Replicator2 prints on thin air!

I woke up from a nap and checked my print.
I had set the printer to do support material beneath the overhang.
And you can see, the R2 printed the support material starting on thin air!

This is awesome!
PLA is awesome.
I had a lot of trouble with this shiny filament clogging, but it works great now.

solidoodle2 got really hot

I noticed my entire Solidoodle2 was really hot.

I discovered that when I replaced my extruder, (due to a failed heater), I plugged the extruder stepper motor fan in backwards so it didn't run.

Lucky I didn't burn down my house!

Solidoodle2 - kink in filament

A kink in my filament killed my extrusion.

Replicator2 - ABS - circles out of round

My horizontal axis through holes are way out of round.

I attribute this to the cumulative curling of the ABS as is is laid down.

However this did not happen on my Solidoodle2.

ABS is a pain in the butt.

Replicator2 - how to disable nozzle fan

I didn't want the nozzle fan blowing while I was using PLA so I detached it and used a velcro tie to secure it out of the way.

It still runs though.

Replicator2 clogged after ABS

After using ABS my Replicator2 nozzle is now clogged.
My Solidoodle2 has filament corkscrewing out of it, but it still prints fine.

Time to take apart the Replicator...

Maybe I can figure out how to disable the fan while I'm at it to help the layers bond together.  Funny how this delamination happens on the R2 but not the S2.

False alarm, on the R2 the filament ran out and so it was below the reach of the drive wheel.

Replicator2 vs. Solidoodle2 - yoda showdown

Replicator2 yellow PLA 0.1mm

Solidoodle2 white ABS 0.1 mm

Replicator2 prints with ABS

Can the Replicator2 print with ABS?

Yes it can.

I printed it at 230 C and it stuck to my bed fine (blue 3M tape).

Of course, after working with PLA for a month, ABS smells like slow death, but hey, all my clear PLA is crap, so until I can get some good PLA, I'm going to cook with ABS.

Okay, I rescind my initial giddiness.

My next print curled.

Isn't there some cure for this?  A raft?  Hairspray?

I tried taping down the ends...

It just peeled above the tape.

Then I tried printing my own 0.3 mm raft.

This seems to be working pretty well.

I taped the raft to the bed also.

I'll cut it off later with a razor.

Didn't work out.
One side peeled the other didn't.

The layers didn't stick together.  I think I need to disable the extruder fan.

High res now working

And here is my yoda to prove it.

Clear PLA clogging again

My prints keep aborting during the first layer.

I'm trying to print the deck for my digital cat food feeder.

Yellow worked fine.

I'm going to switch to my other roll of clear PLA and see if this works better.

So far so good...

LCD missing a letter

This is a strange one.
It must be a software issue because other letters appear there fine.

I switched to clear PLA - now the extruder clicks

this may just be on the first layer
now its air printing.
God I'm so tired of this crap.

Now the filament barely extrudes when i try and extrude it.
I backed it up and re-fed it and now it is working again.

So all those hours I spent screwing around trying to fix the air print were misguided.
I just needed to change the filament.

Fixed air print issue

I fixed some of my air printing issues by lowering my stl resolution.

fixed a lot of problems - decreased my STL resolution

problem - preheat function does not work

When I toggle this in the menu on the bot, nothing happens.
you have to push the button again, then it works fine.

yellow filament - still air prints on high res

Could this be due to variations in filament thickness?
maybe this happens when the guide tube is not connected correctly to the extruder?

yellow filament working well - med res

I was able to print without interruption with my yellow filament on what I think is low resolution.

It did an okay job, but it's not that precise and there is some sagging in the bridges.

This is the beginning of the Menger Sponge.

I'll print the whole thing overnight.

high quality now working with yellow filament

Perhaps as a result of tightening the plunger a second time, the R2 can now print successfully at high res.

I am no longer seeing the gap layers in my tall tubes also.

I tightened the plunger until pinching the incoming filament hard enough caused the stepper motor to skip, instead of just skidding the gripper wheel.

printing at 220 C to solve extrusion intermitancy - faliled

I just tried printing at 220 C to solve the intermitancy issue.

It didn't work

problem - extruder fan non longer works

After removing the extruder fan yesterday to tighten the plunger, the fan no longer works when I print.
This leads to gorgeous looking prints, because the layers melt together, however I suspect this is not going to be a benefit for all prints.

Actually, it now spontaneously works when I print the nut and bolt from the SD disk.

tightening plunger to fix "air printing" - IMPROVING

I have never been able to print on the "high" resolution setting and I frequently get "air prints" where the extrusion stops and the bot prints nothing.

I tightened the plunger following the somewhat indeterminate instructions here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOJN_8AAC9U&feature=youtu.be

now for a test print...
I'm not sure what happened, but I'm guessing the extruder "air printed" for a few layers, and then started extruding filament again, which then got all wound up because it couldn't stick to the preceding layer.
I did observe that the spool had no slack in it.  This may be related to the feed problem.

