3D printer problems

[The Chairman]

The vacuum chamber left the orange filament very brittle. It had been in the chamber for about a week. I think I pulled all the volatiles out of it.

The fix for my printer was eliminating a gap behind the nozzle. A friend from HackerSpace Gainesville and I took apart the hot end and found the issue. I have been a printing fiend since then. It feels good to print. It had been hard to pull filament back, hot or cold. Now, it's easy either way. Instead of taking a minute or so to clear a color out, it only takes a second or so. Put in a new spool, and by the time it starts to print, the new color is coming out.

I am trying to use the brittle orange Hatchbox filament this morning. I am printing a case for my RPi 3B+ and will be installing a camera. If it fails, I might just get rid of that spool.

 

[The Chairman]

Just an aside, for those interested... I have set the gap between bed and nozzle to be 0.005". I've had one piece break free of the bed, so I might try 0.004" and it's closer to the recommended 0.1mm. I am also printing most PLA at 200C and 0.3mm print height.. I've probably printed 15 items or more since last Tuesday. When it works: IT EFFEN WORKS! I love it!

 

[The Chairman]

OK, here was my solution: I reassembled the hot end. I changed the Bowden tube to a Capricorn, adjusted the inner piece, so it was further down and eliminated the pool of molten filament. The change was dramatic and I've been printing like a fiend ever since. I also changed my bed gap from 0.003" to 0.005" and now it's back to 0.004". Of course, I re-calibrated all of my stepper motors (x, y, z & e), and I feel I need to do that again. I went from under extrusion to maybe a bit over, which means I need to calibrate that extruder again. Here's a good video, which is close to what I actually did. I didn't do the backing off of the nut, and I think he's doing it too much, but I like the concept. I'll use it next time I go through all that.

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