MDMD's Rostock Max Build

[Polygonhell]

Does it do the same thing with no filament in it?
If yes, it's either the driver on the RAMBO over hearing, and you need to turn down the digipots setting for the extruder, or add a heat sink and fan to the driver. Or it could be a loose wire on the motor wiring.

If it only does it when the filament is there you may have a jam, and you should try feeding filament by hand, it will require some pressure, but you should be able to push filament through and get a clean extrusion.
If it is jammed you can usually clear it as follows hear hot end to say 230, wait for a minute or two, retract say 10mm wait, feed 10mm a couple of times, and hope it clears. Worst case if it's jammed and you can't clear it like that then you'll have to strip the Hotend down.

[MDMD]

It was acting that with with and without filament in place... so it wasn't a jam.

I went through EEPROM settings, opened the firmware in arduino (Changed NOTHING!), turned it off. I came back later today and it was working again. Strange. There is a new issue now though. Once the print is finished the extruder motor starts spinning really fast instead of turning off. I'm not sure why that is since none of the setting have changed.

The ezstruder is still chewing up the filament with the steps turned down. It causes slipping if I don't clean the plastic flakes off the gears. I'm using a paintbrush to manually brush them off. You can see in the image below how it did a few layers just fine then began to slip. It cleans back up again after I began brushing the flakes off the extruder gear/teeth.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/0T6Mwynl.jpg[/img]

[Polygonhell]

If it starts working after some time, it's likely the stepper drivers overheating, blow a fan at the RAMBO board, I have a 40mm fan blowing at the back of mine.
You're getting inconsistent extrusion, and obviously enough back pressure to chew up the filament.
What sort of plastic is it?
How hot are you printing it ?
Have you verified your Hotend temperature with a thermocouple?
How fast are you printing?

On the spinning extruder what does the GCode at the end of the file look like, are you using absolute or relative E?

[geneb]

MDMD, see page 158 of the assembly guide.

g.

[MDMD]

With all of the little issues I've been having I decided it would be best to hit the reset button. geneb, your comment is on point. Last night I ran though the calibration and set-up guide again. I re-leveled the bed (it was very close already). I also re-uploaded the firmware. I took the ez-struder off and reassembled it. I think things are coming together now. I still need to keep an eye on the extruder to make sure it's not creating plastic flakes that eventually cause the filament to slip... but at least now I have a solid base point to work from.

Let's pretend this was my first print (or at least my new base point):

[img]http://i.imgur.com/QJo1jtc.jpg[/img]

polygonhell: I'm printing 1.75mm abs from seemecnc at 210c. The test prints are at 30mm/s (I haven't deviated far from geneb's manual yet). I have not checked the hot-end with a thermocouple. Is there an accurate/inexpensive on your recommend purchasing?

I have the 'use relative E distances' unticked in slic3r. What's the difference between relative and absolute? I need to google that. The extruder seems to be pushed out more than 10mm when I do a manual extrude with it set to 92 in EEPROM. I need to dial that in as well.

[Polygonhell]

210 is on the low side, an could be causing the skipping extruder stepper, resulting in the under extrusion you are seeing in places.

[MDMD]

I did identical prints at 210c and 230c. The 230c print was much cleaner. I then double the speed to 60mm/s at 230c and got an equally clean print (needed a fan blowing across the bed for that one though). I'm still getting a little bit of plastic dust and slipping on the extruder. I need to take pictures of the results. More fine tuning and tests to come soon.

[MDMD]

Here are the results of my tests at 230c last night. The cube on the right is at 30mm/s and the left is at 60mm/s.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/AJPaO6G.jpg[/img]

I'm working through polygonhell's extruder calibration tutorial this evening.

[MDMD]

I was finally able to get my retraction/filament slipping issue figured it. IT'S THE FILAMENT! I was surprised to learn that was the cause of the problems. I need to send the vendor a note and tell them to give it a test on their end.

I am having success with this filament from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009LD ... inkciti-20

Here is my very first print with it:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/rOaZu0w.jpg[/img]

I am going to install motor dampers this weekend and spend some more time dialing it in. Thanks everyone for the help in this thread. Things are coming together!

[Polygonhell]

I always recommend people use known good filament to start, bad filament can cause all sorts of issues, the only filament I will recommend to people is Ultimachine, but I have used filament from a lot of sources.

[MDMD]

I will agree with that. The white filament is less consistent in size than the blue, but not bad. I'm just glad I can do a decent print now. I was surprised about the blue filament because I ordered it with my kit from seemecnc. I have an email off to them alerting them to the issues I am having with it.

[Polygonhell]

I was not impressed with the filament I bought from SeemeCNC, it was marginally better than the Chinese repraper.com filament, but repraper.com sells that stuff at <$20 a roll.

[MDMD]

I'm now going through Triff Hunter's e step calibration guide and need some help with his forumla. (Link to the page for anyone not familiar: http://reprap.org/wiki/Triffid_Hunter%2 ... de#E_steps)

e_steps_per_mm = (motor_steps_per_rev * driver_microstep) * (big_gear_teeth / small_gear_teeth) / (hob_effective_diameter * pi)

Variables:
motor_steps_per_rev = 200
driver_microstep = 16
big_gear_teeth = ?
small_gear_teeth = ?
hob_effective_diameter = ?
pi = 3.14159

Or does this forumla not work/unnecessary with the ezstruder?

[geneb]

Your best bet is to start with the figure I show in the manual and then tweak from there. The number I give in the docs was an average of three different extruders, so it should be pretty close to perfect.

g.