Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 10:38AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 171 |
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flatlander
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marc2912
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flatlander
Is there any reason not to use a stainless feed gear as a replacement? By the way, thanks for the heads-up.
[www.amazon.com]
Folger Tech sells a replacement described as steel.
Personally I wouldn't order anything other than the printer on FT's site. They're a great starting point but past that their prices and quality are not really competitive.
As for getting a new one look at products with reviews and remember to re run calibration on your extruder after. Also make sure you get the right gear for the right extruder.
I'm likely to keep using FT for some things. Their shipping is pretty fast and once I have something in the the cart I may as well add a few things because it's the shipping that gets me. It has to be a brutal business model with margins near zero... death by a thousand Amazon/Ebay cuts. Kudos for sticking his neck out; I hope it remains intact.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 11:44AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 276 |
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 12:32PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 131 |
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 01:30PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 46 |
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 01:33PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 85 |
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DaveA
Has anyone else had issues with the stock Folger extruder drive gear becoming worn? I've had my printer for about 2+ months and have run maybe 21/2 spools through. 1 spool PLA, 1 spool PETG and a bit of ABS. In the last week or so I've noticed a lot of clicking from the extruder and the prints are becoming pretty bad. Examining the gear shows there is hardly any "tooth" left. They are all worn down to the point the gear almost feels smooth. Are these gears considered expendable items? They are advertised as being made from copper which doesn't seem be a good gear material for long term use.
Any recommendations on a good replacement direct drive extruder that supports mounting the BLTouch sensor?
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 01:45PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 85 |
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marc2912
I'd like to run an informal poll here. I wish the forum had an easy way to run a poll within a thread... Are you running a bed leveling system and if so which?
Thanks
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 01:51PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 85 |
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therippa
Why are you guys ordering extruders? You have a 3d printer sitting right next to you...
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 02:54PM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 251 |
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 03:11PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 85 |
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widespreaddeadhead
@jhitesma
I use that same hotend/extruder mount and it works well for me. I like your remixed idler also.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 04:29PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 131 |
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jhitesma
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marc2912
I'd like to run an informal poll here. I wish the forum had an easy way to run a poll within a thread... Are you running a bed leveling system and if so which?
Thanks
Like you I found I had to relevel almost every time I touched the bed. So I ended up going autolevel. I started with the 4mm distance sensor from Folger and a sheet of 28ga galvanized steel under my glass. It worked...but the sense distance was so short it made me nervous and the steel curled a little when I cut it so it didn't lay perfectly flat and one corner always read a little higher. I liked that it worked at 5v, and that it worked at all...but the steel made heating my glass enough for ABS tough and I didn't like the one corner always reading high.
I swapped to a 8mm distance sensor and it almost kind of sometimes worked on 5v...so I also swapped to running at 12v with a few resistors to drop the voltage (it's an NPN sensor but I still checked and the output had 12v on it - even if the arduino should be pushing current rather than pulling with an NPN setup that made me nervous and the resistors are cheap and good insurance.) The 8mm sensor was so sensitive I was able to remove the steel and actually read the heater plate with nothing extra...but it was so sensitive that if I read over one of the screws mounting the bearing blocks to the aluminum sub-bed then that spot would read high. So I added a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil between the glass and heated bed - it now triggers off that and since the foil is so thin I get VERY reliable even readings.
I have however noticed that my initial layer can drift by about 0.1mm from day to day. My best guess is that this is due to the mount changing dimensions slightly based on the ambient temperature in the room I print. (Days when it's hot I get a shorter initial layer, days when it's cold I get a slightly shorter layer - which would make sense if it's thermal expansion...but I live in the desert and it's been hitting the mid 90's(f) already and still down in the lower 50's at night so the ambient temperature swings I get are pretty extreme because it's freaking March and I can't bring myself to turn on the AC this early in the year.)
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 05:21PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 85 |
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marc2912
What material can the sensor work with? What happens if you cover the glass with spray or blue tape?
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 22, 2016 05:30PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 131 |
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jhitesma
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marc2912
What material can the sensor work with? What happens if you cover the glass with spray or blue tape?
An inductive sensor needs metal. It works best with ferrous metal like steel, but can detect aluminum as well.
I use hairspray on my glass but there'd be no problem with glue or blue tape either...unless...
If you're using a 4mm distance sensor then it may not be sensitive enough to clear the extra height added by blue tape. It's not much...but the 4mm barely works as it is.
