Something failed, now prints are far too thin

[Wulf]

That definitely sounds like it would fit what I'm seeing. I took off the fan/heatsink to get a better look at it and the amount of plastic shavings looks like it's slipping and scraping some off pretty regularly.

Did you have to replace the part or is there some sort of software workaround that would treat infill as perimeter?

[DBFIU]

That's it right there. Plastic shavings means pinchwheel is failing. You need to either get a new pinchwheel or adjust the tension on it, I don't know your specific machine but those are the only two options really. The only thing that worked for me with a worn out pinhwheel was printing very slowly, it can keep up with 15 mm/sec infill, anything above that and it would slip. It's slow, but it least it prints. I bought 2 brand new pinchwheels and I will install one in the next few days. I'll let you know what happens.

[Wulf]

Well, on the plus side I've narrowed down the problem, and my printer is printing perfectly again (for some definitions of perfectly).

On the negative side, my magic number is 5 mm/s. Any faster than 5 mm/s and it starts getting stringy...

I look forward to hearing your results after replacing it.

[Wulf]

And halfway through a 14 hour print it failed again. Now even 5 mm/s isn't slow enough.

[Wulf]

Pulled everything apart and one contributing factor was that the PFE tube had expanded from the heat and was causing far too much friction. Stretched that out a reasonable amount, and while I had it apart the m*f*ing power wire for the fan snapped off. Gonna have to buy a new one and splice it in, since the RigidBot has it hardwired there instead of using a connector....

After that I was attempting to troubleshoot in small bursts to avoid overheating anything, and the temperature kept fluctuating between 190 (where it was set) and (210), so maybe the thermistor is crapping out too. Regardless, the PFE tube hadn't been the only issue, was unable to get a single line to lay down properly after that.

Maybe it all just needs to be tossed in a pile and set ablaze... Or I need a nap.

[King_Alistair]

I suspect that this is slic3r's fault; I just wish I could tell you how to fix it. My printer was able to put out the pre-loaded sample Gcode without any trouble, but as soon as I generated my own with Slic3r my prints came out just like that. As soon as I switched to S3D everything started coming out perfectly. That's not a sales plug, mind you; I'm sure you can get slic3r to serve you just fine.

I'm recognizing a lot of similar issues in your video. For example, the nozzle isn't mashing each layer down onto the previous one; it's depositing the layers from too high, so you're getting an object that looks like it was spun out of filament instead of one that looks like it was carefully formed out of flat layers of material. If you can't find any mechanical issues(though those "shards of PLA sound concerning as well), perhaps you could try running some pre-generated Gcode that was designed for your particular RigidBot? That way you could either pinpoint or eliminate Slic3r as the cause of your problem.

[rco3]

Definitely check to make sure your bore is clean. I had intermittent feed problems that degraded over time, but miraculously recovered after a brief pause in printing. Turned out to be a piece of metallic debris floating in the melt zone, never blocked it but increased back pressure until the hobbed bolt started chewing the filament. Once the filament started getting chewed in one place, it would snowball quickly and the hobbed bolt quickly lost its ability to grip and extrude the filament. Removal of the debris definitively ended that issue.

[GiGi]

I am having the same problem, but it seems to be getting worse. The extruded filament is stringy and fails to attach to the plate despite having leveled the plate. The attachment might be connected to the fan, but I dont know what to do with the extruder.

[curious aardvark]

Your problem sounds like a clogged nozzle...

what i was thinking.
Sometimes you can over think these issues.

Buggering around with the in depth printing settings is almost never necessary.
Clean the nozzle or fit a new one. Betch it sorts it :-)