V4 extruder nightmare !

[TheRyanRanch]

... I have only had this machine for a month and was hoping to get out of the gate "making parts" a little further along

Chuckle! Clogged my first nozzle and jammed the hotend on day 4......on the bright side, at least it gets you over your absolute terror of clogging the nozzle.

If anything on these machines can be considered "disposable" it's probably the hotends. Keep a spare on hand, because even though it's not easy to do, they can be jammed/busted if you get something wrong with the settings, (or with the V4, even by extruding too much sticky filament like PETG too fast). It just takes us time to learn what and what not to do. They are surprisingly resilient little things.

If something screwed up the thermistor in that one, MakerGear will surely make it right if you've only had it for a month. But its a good idea to buy another one to keep on hand, just to have one to use while you are waiting on the parts. (I asked when i bought mine and that is what was recommended, spare hotend and spare borosilicate plate, in case i dropped it or pulled a chunk out of the glass. Good advice because i did in fact chip it a couple of months in. And i was able to use the spare hotend while i had the original pulled out to unclog it.)

The rest of the stuff, yeah, you can wait on it. It's not necessary to have a spare filament drive or motor mount on hand in the beginning, we just tend to do them with a higher infill when we get around to it.

I think you guys nailed it with the Hotend replacement, I went right to Printing PETG and Viola !

Ok, so lets talk about a Spare parts list, to minimize down time, suggestions (I might buy another M2 machine) but lets just keep the one I have running for a bit ....

I really want to thank all of you for your help !!! what a great community, Again Thank you !!!!

-sr

[Jules]

Ok, so lets talk about a Spare parts list, to minimize down time, suggestions (I might buy another M2 machine) but lets just keep the one I have running for a bit ....

It's a pretty short list really:

1. Spare hotend.
2. Spare borosilicate plate. (You can chip them.)
3. Spare fans, for when you stick a screwdriver into them.
4. Spare tweezers. (If you're anything like me you'll set them down somewhere and forget where you put them.)
5. When you get around to it, print the filament drive and the motor mount from PETG (or ABS) with about a 60% infill, switch them out and keep the originals for your spares.
https://github.com/MakerGear/M2/tree/ma ... ed%20Parts

When you print the filament drive, you will need one of these to ream out the filament hole:
McMaster-Carr 48 gauge wire High Speed Drill Bit # 3161A63 (does a fantastic job)


Other things you'll want to print to keep running smoothly (if you haven't done it already):

Filament Dust Wipe:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:190118

Filament Clips:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:618173/#files

[Tim]

Spare tweezers. (If you're anything like me you'll set them down somewhere and forget where you put them.)

I like the very fine-tipped tweezers I got from Fry's Electronics, but they have the additional problem that it's easy to bend the tip out of shape by dropping them on the floor.

When you print the filament drive, you will need one of these to ream out the filament hole:
McMaster-Carr 48 gauge wire High Speed Drill Bit # 3161A63 (does a fantastic job)

Or just some 2mm electric fence wire. . .

Filament Dust Wipe:

I improved that one by making the clasp a bit tighter:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:565432

Filament Clips:

Seriously, you use this clip? It was kind of an experiment in testing the strength of PETg, but I never thought it made a particularly good filament clip. It has promise; maybe with a few design tweaks. But I'd suggest instead this one:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:565390/#files

which is a slight improvement on one filament clip design (out of a large number of similar ones on Thingiverse), and the one I use all the time.

[TheRyanRanch]

Ok, so lets talk about a Spare parts list, to minimize down time, suggestions (I might buy another M2 machine) but lets just keep the one I have running for a bit ....

