EZExtruder issues

[add1ct3dd]

Hey guys,

So this is the third time it's happened now, more annoyingly I was 2 and a half hours into a print so that had to be cancelled, but looking for advice on how to stop it.

Glancing over to my printer I could see the stepper skipping, so immediately turned it off. The extruder motor was pretty damn warm, probably 70c.

Anyway, I took the Extruder apart again, and it seems the filament has managed to bend on itself, meaning there's no way it'll go into the hole.

This isn't the first time it's done it, but surely I'm not the only one, any suggestions?

Printing PLA at 205C.

[add1ct3dd]

Ive added a very small washer to each screw at the bottom of the EZStruder (to space it a bit further away from the motor) where it connects to the tubing, so that is spaced out slightly so it's perfectly centered.

I'll also try increasing temp by 5c back to 210, so that it comes under a little less strain.

[add1ct3dd]

Following on from this, also noticed the extruder stepper is very warm, probably around 70c...

I have the lower current steppers, and have just verified its set to 165 in Repetier, so not sure why it's getting so hot.

Could it be because im printing at 0.1mm ?

aside from that, I noticed the Black bit of the Ezstruder has a very large opening, which could be why also - it's got a lot of play allowing the filament to flex.

Aside from this, feeding the filament through the hotend manually is easy, so not sure why the stepper is getting so hot?

[add1ct3dd]

I know, replying to my own posts again!

Speaking in #reprap - wondering if I've hit the speed limit of the hotend/extruder?

It's printing .1 at 40mm, so very very slow, going to try it faster (1.8x multiplier), and see what sort of heat I get then.

[geneb]

The extruder will skip under 3 conditions.

1. The hot end temperature is too low for the speed you're printing at.
2. The filament is of poor quality and the diameter of the filament is larger than about 1.9mm causing it to jam in the lower section of the extruder.
3. The stepper driver chip is overheating on the RAMBo.

Of all those, I strongly suspect #1 is your issue.

g.

[add1ct3dd]

The extruder will skip under 3 conditions.

1. The hot end temperature is too low for the speed you're printing at.
2. The filament is of poor quality and the diameter of the filament is larger than about 1.9mm causing it to jam in the lower section of the extruder.
3. The stepper driver chip is overheating on the RAMBo.

Of all those, I strongly suspect #1 is your issue.

g.

Cheers for the reply, couple of things I see wrong though:

1. Printing PLA at 210C is already quite hot (I'm used to printing at around 185C on my Prusa i3), I'd reduce it but don't want to risk any issues (as I found issues at 205C).
2. Checked already sadly - 1.72-1.75mm in all the places I measured!
3. Possible, but would that account for the hot stepper? I also took the acrylic covers off and the others are pretty warm too tbh, warmer than I'd expect (or am used to on the Prusa), but maybe this is normal.

It's all a bit weird to be honest, it's printing ok now, printing a new part and haven't touched anything, but I am printing at 200% speed (well, supposedly). Again this is still a small part and at .1mm layers.

[Polygonhell]

Following on from this, also noticed the extruder stepper is very warm, probably around 70c...

I have the lower current steppers, and have just verified its set to 165 in Repetier, so not sure why it's getting so hot.

Could it be because im printing at 0.1mm ?

aside from that, I noticed the Black bit of the Ezstruder has a very large opening, which could be why also - it's got a lot of play allowing the filament to flex.

Aside from this, feeding the filament through the hotend manually is easy, so not sure why the stepper is getting so hot?

Steppers are constant current devices, they get hottest when they are not moving since all the power is converted to heat, pretty much all you can do if you think they are too hot is turn down the current. But most steppers are rated for way hotter than most people expect, usually at least 50C and commonly 80C.

[Nylocke]

They have a max ambient temp rating. If you run the stepper and respect its limits it will operate properly, but if the surrounding temperature exceeds the ambient temp rating you'll run into issues. Ambient temps for most steppers are around 80C from what I've been told.

[teoman]

There are a couple of nema17 coolers on thingiverse, you could try one of those if you want.

I shall be installing a peltier device / heatsink / fan combo. But only because my printer is enclosed in a cupboard.

[add1ct3dd]

Following on from this, also noticed the extruder stepper is very warm, probably around 70c...

I have the lower current steppers, and have just verified its set to 165 in Repetier, so not sure why it's getting so hot.

Could it be because im printing at 0.1mm ?

aside from that, I noticed the Black bit of the Ezstruder has a very large opening, which could be why also - it's got a lot of play allowing the filament to flex.

Aside from this, feeding the filament through the hotend manually is easy, so not sure why the stepper is getting so hot?

Steppers are constant current devices, they get hottest when they are not moving since all the power is converted to heat, pretty much all you can do if you think they are too hot is turn down the current. But most steppers are rated for way hotter than most people expect, usually at least 50C and commonly 80C.

Gotcha - so because it's going to slowly (.1mm and 40mm/s print), the steppers most of the time are doing nothing, and hence building up the heat!

Thanks, it all makes sense now - my answer is to print faster - this is what I was going to do anyway .

[rpress]

Are you sure it's 70C? Most people can't stand to touch anything above 50C.

As far as the EZStruder's abilities, I find I can do 12mm^3/s filament volume with a 0.4mm nozzle. This translates to 100mm/s print speed at 0.3mm layers. Beyond that it misses steps and/or grinds the filament.

So in your case you're not even close to that.