Keep in mind that the quoted 4/8mm distance is for detecting a rather large chunk of ferrous material, aluminum doesn't sense as well/closely so you loose some distance when aluminum is what you're detecting. And glass is usually 3mm thick so right there you loose 3mm from what you're sensing. So with a 4mm sensor you only have about 1mm of clearance in the best of conditions - and if you're using aluminum under the bed or just thin steel you don't even have 1mm of clearance above the glass. With my 8mm sensor and HD aluminum foil under the glass I run a Z offset of between 2.5 and 3mm depending on how I position my sensor. It's not a lot but it's enough and I easily have room for blue tape.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 12:50AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 85 |
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 07:44AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 131 |
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jhitesma
I wrote up some more details about my experiences setting up auto level on my blog: [www.nevermindthesand.com]
I also included links at the end to a number of other sources of information that I relied on when figuring out how to get it working.
Please feel free to point out anything I left out or any glaring errors - I just tossed this post together since it's such a popular topic. I didn't try to rehash the existing detailed setup instructions but instead tried to give my own perspective on the options and why I went with the choices I did. I'll gladly add links to any other auto level resources I overlooked that people have found helpful the ones I included were just those that immediately came to mind as helping me when I did my setup.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 09:53AM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 251 |
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jhitesma
Thanks. Oh, and just in case I came across too harsh...Overall I like it and would say it's an improvement over stock. My criticisms are just because I'm pretty much never satisfied and always looking to make things better - which means first identifying what can be improved
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 11:08AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 85 |
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marc2912
Awesome, thanks a lot for the info. I have a LJ18A3-8-Z/BX that I have done nothing with yet, it's a 8mm NPN NO Switch 6-36VDC, I was thinking of just doing a mount for it and giving it a try. Would gluing some HD aluminum sheets to the back side of the glass work? I'm thinking that since the glass surface is what I want level making sure the aluminum sensed is parallel to the glass is crucial.
Would you recommend multiple layers of aluminum?
Thx
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 11:10AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 85 |
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widespreaddeadhead
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jhitesma
Thanks. Oh, and just in case I came across too harsh...Overall I like it and would say it's an improvement over stock. My criticisms are just because I'm pretty much never satisfied and always looking to make things better - which means first identifying what can be improved
No worries! I actually have the same issues with this: "The filament is constrained in the PTFE...but I'd still like to see a shorter distance from the gear to the melt zone. The clamp area could be remixed to remove about 1-1.5cm of distance, if I was going to stick with this extruder I'd probably try to do that."
If you switch extruders let me know, I'd like to follow your progress.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 12:30PM |
Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 251 |
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jhitesma
I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soonSo I'll definitely follow up as I continue to experiment. Will probably be late next week before I have all the parts for a geared extruder printed...I'm also working on this MPCNC and had to redo a few 8hr prints which is taking up all the time on my printer right now.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 07:48PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 130 |
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jhitesma
Yeah I have one of those metal ones on my machine right now. I do like the higher tension it gives on the idler, that cleaned up a pattern I was seeing in my prints. But my stepper has been running about 10-15 degrees hotter since the change and started skipping. I initially thought it was due to the aluminum extruder letting more hot end heat get into the stepper...but now I think it's the extra tension making the stepper work harder - I turned up the current on my stepper driver a bit (doing the math I'm now over the 0.4a the stepper is rated for...but still under 0.5a so not much over) and even though I'm apparently over the current limit the stepper is running cooler and not skipping steps anymore so I'm going with it...close to 30 hours of printing at that setting so far and still working great.)
I also had some issues with the idler not lining up with the entrance to the heat break and with the tensioner not moving well if I tightened the screw it mounts with enough that I didn't worry about the screw falling out. I solved both problems by putting a 3mm washer between the tensioner and the body of the extruder with a dab of super lube grease on it:
[attachment 74737 20160312_152715.jpg]
To try and stop heat from the hot end getting into the stepper I added a gasket cut from some high temp gasket material I picked up for a few bucks at tractor supply for another project and had plenty of extra on hand:
[attachment 74738 20160312_151646.jpg]
The gasket didn't really help much, but the washer got the idler lined up with the heat break much better so it's much easier to load filament now and it has a straight path through the extruder - you can see the gasket and the washer here if you look closely:
[attachment 74739 IMG_20160313_115611.jpg]
But my e3d v6 (full all metal version since I want to try nylon) should be here tomorrow so I've got this printing right now: [www.thingiverse.com] It should be done in about half an hour. Not sure how I'll mount my inductive sensor though...may have to rig something up. I'm a little worried about the stepper hitting the top bar and costing me some Z...but we'll just have to see how that goes. I do like that the stepper is exposed so I can put the stock heat sink on the back of it to help cool it some. I want to do the compact geared extruder: [www.thingiverse.com] but that will take a bit more work to collect the vitamins for since I'll have to make a hobbed bolt so won't tackle that until this weekend at the earliest.
