Printer stops

K8200 3D Printer K8200 - Issues while printing
1

Ok @ Velleman, mods, admins and users,

I’m kinda getting annoyed by the printer stopping for no reason. Just stops, extruder at 190 and everything at normal settings.

Somehow, there is a big big error in what Velleman sold to me/us, this shouldn’t be happening. I lost count of the times the printer just randomly stopped printing,… the bed stops moving and the extruder will extrude a bit of PLA fillement on the printed object, but this is far from “Plug and play happyness”…

I do realise, it’s still a open source kinda thing and users are welcome to improve the printer itself. But seriously im wasting filament here every single day cause of this bug, thought it was the Repetier software so i reinstalled it, no fix.

Im running a AMD computer, Windows 7 64b, 8 core 4.15Ghz with 32.000Mb ram 1600Mhz, pretty sure it is not my computer, but the printer. I’ve read a few more topics about this error, more and more people saying the same thing, even people contacting me via my site asking me how to fix it, i thought it was repetier but it is not, would an update of repetier help?? (cause the manual says it’s configed at repetier 0.84 version?) there’s updates for repetier already but didnt update cause of the manual saying so.

Besides that, if i put my hand on the power suply unit (PSU), i can hear noise through my speakers… Please explain that cause my thoughts are that there is power going to my pc as wel even more then the 5Volts that USB 2.0 have…

I was kinda pissed off, thinking “How on earth can Velleman sell this as a product when its not working properly” … but knowing its a build in progress I turned to this forum, im asking for help here cause I print object every single day and to be honest, about 30 tot 40% of the prints are misprints cause of the fan initially, made a fan mount, so no more warping/ less warping. Made a Z Ax motor mount cause the set up to be needed to be at 0.25mm from the bed was practically impossible, now its better. First prints didnt even stick to the bed so my custom settings are 55 degrees, cleaning after every single print with Iso Alc. and sanding it up with 400 paper.

Still, its far from perfect, im not bashing Velleman, K8200 or anyone. Not my intention, Im just looking forward for this K8200 printer to work like a charm like every user here.

My set up :

SABERTOOTH 990
Amd octo core 4.15 Ghz
32GB 1600Mhz
128GB SSD
2x 2Gb Geforce 550TI

Printer PSU on a extention cable, but on a single socket, it is the only thing hooked on this socket.
Same goes for the USB, the USB of the printer is extended with a 5meter extention cable hooked on my PC.

The noise comming from my speakers is making me wonder if it is even safe to connect to a normal pc, i realise i have a different kind of set up as most people with a pc that is certified by Military-standard, but I still get BSOD (Blue screen of Death) 5 to 10% of the prints i make.

Errors on around 35% of the prints, is not acceptable in my opinion. And im not the only person around here with this problem, it’s something that should be looked at and fixed a.s.a.p for the bennefit of Velleman and the K8200 project! (Don’t get me wrong, I bought this DIY kit from Velleman cause i have been using all sorts of Velleman products and always was happy with the result of these projects, never had problems)

Excuse me for my tone in this post, I came back to check on the printer looking at a misprint thinking this is like the 30th misprint i’ve had so far, wish i could get some tips from you admins, mods, users or just random people that know how i can fix this cause the filament im wasting by these errors.

Any idea’s/ suggestions/ tip’s are welcome! Thanks in advance for your time reading this and trying to help!

Kind regards and take care

2

You could try using the USB cable that came with the printer.
Move the power supply as far away from the USB cable and printer as you can.

3

I am using the cable provided, only have a 5 meter extention cable to my pc, the cable of the printer is like max 1.8m, its not long enough.

Moving the PSU would make any difference? I’ll just try that, thanks for the quick reply… i onder if it works cause atm it only can move about 20 cm more from the printer itself, i doubt that would solve the problem but anything is worth a try!

thanks… any other advice or tips / hints / suggestions from others? I’d really appreciate that

Thanks again for the quick reply, im printing a phone dock at the moment, printing time is around 4 hours,… Im just hoping it wont stop printing for no reason at 3 hours of printing time

4

Printing time, 3 hours and 11 minutes. 352 layers.

Printer randomly quits, had 19 minutes left to print.

[size=150]WASTING FILAMENT HERE[/size]

Would really be nice to know how to fix this… seriously it would make my day.

Take care, kind regards and lots of love,

12-3d. Aka Roy…

5

CLICK HERE for the Video

No log errors…

6

I am surprised by the amount of problems you have with the printer. I myself am a software developer and unlike my colleagues I have little to no experience with electronics or mechanics, yet I have had absolutely 0 problems with building and using the K8200. Ok, except for the thermistor on the extruder which was a bit of a pain to mount, but I managed.

I usually alter the height of the extruder while it has just started printing. Adjust it until it prints perfectly; you should have good lines by the time the printer starts with the actual object. Also make sure the PLA is flowing well by the time it starts printing the object itself.

Put the power supply as far away from any source of interference. Next to a speaker would not seem like a good place to put the power supply. Mine just lies on the floor next to a bunch of boxes. Use the small USB cable without an extension cable. It shouldn’t be a problem, but in IT you learn that everything can be a problem :slight_smile: It is best not to have any unknowns until after you get it working.

