Prints fritzing out with mess of filament overnight

[GarageBay9]

Hey folks,

Twice now I've left long prints to run overnight which were looking great when I went to sleep, but were ruined when I woke up. What I'm getting is a jumbled rat's nest of filament piled on top of an otherwise fine print. The first one was very large, almost all the way to the top of the build volume vertically, and looked fine right up until the mess on top started. The second one wasn't very large (less than 200mm tall, probably 80x50x180mm or so) and had probably about 15 layers that were twisted off axis before the mess started.

Both of these were 3 mil + lines of gcode, and my host machine is an olllld laptop, so these prints were being run as binary .gco from the SD card. The machine is a stock (with exception of v5 e3d hotend) Rostock Max, with the .80 firmware, and the gcode was done with Slic3r from the .91 version of Repetier Host. Filament is 1.75mm black ABS from SeeMe.

I'm stumped about where to start looking to suss this out, thought I'd ask for help. I also have retraction / ooze problems, but let's fix this first...

I'll see if I can't grab some pictures later, there's not much to look at though.

[MSURunner]

I have a theory that I haven't tested on a long print yet, but on short prints seems to be holding true. Would I be correct in guessing you were printing this with the door closed, thus putting the Rambo inside the base AND that you do not have any sort of cooling fan on the Rambo? What I believe was happening with mine (had a problem just like you were describing) was that the current running through the Rambo and the radiant heat of the Onyx was causing the stepper drivers to overheat and miss steps. Once you get off a couple missed steps, the print's ruined and will either have a layer shift or the spaghetti you got. I mounted a 50x50 fan onto the back door of Rambo (it's pre-drilled for one, like the SeeMe boys might have had the same thought at some point) and wired it to the 12v output on the board so that whenever the printer is on, the Rambo is getting cooled (same with my hotend fan).

[GarageBay9]

...yes.

I'll try leaving the main bay open and see if that helps. Don't have another fan on hand at the moment.

[Eaglezsoar]

Hey folks,

Twice now I've left long prints to run overnight which were looking great when I went to sleep, but were ruined when I woke up. What I'm getting is a jumbled rat's nest of filament piled on top of an otherwise fine print. The first one was very large, almost all the way to the top of the build volume vertically, and looked fine right up until the mess on top started. The second one wasn't very large (less than 200mm tall, probably 80x50x180mm or so) and had probably about 15 layers that were twisted off axis before the mess started.

Both of these were 3 mil + lines of gcode, and my host machine is an olllld laptop, so these prints were being run as binary .gco from the SD card. The machine is a stock (with exception of v5 e3d hotend) Rostock Max, with the .80 firmware, and the gcode was done with Slic3r from the .91 version of Repetier Host. Filament is 1.75mm black ABS from SeeMe.

I'm stumped about where to start looking to suss this out, thought I'd ask for help. I also have retraction / ooze problems, but let's fix this first...

I'll see if I can't grab some pictures later, there's not much to look at though.

Make sure you have all screen savers and ALL power management features turned off on that laptop.

[GarageBay9]

The laptop isn't even turned on. It's vintage 2002 and doesn't have enough RAM to even load the .gcode for more than a cube; I really just use it for occasionally running manual commands and flashing the RAMBo when necessary.

I've been running prints headless, just off the SD card alone. All the symptoms and evidence line up with MSURunner's theory, I'm inclined to believe it's the culprit. Easy fix... just leave the electronics bay wide open.

[Eaglezsoar]

The laptop isn't even turned on. It's vintage 2002 and doesn't have enough RAM to even load the .gcode for more than a cube; I really just use it for occasionally running manual commands and flashing the RAMBo when necessary.

I've been running prints headless, just off the SD card alone. All the symptoms and evidence line up with MSURunner's theory, I'm inclined to believe it's the culprit. Easy fix... just leave the electronics bay wide open.

OK, I missed that part that you were running strictly from the SD card, in that case I also tend to agree that leaving the door open should help.
If the problem continues you may need to invest in a small fan to cool the Rambo. It looks better with the door closed and a fan working.