[Glacian22]

Are you using the stock hotend?

[add1ct3dd]

Are you using the stock hotend?

Stock hotend yep

Are you sure it's 70C? Most people can't stand to touch anything above 50C.

As far as the EZStruder's abilities, I find I can do 12mm^3/s filament volume with a 0.4mm nozzle. This translates to 100mm/s print speed at 0.3mm layers. Beyond that it misses steps and/or grinds the filament.

So in your case you're not even close to that.

And thinking about it now, I'm thinking it wasn't hotter than the Bed @ 60C, probably about the same, or less even. So I think you're right yeah

I'll keep an eye on it and see how it goes, I'm going to add some PTFE tubing at the top where it first enters that black part of the EZStruder, I think this hole is too big, which is causing the jam. I think it's made worse when I'm printing super slow, and the filament has a chance to heat up slightly, and then it makes it more susceptible to bending.

[Polygonhell]

Following on from this, also noticed the extruder stepper is very warm, probably around 70c...

I have the lower current steppers, and have just verified its set to 165 in Repetier, so not sure why it's getting so hot.

Could it be because im printing at 0.1mm ?

aside from that, I noticed the Black bit of the Ezstruder has a very large opening, which could be why also - it's got a lot of play allowing the filament to flex.

Aside from this, feeding the filament through the hotend manually is easy, so not sure why the stepper is getting so hot?

Steppers are constant current devices, they get hottest when they are not moving since all the power is converted to heat, pretty much all you can do if you think they are too hot is turn down the current. But most steppers are rated for way hotter than most people expect, usually at least 50C and commonly 80C.

Gotcha - so because it's going to slowly (.1mm and 40mm/s print), the steppers most of the time are doing nothing, and hence building up the heat!

Thanks, it all makes sense now - my answer is to print faster - this is what I was going to do anyway .

FWIW I wouldn't consider 40mm/s particularly slow, I'll commonly print at 20mm/s, and I'll run as slow as 10 on occasion, and you can certainly print slower than that.

[K.E.N.]

Howdy, K.E.N. in the house, last I wrote, I was working on power issues and thought I was going to be that happy camper, well that was blown away, shortly after I wrote about the power supply issues resolved, now the ezextruder started eating my filament, using pla of course, the extruder likes to eat a warm breakfast if you know what I mean, around 135 deg f it with my ir thermometer at the skin of the motor it show at. Well anyway I find after cleaning out the filament shaving around the feed wheel and clear the crushed filament, looking at the leftovers in the tubing, I find teeth marks from the feed gear, the feed gear was to hot and got hungry, took a small blower fan focused it on the extruder motor and problem vanish, now the motor only reads 94 deg f after 20 hours + run time and no more teeth marks on the filament in the tubing. Before I did this, the extruder failed me 5 times in one day, annoying to say the least. The next day my other machine did the same thing after 20 hours into my next run, same issue, this time I found a cpu brass heat sink with fan, was able to mount it on back of motor with tie wraps and used silicon paste for best heat transfer, had a 12volt source available extra to use, running about 2 hours now and now just have to wait, but for now temp at 94.3, I figure if it says below 120 deg f for 20 hours, I will be good with PLA. Working on a glass enclosure for one machine and hope to be able to show it off someday. If you give a hoot, shout back. K.E.N.

Well, it's another day, the brass/copper heat sink is the heat, in this case lots less heat, on this run now with the heat sinked fan, I got a real surprise, never got to 96 deg f, that was great, took care of the softening PLA that was at 135 deg f, it's an easy touch extruder drive now. Now for the first V2, it jammed again, someone in one of these messages said that the retraction was a bad thing, but you can't do a great PLA print without strings unless you use it, so back to the program and adjustments again, tried to retract to 2 from 6.5, with 25%speed instead of 100% speed, just say strings again, Now set retractions to 6 with speed at 50% seems good, see no strings, plus changed the lift from 4 to 10mm. PS since the PLA was not jammed in the extruder feeder, I was able to take it out of the cause of trouble, it just gnawed on it until severed, pulled the filament out, seen the extra large bites here and there on the filament and how hard it was to out of tubing, will learn tonight if it fixed problem, by for now.

[bot]

Sup K.E.N. MC B.O.T here, ready to spit at ya with some fresh advice.

I feel what you're putting down -- you're spot on with the fan and shiz.

Look for any slop in yo' boden tube, where it connects to the 'struder's cold side and hot side. I found that making sure the retracts are transmitted only to the filament, and not the bowden tube itself, along with the cooling of the cold side stepper, aided tremendously in resolving stringing with PLA. I also found that using more advanced slicing software such as Kisslicer or Simplify3D helps to tune the retraction settings in more intricate ways. Ending the extrusion from the cold side before the line is actually terminated helps, almost more than retraction itself does, yo.

[EL Cuajinais]

Sup K.E.N. MC B.O.T here, ready to spit at ya with some fresh advice.

I feel what you're putting down -- you're spot on with the fan and shiz.

Look for any slop in yo' boden tube, where it connects to the 'struder's cold side and hot side. I found that making sure the retracts are transmitted only to the filament, and not the bowden tube itself, along with the cooling of the cold side stepper, aided tremendously in resolving stringing with PLA. I also found that using more advanced slicing software such as Kisslicer or Simplify3D helps to tune the retraction settings in more intricate ways. Ending the extrusion from the cold side before the line is actually terminated helps, almost more than retraction itself does, yo.

He he.