E3D V6 Hot End Thread

[Eaglezsoar]

@Eaglesoar

Sorry. I must have forgotten to upload the stl for that. Unfortunately, I added the file to repables and the whole thing went poof! It's not letting me re-upload so give me a few and I'll try again. In the meantime you can grab all of the files here.

Thanks for the files again!

[heathenx]

@Eaglesoar

Hey, my E3DV6 printing started out great and then has gone downhill since then. It seems like I'm getting very sparse beads. Like it's starving for filament. At the moment I'm squirting PLA. What kind of slicer settings are you using for PLA? I though I might have had a clog or something. I took just the nozzle off and re-assembled. Everything seems tight. Bowden tub is pushed all of the way down into the heatbreak. If I do have a clog what is the best procedure for cleaning everything out? I was going back and forth with ABS and PLA last week.

Here are my slicer settings:

nozzle dia - .40mm
extrusion mult. - .090
extrusion width - .41mm
filament dia - 1.75mm

retraction distance - 6mm
extra restart - .1mm
retraction vertical lift - .15mm
retraction speed - 35mm/s
wipe distance - 1mm

extruder temp - 210c

speed - 30mm/s

I also noticed this morning that my EZStruder is skipping again. My RMax has been on 3-4 hours now. Perhaps something is getting hot. Increasing the nozzle temp seems to do little. I tried running it up to 220c and it still skips sometimes.

[Eaglezsoar]

@Eaglesoar

Hey, my E3DV6 printing started out great and then has gone downhill since then. It seems like I'm getting very sparse beads. Like it's starving for filament. At the moment I'm squirting PLA. What kind of slicer settings are you using for PLA? I though I might have had a clog or something. I took just the nozzle off and re-assembled. Everything seems tight. Bowden tub is pushed all of the way down into the heatbreak. If I do have a clog what is the best procedure for cleaning everything out? I was going back and forth with ABS and PLA last week.

Here are my slicer settings:

nozzle dia - .40mm
extrusion mult. - .090
extrusion width - .41mm
filament dia - 1.75mm

retraction distance - 6mm
extra restart - .1mm
retraction vertical lift - .15mm
retraction speed - 35mm/s
wipe distance - 1mm

extruder temp - 210c

speed - 30mm/s

I also noticed this morning that my EZStruder is skipping again. My RMax has been on 3-4 hours now. Perhaps something is getting hot. Increasing the nozzle temp seems to do little. I tried running it up to 220c and it still skips sometimes.

Nothing really stands out as a cause for your V6 not to be extruding properly but I would change a couple of settings.
Extrusion width I would try .45mm
Retraction distance I would reduce to 3mm
Check your motor currents in the firmware configuration.h (#define MOTOR_CURRENT {135,135,135,135,135} // Values 0-255 (RAMBO 135 = ~0.75A, 185 = ~1A)
Perhaps change the 4th one to a larger value then what is there now. ( this can be temporarily set with an M code of 906, look up the syntax for using it.)
As I said previously, nothing stands out that would prevent proper extrusion, make sure that you check filament friction within the bowden tube and the PTC connectors.
You might want to remove the bowden tube from the ezstruder and see how difficult it is to push the filament through by hand at different temperatures.

If you do experience a clog, you would need to bring the hotend up to temperature, hold the heatblock with a cresent wrench or similar and remove the nozzle.
ABS can be cleaned with Acetone soaking, PLA is a little more difficult but I have had success with holding the nozzle with pliers and heating it, insert a pipe cleaner or
qtip into the melted plastic and let everything cool down then pull out the pipe cleaner or qtip and the plastic should come out with it.

I sincerely hope that you can discover the source of your problems but don't be to quick to blame the V6 hotend, in my experience as long as the PTFE tube is attached to
the nozzle, they are virtually impossible to plug. I ran PLA and ABS alternating them randomly and only changing the temperatures, I did this for many days without any problems
and I found the V6 rock solid. Also check the the pulley and drive gear on the EZstruder are in line with each other.
Best of luck!

[heathenx]

@Eaglezsoar

I had this setting in my firmware originally: #define MOTOR_CURRENT {175,175,175,200,0} // Values 0-255 (RAMBO 135 = ~0.75A, 185 = ~1A) I changed it to:#define MOTOR_CURRENT {175,175,175,225,0} // Values 0-255 (RAMBO 135 = ~0.75A, 185 = ~1A). I also changed the extrusion width and retraction settings. I did help myself a little by setting the z-height down another -.04mm. Regarding clogging, my filament passes thru the bowden tube with ease. I can also manually prime the extruder and filament just falls out of the thing. There seems to be no obstruction.

I still get this "under" extruding. When I first installed the hotend I didn't have this issue at all. Everything worked like it should. This issue just developed as of last Friday. I had a brand new roll of SeeMeCNC red ABS that I wanted to try and things started happening there. It's probably just a coincidence. I certainly don't blame a spool of plastic. I'll keep plugging away at it. Thanks for the tips.

[Eaglezsoar]

@Eaglezsoar

I had this setting in my firmware originally: #define MOTOR_CURRENT {175,175,175,200,0} // Values 0-255 (RAMBO 135 = ~0.75A, 185 = ~1A) I changed it to:#define MOTOR_CURRENT {175,175,175,225,0} // Values 0-255 (RAMBO 135 = ~0.75A, 185 = ~1A). I also changed the extrusion width and retraction settings. I did help myself a little by setting the z-height down another -.04mm. Regarding clogging, my filament passes thru the bowden tube with ease. I can also manually prime the extruder and filament just falls out of the thing. There seems to be no obstruction.

I still get this "under" extruding. When I first installed the hotend I didn't have this issue at all. Everything worked like it should. This issue just developed as of last Friday. I had a brand new roll of SeeMeCNC red ABS that I wanted to try and things started happening there. It's probably just a coincidence. I certainly don't blame a spool of plastic. I'll keep plugging away at it. Thanks for the tips.

Actually a spool of plastic can cause the printer to print like crap. I have had my share of crappy filament that would not print right no matter how hard I tried. I am not saying that the spool you have is bad, but it is a possibility.

[heathenx]

Alright, I think I've got this thing the best that I can get. Still not happy with the bottom surface but I've managed to get it a little better. In S3D I'm pushing the first layer down into the plate a little more. About 83% of my layer height (.18mm). Plus, I've opted for an even slower first layer speed. Plus, I'm going to start setting my z-height just before every print again. I used to do that and got away from it. I am going to bump the retraction upward a bit more. Maybe 3.5 or 4mm. Here's what I have...

[Eaglezsoar]

That looks good to me. I assume you have tried the other slicers and decided on S3D?

[heathenx]

Yes. I use a few of them. I bought Kisslicer. I donated for MatterControl, I use Repetier for machine control, and Cura on occasion. All of them have pros and cons. S3D is my favorite but it's not perfect.