MakerFarm 8" i3v Prusa build by Printbus

[gmay3]

I have three rolls of filament from MakerFarm - all three have different types of spools.

That's pretty disappointing, I have 4 spools and they have all been the same so far and have fit in the stock holder, which is very lucky I guess! They were all products with this style picture as an example:

http://www.makerfarm.com/index.php/a...-filament.html

[printbus]

Digging the MakerFarm filament out for measurements, I may only have two spool styles. Two rolls are on spools about 245mm x 56mm. One (1.75mm black PLA) is 205mm x 73mm. The latter is advertised as such on MakerFarm (well, they say it is 200mm x 73mm - close enough), and I remember Colin confirming via email that I'd be OK with that spool before he shipped it. I don't believe that would fit the stock filament mount.

[CalifDan]

I am the one with concerns about friction within the spool feed. I am on vacation and can't send photos of my solution, but I used a threaded rod and bearings along with some printed parts to make it work with the spool. I now have a feed that is so smooth it takes almost no effort to turn the spool. I tried the suggested Thingverse part suggested earlier first and found that was not enough.

To be fair, I think that some of my jams were also exacerbated by small parts with frequent retractions. It has become clear to me that it is best to reduce friction in the feed as much as possible. Then consider retraction if there are still jams. Some parts might require alternative settings if retraction will be a problem (no retraction, a little cooler print temp, etc.).

[AbuMaia]

I've seen a modified i3v spool holder on thingiverse that is wider, I think to accomodate the wider spools.

[usarmyaircav]

I've seen a modified i3v spool holder on thingiverse that is wider, I think to accomodate the wider spools.

I will have to to print this one out once I am printing, thanks AbuMaia!

On another note, since I hot my heat bed heating issues fixed (see the heatbed heating thread), I attempted to print the test cube. I found that the extruder is not feeding into the hotend. I am going to take it apart, but from the looks of this picture, it might just be an alignment issue. As the extrude wanted to push the filiment down, and the retract would pull it out just fine. Any other thoughts? It is hard to tell but could I just tighten the hobbed bolt more to get it to move in further?extruder.jpg

[gmay3]

Without having my own printer in front of me for reference, it seems like the bearing in the front is seated correctly, meaning it appears to be tightened all the way. Could the guidler somehow be misaligned?

[printbus]

...it might just be an alignment issue. As the extrude wanted to push the filiment down, and the retract would pull it out just fine. Any other thoughts? It is hard to tell but could I just tighten the hobbed bolt more to get it to move in further?

Something's not right there. Duh. Comparing to my printer, your bearing does appear to be fully seated, and the left side of my guidler rides against the extruder body just like yours is. If you take things apart, you could see if the hole for the bearing needs to be cleaned out some, and you could try a thinner washer under the head of the hobbed bolt. I doubt that'd fix the misalignment you have though. Have you tried talking to Colin about it, perhaps sending him the picture or linking to here? Maybe they end up with a bad hobbed bolt every now and then.

EDIT: And looking at my printer for this I now see the kapton tape I had wrapped around the hobbed bolt to improve the fit in the bearings has crept into the cut area of the hobbed bolt for some reason. I wonder how long ago that happened.

[usarmyaircav]

Something's not right there. Duh. Comparing to my printer, your bearing does appear to be fully seated, and the left side of my guidler rides against the extruder body just like yours is. If you take things apart, you could see if the hole for the bearing needs to be cleaned out some, and you could try a thinner washer under the head of the hobbed bolt. I doubt that'd fix the misalignment you have though. Have you tried talking to Colin about it, perhaps sending him the picture or linking to here? Maybe they end up with a bad hobbed bolt every now and then.

Thanks Kevin, I will send that to him. Great idea. I just sent him pictures of my spool holder, as I asked him about it since the spool won't rotate without me manually rotating it.

[printbus]

Wow. Over 10,000 thread views. I'm tickled to know people have found the thread informative or at least entertaining. Of course, it does seem like about half of those views might have been myself going back for edits!

[AbuMaia]

I know I benefited from your ideas about extrusion slot covers and routing the wires through the extrusion slots. And relocating the X and Y endstop switches.