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Extruder troubleshooting guide

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 9:37 pm
by Josh
Below is a link to an extruder troubleshooting guide that I've been working on, assembled in the style of an interactive flowchart/interactive fiction story. If you're having trouble with your extruder, it may help. In general though, I'm looking for any opinions on it - does it work at all, pros/cons of the format (preferably with recommendations of something else - I couldn't find a good flowchart generator), obvious typos or errors, things I haven't branched out to yet (like the entire "while printing" half...), etc. etc.

http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/c8fn

If there's interest, I'll post a picture of the whiteboard covered in the first shot at organizing all of that...

Re: Extruder troubleshooting guide

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 1:52 pm
by ednisley
At least for me, debugging by "Let's play 200 questions!" doesn't work. I'd much rather have you show me everything you know about the subject in one document, with helpful headings / questions / sequences as a guide.

With all the information in view, I can compare the answers applicable to one condition with the answers for other, slightly different, conditions, without having to restart at the very beginning, repeat my exact sequence of answers up to some point, then continue with different answers to get another tiny hint.

For example, the document might look like this:

Extruder fails during manual extrusion
  • If the motor isn't turning at all, check for:
    • Sensible speed and distance
    • Try 20 mm at 250 mm/s
  • Hot end over 170 °C?
    • If you see erratic hot end temperatures, go to section x
    • If the hot end doesn't heat at all, go to section y
    • <explain how to move motor>
    • <explain how to check connections>
And so forth and so on

A flat text document will also be easily maintainable, more accessible to folks using screen readers, and readily converted to web / email / print formats.

Re: Extruder troubleshooting guide

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 3:02 pm
by Josh
Darn you and your logic, Ed... At least the hard part of getting all of it vaguely organized and written is done - it shouldn't be too hard to get the text out of inklewriter and into a wiki page.

Re: Extruder troubleshooting guide

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 3:54 pm
by ednisley
Josh wrote:get the text out of inklewriter and into a wiki page.
Aye, once you've got the information, you can change the shape readily enough.

One benefit of a printable format: you can check off items as you try them; the online formats still aren't suitable for that.

Re: Extruder troubleshooting guide

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 5:34 am
by willnewton
Much agreement here. I did not know about the extrude, cool, and clear nozzle cleaning trick until now. Why is that hidden so many layers deep? Isn't that a highly valuable piece of information which should be present in a complete written out troubleshooting list somewhere?

If you want to help us troubleshoot for ourselves, then please refine your existing manuals and their formatting. There are just too many places to have to go digging spread out between the makergear site, the wiki, and the group and the forum. You have a great manual, but the chapters spread all over the internet and out of order. Unify this info into one manual to rule them all!

You could provide a M2manual.pdf for download, a M2onlinemanual.html, and a M2manual.pdf stickied in the tech support forum AND a manual suggestions thread for users to help you work out things that could be added/changed.

Not knocking what you have done Josh, which is to create an ideal system for your tech support line to use as walk through troubleshooting for the customers, but like Ed, I feel there are other ways I'd like to see this info presented in a better to use AND easier to create format.

I appreciate your efforts. It is good to see time is being invested to improve the product and the plight of the customers! :D

Re: Extruder troubleshooting guide

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 9:56 pm
by Lateralg
The link takes me no where I need to go. Is this a practical joke, or has link been hijacked, or ...?