I may just go with animoose's mount and the stock extruder - I'm starting to think the issues I had with the stock extruder may be more related to stepper current than they were tension. I printed his mount and this remix: [www.thingiverse.com] to fit my inductive sensor. So I should have two options to try tomorrow. Doubt I'll get the e3d on and printing tomorrow but at least I'll have a few extruders to experiment with.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 08:22PM |
Registered: 11 years ago Posts: 477 |
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 09:00PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 430 |
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SteveRoy
A question for all the auto-level people - with auto level when your printer is printing in a layer in the x and y plane is the z-axis also moving the nozzle up and down during this layer?
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 10:42PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 541 |
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 23, 2016 10:51PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 541 |
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 24, 2016 01:40AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 38 |
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tjnamtiw
For 6 months, I've been strictly running PLA. Today a threw a roll of ESUN PET up there...This stuff is pretty nice AT FIRST GLANCE. We shall see.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 24, 2016 08:21AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 541 |
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GrouchoDuke
Alright, can somebody give me some jam advice? I pulled apart my hot end to fix a jam/clog. The nozzle itself is clear, but the liner on the hot side of the heat break is sticking out quite a bit. Has anyone seen this before?
I've been printing mostly PETG at 245C for the last couple months. Did that kill the stock hot end?
Thanks for the help!
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tjnamtiw
For 6 months, I've been strictly running PLA. Today a threw a roll of ESUN PET up there...This stuff is pretty nice AT FIRST GLANCE. We shall see.
I've been using eSun PETG and I like it too. At 245C, the prints come out shiny & very strong. I use 75C on my bed with BuildTak and that sticks great.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 24, 2016 08:29AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 131 |
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tjnamtiw
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GrouchoDuke
Alright, can somebody give me some jam advice? I pulled apart my hot end to fix a jam/clog. The nozzle itself is clear, but the liner on the hot side of the heat break is sticking out quite a bit. Has anyone seen this before?
I've been printing mostly PETG at 245C for the last couple months. Did that kill the stock hot end?
Thanks for the help!
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tjnamtiw
For 6 months, I've been strictly running PLA. Today a threw a roll of ESUN PET up there...This stuff is pretty nice AT FIRST GLANCE. We shall see.
I've been using eSun PETG and I like it too. At 245C, the prints come out shiny & very strong. I use 75C on my bed with BuildTak and that sticks great.
There shouldn't be any liner on the hot end side of the tube. At least that's the way mine are. The liner must have been pushed down and out. I don't have any real answers, just questions like you!
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 24, 2016 09:02AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 38 |
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marc2912
[Don't fight it, liner could be damaged, it probably got weak with the high temp, you can get a 5 pack on prime for pretty cheap. I found that these cheap parts are not worth fighting and to keep spares on hand.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 24, 2016 09:10AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 130 |
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marc2912
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tjnamtiw
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GrouchoDuke
Alright, can somebody give me some jam advice? I pulled apart my hot end to fix a jam/clog. The nozzle itself is clear, but the liner on the hot side of the heat break is sticking out quite a bit. Has anyone seen this before?
I've been printing mostly PETG at 245C for the last couple months. Did that kill the stock hot end?
Thanks for the help!
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tjnamtiw
For 6 months, I've been strictly running PLA. Today a threw a roll of ESUN PET up there...This stuff is pretty nice AT FIRST GLANCE. We shall see.
I've been using eSun PETG and I like it too. At 245C, the prints come out shiny & very strong. I use 75C on my bed with BuildTak and that sticks great.
There shouldn't be any liner on the hot end side of the tube. At least that's the way mine are. The liner must have been pushed down and out. I don't have any real answers, just questions like you!
Don't fight it, liner could be damaged, it probably got weak with the high temp, you can get a 5 pack on prime for pretty cheap. I found that these cheap parts are not worth fighting and to keep spares on hand.
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 24, 2016 09:27AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 130 |
Re: Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) March 24, 2016 10:39AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 130 |