I bought an E3D V6, I installed this hotend and changed the firmware to reduce the current available to the element (following: wiki.e3d-online.com/wiki/E3D-v6_Assembly)
With my first prints I had issues with flow/extrusion of material so after some investigation I realised that I needed to calibrate my extruder so I changed the value on my EPROM.
Please note I have introduced some additional Z axis wobble by installing a flexible coupling which is potentially because the Z axis bracketry but I do not think it is the source of the lack of flow/quality of print. Also I have printed this part numerous occasions tweaking the settings attempting to improve the print which it has, but low flow areas are consistently in the same position.
After I did this i removed the ever controversial advanced extrusion width multipliers as I had been advised to by a reputable source. After which my prints did improve but consistently begin mis printing after the first few layers consistently.
I calibrated my extruder with this ‘how to’ new_e_steps = old_e_steps * (100 / distance_actually_moved) although to get this to be consistent I guestimated 830 which seemed to work better than the calculation - this was after many attempts using the formula.
Hi, you will proberbly want to have the extruder heater 5 to 10 degrees hotter than the standard hot end (smaller heating area).
Try making one of these http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:133050 at about 100mm high start with your normal temperature and as its printing every 10mm manualy increase the temperature by 2 degrees.
Look at the finished cylinder see which section looks best and thats the temperature to use.
This is the first thing I do with every new roll of filament and put a sticker on the side with temperature, diameter & any other adjustments that I needed to make to get a good print for that roll.
Thanks Barnabybear - I did not use your model (although I did do some tests with it) because I found that thin cylindrical shapes printed very well so I carried on motoring through my filament continuing with the same block as pictured above.
As you can see i did find the best temperature for this part 250°C recorded temp. seems to have been the magic number, thanks for giving me this tip.
However as you can see there is the same delamination layer on all of them in roughly the same place and despite there being an negative/positive impact made by temperature this is consistent - you can see i have ripped the ones apart which were worst affected. As you can see from test 4 the print and support structure is reasonable and the print is fairly good upto a point.
Then I realised, in the recent changes I have been making I fixed cooling fan and I think this has been causing the problem. After turning it off I got the images below with the attached settings n.b. looks like the 130% top infill can be reduced or deleted.
Also just to publicly flagellate myself, see fan position below, as the E3D V6 has a smaller volume of material heated I imagine cooling it can make quite a difference!! Whoops…
Next thing is to improve Z axis and X and Y pulley belt components… I really enjoy 3D printing as the learning curve is steep, I hope that in some way by recording my findngs I might give a little back to the community just in case something else is missing something so obvious…
Which printer have you installed the e3d on? I use two on the k8400 and I may have just been lucky but I never changed a setting. I used the e3d thermistor but re-used the velleman heater. This might not seem very helpful but I am just wondering if you have over complicated the installation. What I did find to be critical with PLA was adequate cooling. I usually print PLA at 198 degrees C with 70% flow rate and a scaling of 1.01. Good luck
I have modified my response above to include findings, I need to print a better cooling duct. I have changed many settings however I am not sure whether I need to because my cooling issue as described above was the contributing factor. I have installed this on a K8200 - please see my settings if you have any comments or changes that may be worth experimenting with then I am all ears Many thanks for your advice.
Has anyone had a similar experience with their E3D printer? Or am I the only person that decided to cool the extruder…
Please note that this phenomenon was still happening with the standard nozzle hence I decided to change it - it appears to be low flow?
I have checked the knurled shaft which shows no signs of wear, the stepper drivers are the correct voltage the printer is 1 1/2 years old but I do not see that even with the intense usage this printer has seen that the stepper motor can be at fault - something much more fundamental is going on here.
Hi, delamination usually boils down too: under extruding, not enough heat or to thick a layer, unfortunately yours is so bad that it is difficult to tell which is occurring.
As a side note, I have some blue that looks just like that and it’s a pig, I can’t wait to finish the reel.
I would manually reduce the print speed in repeater to about 60% and do a test print. The thought behind this is that slower means, less chance of filament slipping, more time to heat up, more time to bond to previous layer, whatever is happening will be lessened by the reduction in speed and hopefully easier to diagnose.
Can you try and check the diameter of the filament if you notice a bad layer occurring just to ensure you don’t have excessive variation on the reel as this can have quite an effect:
3.0mm = (1.5*1.5)3.142 = 7.07mm^2
2.8mm = (1.41.4)*3.142 =6.16mm^2
(6.16/7.07)*100= 87.13%
So just a 0.2mm reduction in the diameter is about a 13% reduction in the quantity extruded.
Hi, just for compleatness to cover the “to thick” (or wide a layer) can you post pictures of you Z axis arrangment (motor mount and any flex couplers).
Hi there, the irony is I am trying to get the printer to print well enough so that I can improve the Z axis bracketry, as the lower bracket holding the stepper motor is cracked and the Z MS is poorly fixed with a bodged stopper see nut on screw scenario. There is definite Z axis wobble that can be seen in the photos.
What have you got at the top of the screw?
EDIT:
Can the flex coupler compress over a few layers the spring back causing a wider layer (hence under extrusion same filament wider gap between previous layer and extruder)?
