lampe,

With a voltmeter/pot meter

I checked the voltages and the stepper for the extruder reads .306v I also did check the rest which they read .325, .330, .307.
Now do I ramp up the extruder to .400? Or higher? Or I'm I doing it wrong.

I've tested it on usb power which I got the above results, I did do another check while on mains power and the extruder stepper motor was 1.304v and the others were very low under a 1/2 volt but they work fine.

With both motors and adjusted voltage the motors will not move when I move axis for the extruder within the printer menu they just try and turn .

The new stepper motor had the same results so I don't know whats going on.

Thanks for the info

Eekeek

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2017 01:24PM by eekeek.

Now I'm slowly getting out off ideas.
There is one more thing, that can go wrong with extruders and that is: you've confused M83 and M82 in the startcode of the slicer. That would lead to very "funny" results while printing...

Hi o_lampe,

Yeah I checked my slicer settings as you said and it was ok nothing wrong, I have even reset the board and reset defaults within the printer menu but that has not done anything at all, since day one the printer has not printed so it may be down to a duff machine.

Since I have contacted the seller and all they want to do is send me replacement parts lol they don't seem to know what's causing the issue so my money is being refunded . Unfortunately there is not a answer to what was wrong and what the fix is or was.

Thank you for your patience o_lampe and great advice on helping me throughout my saga and everyone else that's had any input in this thank you.

The moral of this saga is not to buy cheap reprap 3d printers in my experience. "Although there are good reraps 3d printers out there" But I will not give up I'll find a 3d printer that works.

Thanks again to all

Eekeek

Hi eekeek,

May sound obvious but when I read your first post, it comes to my mind the sound I hear when the hobbed bolt is "biting" the filament, so in other words, it is slipping. Would have sense considering that at the beggining you print, and after a while stops doing it.
With my experience I can say that sometimes is the nozzle which is clogged, but others, is just the pressure you put into the filament. Too much pressure and it will bite, low pressure and will bite anyway but slower as it doesn't catch the filament with force enough. Check if your filament is bitten when stops printing.
I have not completely followed the other comments in the thread as when it comes to potentials and electronics I lost myself very easy, but sometimes the simple option could be the easiest one to check and solve.
Considering your experience right now with the cheap reprap printers, it is just what you are experiencing. You have to deal with problems, but most of the times, is just how you will be able to solve them. I would say, 80% of the time the problems come from wrong setup/configuration, and 20% is hardware failure. If you don't want to experience this kind of problem/solution, unfortunately you will have to pay +1000 €/$ for a printer, but you will also lose the funny part

Hi Arquit3D,

Don't get me wrong, I love to problem solve and try to solve the issues but in my case I had exhausted if not all avenues on how to get my printer to work, I like the cheaper reprap versions and is why I got one in the first place.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I'm technically minded and could do with a challenge, but if it's down to a faulty printer then there's is not much I can do to get it working when there could be faulty drivers and boards etc.

Even the seller said to me that the motor drivers could be faulty so in that case that would be out of my expertise to repair it, they were replaced with new ones but still did not work.

Also I have slowed the print speed down but the issue is still there, with the case of it biting the filament and the nozzle being clogged all of that has been covered, they were the first things I checked hence is why I came to this forum for some fresh ideas.

Thank you for the suggestions and help


Eekeek