It's a pretty short list really:

1. Spare hotend.
2. Spare borosilicate plate. (You can chip them.)
3. Spare fans, for when you stick a screwdriver into them.
4. Spare tweezers. (If you're anything like me you'll set them down somewhere and forget where you put them.)
5. When you get around to it, print the filament drive and the motor mount from PETG (or ABS) with about a 60% infill, switch them out and keep the originals for your spares.
https://github.com/MakerGear/M2/tree/ma ... ed%20Parts

When you print the filament drive, you will need one of these to ream out the filament hole:
McMaster-Carr 48 gauge wire High Speed Drill Bit # 3161A63 (does a fantastic job)


Other things you'll want to print to keep running smoothly (if you haven't done it already):

Filament Dust Wipe:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:190118

Filament Clips:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:618173/#files

Great list !
I am on it tomorrow, BTW off topic, how do you post an image to this system? I created a Filament Wiper that works well, and wanted to show you guys

[Jules]

....Filament Dust Wipe:
I improved that one by making the clasp a bit tighter:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:565432

Filament Clips:

Seriously, you use this clip? It was kind of an experiment in testing the strength of PETg, but I never thought it made a particularly good filament clip. It has promise; maybe with a few design tweaks. But I'd suggest instead this one:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:565390/#files

which is a slight improvement on one filament clip design (out of a large number of similar ones on Thingiverse), and the one I use all the time.

Thanks, I'll try the others as well.

[Jules]

...... how do you post an image to this system? I created a Filament Wiper that works well, and wanted to show you guys

If you look down underneath the white typing area, you'll see a tab to Upload Attachement. Click that and Browse for your jpeg, thenAdd the File. Once it's uploaded, you have the option to place it inline in the bulk of the text, wherever the cursor is placed.

[TheRyanRanch]

...... how do you post an image to this system? I created a Filament Wiper that works well, and wanted to show you guys

If you look down underneath the white typing area, you'll see a tab to Upload Attachement. Click that and Browse for your jpeg, thenAdd the File. Once it's uploaded, you have the option to place it inline in the bulk of the text, wherever the cursor is placed.

Ah, there it is.....

[Jules]

Very nice!

Forgot to mention - the forum does not resize large photos well, so if you can scale them down a bit (ex: 680x460 pixels or in that range), the photo has less area to scroll through.

[TheRyanRanch]

Very nice!

Forgot to mention - the forum does not resize large photos well, so if you can scale them down a bit (ex: 680x460 pixels or in that range), the photo has less area to scroll through.

EEESHHH no kidding, next time, Thanks Jules !

[TheRyanRanch]

Also the Fan seems to be changing RPM a lot, kind of speeding up a down ?

Possibly a symptom of something. My extruder fan (not the bed fan) does change speed a lot initially, because it's a 12V fan wired in series with the electronics enclosure fan, which means that the fans are supposed to act like a voltage divider, dividing the 24V down to 12V and 12V. But the fans' loads change all the time, so the voltage between them wanders up and down. But that usually settles out after 10-15 seconds after power-up, and they remain steady after that. If the fan is changing speeds all the time, you might have a power supply problem.

Is the nozzle hot?

Your fingers will be grilled at 260C (I know; I've done it, though on a wire bonding machine, not my 3D printer), and you won't be able to tell the difference between the temperature at which ABS flows properly and the slightly lower temperature at which it gets too viscous and jams up. The question is: are you monitoring the temperature from the host computer, and is the temperature graph showing that the temperature of the hot-end is reaching what you set it to, and holding steady?

We ask because the V4 has different heating characteristics than the V3b. Since I think that the M2 still does not ship with the V4, I assume that you have been previously printing with the V3b and recently ordered and installed the V4. Am I right? If so, you need to go through a PID (Proportional Integral Derivative, in case anyone wanted to know) calibration: The steps you need to do for the calibration, I think, are in the instructions for the V4 installation. The PID calibration sends back to you three numbers which you then plug back into the firmware. If you use the PID numbers from the V3b hot-end with the V4, you are likely to get wild temperature swings, which is exactly the sort of thing that can cause the filament to jam as the temperature drops too low.

Hi Tim, been printing ok, I was wondering if you know what the max extruder temp is on the V4? I brought mine up to 270 and anything above that the Extruder just shutoff? any thoughts?

Thanks
-sr