Standard K8200 kit I believe, although I did not build it, that was done by my predecessor. I have been taking over the helm with good results until recently
This is possible but I cannot see how the load on the flexible coupling wouldn’t be constant, what failure mode would make the coupling flex axially?
I will check this out - I am doing a slower print with higher feed rate and will see how this goes after which i will reinstall the original coupling to see if it makes a difference
Hi, just check the bearing bracket area to make sure it is supporting the rod and under slight tension.
It might just be the photo but the flex coupler looks to be a little compressed suggesting that it has some weight on it. Ideally it should be very slightly stretched defiantly not under any compression.
If all is tight, grip the top of the flex coupler and tighten the lock nut at the top slightly.
[quote=“Barnabybear”]Hi, just check the bearing bracket area to make sure it is supporting the rod and under slight tension.
It might just be the photo but the flex coupler looks to be a little compressed suggesting that it has some weight on it. Ideally it should be very slightly stretched defiantly not under any compression.
If all is tight, grip the top of the flex coupler and tighten the lock nut at the top slightly.[/quote]
This is a really good point, sometimes it’s so easy to get lost in settings you fail to see the obvious…
It was possible to pull the lead screw out of it’s seat by 2 or 3 mm
I will let you know the results by EOP/tomorrow morning.
Daft as it sounds, the extruder can winch its self up on the fliament even if the reel is quite free.
Its all down to the design and the play in various places. The bearing at the top of the rod isn’t a tight fit and can lift verticaly (gluing the bearing in and putting a nut under can help).
If there is weight on you flex coupler, get rid of that first it may just fix this problem.
Also if the flexible coupling is in compression it may tend to oscillate under the force of the extruder assembly, will be interesting to see if putting the coupling under tension will improve the wobble i was experiencing, I am looking forward to seeing if this solves the issue and it certainly feels like it will - I doth my engineering cap in your direction my good sir
In my haste for progress I changed more than one variable which I would never do in my day job but I think by introducing multiple changes resulting print results can be complex and potential failure modes overwhelming and barking up the wrong tree inevitable.
EDIT
Barnabybear if I could somehow buy you a beer I would - thanks for your interest, help and experience - looks like you cracked it, print seems to be doing very well indeed.
When you run through the set up for that hot end again:
PID auto tune http://reprap.org/wiki/PID_Tuning (that will setup the heat characteristics).
Filament feed calibration.
Filament best temperature test print.
Then you should be good to go.
Nice spool centres with bearings in like these don’t hurt http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:127181 (reduces the extruder trying to lift its self tugging on the filament).
You will find that objects come out slightly larger than expected in the X and Y axis this is due to the ribbing effect on the side (if you check it is 1.25mm pitch the same as the M8 rod). Because in general the rod is so badly made the vertical movement is not linear with respect to each rotation of the rod. So for one rotation of the threaded rod you would expect 5*0.25 layer heights, in reality you end up with something like 0.25, 0.23, 0.25, 0.26, 0.26. As the same quantity of filament is extruded into each layer some become fatter and some thinner. As 0.01mm is 4% of the total layer height, in the previous example the layers would vary by 12%. I’ve never measured the deviation but changing the threaded rod for a precision item removes this effect. So all that waffle was to say don’t spend lots of time trying to calibrate away this effect as it won’t go away you’ll need this upgrade https://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?id=420348 to get rid.
I’ve had lots of support from different forums over the years and was only glad to return the favours of others.
All I am doing is pasting M303 E0 S200 C8 in G-Code Editor and the hitting run - I was getting the same result on Friday. Do you know what I am doing wrong?
Weirdly I just kept pressing run 20 times and then it started to run…
Hi, not sure what happens with the “M303 E0 S200 C8” it works fine on mine (it doesn’t appear much is happening and the extruder is still crossed out but the temperature starts to rise).
As for “M303 E0 S255 C8” I think there is a safety on the max temperature you can auto tune at. During auto tune the temperature will always overshoot the target as part of the process, I can’t remember the exact temperature at which the thermistor can be damaged (offhand 260 ish), but I’m sure auto tune won’t risk getting close to that. Try again around 240.
[quote=“Barnabybear”]Hi, not sure what happens with the “M303 E0 S200 C8” it works fine on mine (it doesn’t appear much is happening and the extruder is still crossed out but the temperature starts to rise).
As for “M303 E0 S255 C8” I think there is a safety on the max temperature you can auto tune at. During auto tune the temperature will always overshoot the target as part of the process, I can’t remember the exact temperature at which the thermistor can be damaged (offhand 260 ish), but I’m sure auto tune won’t risk getting close to that. Try again around 240.[/quote]
Which firmware version do you use?
Maybe step up to 2. I had the same issues with autotuning my E3D and it was fixed by a newer firmware.
Just note you have to compile with Arduino 1.0.6. NO NEWER VERSION!
I am using the original firmware as when I uploaded V2 my X axis stopped working - which i thought was an electronic issue rather than a firmware so i replaced the board but when i uploaded original firmware all was well.
I do not know what you mean by compile - can you elaborate?
Many thanks for your advice.