New to 3D just got a cheap Aldi offer Balco 3D Touch printer

Hello guys,

I have just received delivery of my Balco 3D touch printer on Friday, asselmbled yesterday and gone through all the allignment etc.
However I seem to have a problem.
I have tried to print from the preloaded SD Card, the Robot, Cup holder and one more design I cannot remember which one now lol.... However about 10% through the print, the printer decides to move to the extremities of the print surface... and then the extruder rolls bacl a bit the filament some tmes the filament pops out tottally... and some times it is in and it just is not feeding anymore.
So as you understand it is ruined hence it cannot continue as it thinks it is printing... however it just goes on blank air space.

I tried to clean the head, I have done reallignments, to no avail.
I have called Balco and their suggestion was to take it back to Shop and get a replacement lol ... they did not even hear my whole problem before they suggest that.

Any advice would be helpful.

Cheers
Vasilis

format the sd card, odds are it's corrupted.
They use really cheap sd cards and this happens fairly frequently.

go to www.thingiverse.com and find something to print :-)

Oh yeah, what you have is a wanhao i3 duplicator plus. It's just been rebadged :-)

It's actually pretty decent bit of kit :-)

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

format the sd card, odds are it's corrupted. They use really cheap sd cards and this happens fairly frequently. go to and find something to print :-) Oh yeah, what you have is a wanhao i3 duplicator plus. It's just been rebadged :-) It's actually pretty decent bit of kit :-)

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Thank you I am just doing that... I have just removed the filament and check how it looked ... Does it meant to look like this?

nope - looks like you need to insert a piece of 3x2 (3mm external, 2mm internal) ptfe tubing inbetween the nozzle and the heating block.
It's something that just about every printer needs and yet most manufacturers still ignore.

Basically you've got a gap between the heatblock and the nozzle where molten filament is pooling.

Tubing is cheap - look on amazon. But make sure you don't get the 4x2, which is more common and used primarily as filament guide.

The printer had a spare PTFE tube in the kit...
but I think one was not installed inside it? I have boxed the "old" printer because tomorrow is collected and I shall have the new one delivered tomorrow.
I shall check the PTFE on the new one.

The replacement Printer arrived only 2 days later.
And this printer does work perfect.
Not so sure what was wrong with the other one. But something must have been worn with the head or the stepper motor or something.