I'm starting to lose my patience with this bullshit.

This printer is advertised as ready to go out of the box.
Instead I have to take it apart and tighten hard to reach bolts that may or may not be the cause of my problem.

I put some slack in the spool and things got a bit better until the end...

I think the problem may be related to the yellow filament, when the R2 prints its approach stripe, it is quite uneven.  I'm moving back to the clear filament, which has a better feel to it.  It feels glossier and less chaulky, to use some imprecise terms.

This may be the problem:

HAVING TROUBLE PRINTING

Extrusion stops during a build

This problem has a few possible causes. 

1. Your filament may have gotten tangled. The spool should rotate easily when you pull on the free end of filament. Unload the filament, untangle the spool, and reload. 

2. The plate may be too close to the nozzle, blocking the plastic from extruding. If your extruder put down one or two layers before stopping, this is probably the problem. Reload the filament and level the build plate. 

3. Your PLA filament can overheat and soften, making it difficult for the extruder's drive gear to push it down into the nozzle. Reload the filament and try printing at a slightly lower temperature

***WELCOME TO MY BLOG***

Welcome to my Blog!
After spending a month working with a Solidoodle2 3d printer I have upgraded to a Replicator2 3d printer from Makerbot.

The purpose of this blog is to catalog what works and what doesn't work.
Feel free to contribute with any questions, comments, or other feedback!

- Matt
Oakland, CA
USA

test - bridge test #2 - fail

I enlarged my previous part to see how large a span the filament can bridge.

The gcode chose to bridge the long way and this didn't work out too well.

Then the filament clogged.  The spool looked pretty tight.

Come on gcode, do things the easy way.

error - print bed too low - solved

I think the print bed was too low on this one and the filament didn't stick.

By the way, blue 3m painters tape works awesome.  parts peel right off.

good print - bridging test #1 - success

I created this test piece to see how far the filament can bridge without sagging.

I'm quite impressed.

medium resolution

5% infill

  

error - filament stops - not solved

My print gets about 90% complete and then the filament stops coming out.

I think this is due to the spool creating resistance and then stopping the filament.

Then the last little bit of filament cooks in the nozzle.

I'm testing this out by loosening up the spool and things seem to be getting better.

error - scrawny layers - no solution

When I try to print a tall item on low or medium resolution, I get these scrawny layers.

The happens time after time, in the same place.

I suspect the gcode is trying to add a full layer instead of a partial layer every so often and it is doing it wrong.

Any suggestions?

error - printing over air

This happened because the printer didn't lay down the first layer and tried to print over air.  The filament got all wound up.  See previous post.

high resolution prints choke

Whenever I try a high resolution print it chokes like this.

Extruder won't extrude or unload

The extruder now won't extrude or unload the filament.
My last print looked like is was printing a super thin layer, but it turns out it was just barely scraping the platform and creating an etching that looked like a print.
maybe I should have releveled last time I removed and replaced the platform.


I loaded and unloaded until it finally extruded through.
There were a few pieces of debris or bubbles that came out.

Time to print again.

Extruder made love to itself

The printer has produced some gorgeous, highly precise parts.

I've been printing some iphone sized parts for my automated cat food feeder.

I awoke from my nap to find that the printer had wrapped the entire part around the print head.

Hmm... I wonder why.

I heated the head and easily pulled the glob off.

There is still some PLA residue on the print head and tape.

I spent days screwing around with my Solidoodle 2 extruder and I really don't feel like messing with this one.

I'm just going to keep printing and see if the residue magically does no harm.

So why did this happen?
The fan ducting wasn't all snapped in place (see earlier blog) and started scraping the filament off the printer bed as it printed.  It slowly collected it all the filament around the head.

So I snapped the ducting into the correct location and now it doesn't scrape.
But things still do not print correctly.
See Image 2 below.

Okay, I finally figured it out.
The problem wasn't the ducting.  The problem was the part was sliced incorrectly and was dropping the filament 3 layers above the print bed and this allowed it to get all fowled up.  I resliced it and it worked fine.

extruder fan is askew

So I got this slick printer unboxed and ready to print in a few minutes.

An easy and encouraging experience.

Lo and behold, something was askew.  The ducting for the extruder fan had not been assembled correctly.

See Image1 below.

No biggie.  I'm good with my hands, so I snapped it up into place correctly.

Why am I posting this seemlingly inconsequential event.

The consequences of this minor issue will rear their head in the next post.

Image 1 - fan duct askew

Just got my Replicator 2

I just got my Replicator 2.
After extruding my way through 2 lbs of filament on my Solidoodle 2, I decided to upgrade to something a bit more user friendly.  And it sure is.

I'm starting this blog, because even with this snazzy "prosumer" device, there are still all kinds of wonderful little "learning experiences" that force me to screw around with the printer instead of printing my designs.
I'm here to share them with the rest of you.