Your fan looks like it’s aimed way too much at the extruder. It’s not meant to cool the extruder, but the PLA in case of a very small printed surface that needs to cool very quickly for another layer. The fan should not cause warping. The fan is rarely needed.

Use sandpaper on the heated bed, and also degrease it to make the PLA stick. Your heated bed should no longer look new and shiny. If your first layer doesn’t stick, it will affect the entire print. Same with the height, if it’s printed from too low, it will look smeared and the flow will get interrupted. If it’s printed from too high, it will look stringy and not stick to the heated bed.

Your first prints should be small things, that take < 30 minutes, just to get the hang of things.

We regularly let employees with no background in electronics or hardware build a printer. After about two days work, they all succeeded in building a working printer.

7

The 5m USB extension cable is a guarantee for troubles.
Please try with the supplied cable only.
USB extension cables are usually very poorly shielded and will pick up any interference that is present.
Even the USB cables that claim ‘high quality’ are usually not that good. The shorter, the better.

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[quote=“VEL417”]The 5m USB extension cable is a guarantee for troubles.
Please try with the supplied cable only.
USB extension cables are usually very poorly shielded and will pick up any interference that is present.
Even the USB cables that claim ‘high quality’ are usually not that good. The shorter, the better.[/quote]

Thanks for the advice, Ill try that asap, atm it is not possible with my set up. But this makes sense.

@Vel448 ; Same goes for me, no background or study in electronics, I learned what i know by fixing all sorts of things, starting with computers and always had a interest in how things work, build a velleman clap on/clap off switch when i was 15 just using logic thinking, same goes for the printer, never did a project like this, but didnt have any problems building it cause of the manual with a lot of pictures wich made it easy. Took me over 20 hours though, but it works. Even the thermistor wasn’t that hard, using a 12v 7.5w soldering iron for all the soldering.

The fan is aimed really high indeed, that is because without a “fan extention” like this one it will consistantly cool the right side of any print, and thus cool it too much resulting in warping/detatching the first layers from the heated bed.

About the PSU, it is not even remotely close to any speaker, what i ment was if i touch it, i can hear noise through my speakers, just by putting 1 finger on it not even pressing down… That seemed a bit strange to me…

So ill try to find a spot for the printer next to my pc so i dont have to use a usb extention cable, at the moment my pc is to my right and the printer to my left, my desk is 350cm wide… so i needed a extention cable but i can emagine it might cause these errors, most defenatly worth the try.

@Vel448, you wrote “The fan is rarely needed”, every single print i make, the fan is blowing. So rarely needed sounds really strange to me, care to explain that? …

My first few prints were indeed small prints of around 20 minutes, my 3rd print was a ‘Da Vinci’ wheel that took 2 hours and 4 minuts, had a couple of misprint because of the fan, after totally shutting the fan down, I got a perfect print.

I clean the bed every single time, with iso alc. and sanded it down with 400 and 200 but didnt really want to roughen that up too much, you are saying it is no problem to properly sand it down? Im no expert but that seemed strange to me…

Thanks for the advice!!

Take care

9

Sand it lightly until it looks dull, I personally use 80 sandpaper. Use common sense when sanding!

The fan’s purpose is to harden the current layer before the next layer is put on top of it. Usually when printing it takes some time to revisit the same location. So the fan has a purpose, but it’s not the game maker.

The secret to a good first layer that sticks is a) extruder a wee-bit lower than normal b) proper sanding c) degreasing.

The entire printer is all about common sense, usually when you’ve built it you get a feel of what can be the cause of each problem you encounter and how you can remedy it.

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[quote=“VEL448”]Sand it lightly until it looks dull, I personally use 80 sandpaper. Use common sense when sanding!

The fan’s purpose is to harden the current layer before the next layer is put on top of it. Usually when printing it takes some time to revisit the same location. So the fan has a purpose, but it’s not the game maker.

The secret to a good first layer that sticks is a) extruder a wee-bit lower than normal b) proper sanding c) degreasing.

The entire printer is all about common sense, usually when you’ve built it you get a feel of what can be the cause of each problem you encounter and how you can remedy it.[/quote]

Thats why i printed the Z motor mount, and the fan duct cause and im happy with both… sanding the bed even more is an option, ill try that!

Common sense is like the law of logic, I think that is why i was able to build the printer in the first place. I decided to assemble a different computer for the printer, so i wont be needing these extention cable´s.

[color=#00FF80]1 more question[/color] The Z motor ax is getting squeeqy, making quite a lot of noise, it needs [color=#FF0000]grease[/color] but im unsure of what kind of grease i need to use, please let me know.

Same goes for the plastic gears of the extruder, they already have a bit of wear an tear, … i´d emagine silecone or vaseline wont do the trick… any suggestions?

Thanks again for the response, really appreciate it!

11

If the plastic gears show wear and tear then they are squeezed too close together.

For the metal rods, use a silicone grease spray can.