I need some serious help

[Nickschaos81]

I recently purchased http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Singl...276966631.html
Since i got it , it has been nothing but problems. Im really starting to belive that I got totally ripped off and this printer is crap. First things first, I am a totally newbie. I bought this for me and my kids to learn stuff on , I do rc airplanes and such and thought it would be nice to make some small parts. My wife and kids wanted to make simple things like nic nacs. Anyway.

So tonight after my 3rd night of staying up late working and tweaking this dumb thing , the hotend clogged. I disassembled it just like the guide says. (came with a guide) It was clogged very bad , im assuming i put the temp too high. ( was trying to print at 215 c ) I had to dissassemble the entire hotend and eventually had to drill. I checked hole diameter and choose a small enough bit. Now filament wont go thru it and im pretty sure its all sorts of fubar. I have no clue how to possibley save it.

Im really frustrated with the whole thing. It was meant to have something cool to do with the kids , but all its done is cost me 250 bucks and 4 days of my life. I got 1 test print , a half failed green lantern ring and one leg for spool holder thats too small, printed. I dont have the money to buy another printer. So if anybody could possibly help me get it running as cheap as possible , or just go ahead and tell me im screwed. Either way , i need some guidence.

So I hope someone can help.... thanks for reading

[Alibert]

You sure have jumped in at the deep end!

With some tender loving care, and a lot of reading up, you can certainly get your printer to print decent if not excellent.

As to your nozzle, there are a number of possibilities why it clogged. It could be poor filament, poor 'hygiene' (I mean that tiny particles have attached to the filament and get pulled in to the nozzle to collect and clog there), too high temperature/burning/carbonization (not likely with PLA at 215), or too much retraction. In the latter case your filament gets retracted so far that hot gooey filament reaches the cool part and gets jammed there. As to the latter, do not use more than 3.5 mm retraction or so. Less if you can get away with it.

If your nozzle has gone to 3D heaven, just but a couple new ones. They cost a few bucks and you will not be without one when this happens again.

You have a delta type printer, which is very, very sensitive to the sizing of the rods (the arms holding the hotend), the towers, the carriages (vertical going things) and the effector (the part that holds your hotend). A couple of 0.1 mm difference will make the effector not to run exactly parallel to the build plate. Instead of printing in a flat surface it will print in a bowl or dome shaped surface. In this case, you can not get a good first layer and either the center or the edges will not 'catch' on the build plate and your part will not print right. You want to have an error of max 0.1 mm or so over your entire buildpalte. The reason for this dependency is that the firmware needs to recalculate how far to set the carriages in order to get the nozzle at a specific x,y,z position and needs these size parameters to calculate it on the fly. The slicer only provides the x,y,z positions, the firmware has to do the printer-specific (hardware) part.

If the dimensions set in the firmware are off with respect to the actual dimensions (pretty likely with a cheap chinese and/or self-build) then you need to set them right.

While waiting for your new nozzles to arrive, read up on what you need to do (just a few starting points, google for more):

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:745523
http://www.robertshady.com/content/b...er-seemecnccom
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:776346

You will also need to get up to speed with compiling and uploading your own firmware with arduino or others (just google it, there a are tons of guides).

Once you have achieved a good calibration print, you are off to go with printing (and have done a really steep crash course along the way....).

Success (yes, you CAN do it) !

[Nickschaos81]

I will definatly read up on what you have linked. The nozzle may very well be dead , but its the hotend itself that has croaked. After posting I decided to take it back apart for the 3rd time tonight, because the fliement was not even making it thru the throat. In the process the set screw that holds the heating element stripped and the head broke off ( homemade set screw because they didnt send one with printer) guess it couldnt take the heat.

Anyway , im a little overwhelmed at how many different types there are out there. I need a hotend that will fit on this printer and cheap (as possible). Would you be able to direct me to one for my printer?

Im also thinking about disassembling the printer and make sure that everything is square. your thoughts?

Lastly , when i went thru the guide that came with this thing I did the manual leveling and the last step wanted me to adjust the smoothing offset ( make center height match tower heights) anyway I could get no changes. When I do the autoleveling , it seemed to make no difference. the prints that i got worked , but in spots it seemed to smear the extruded filament.... so to close in those spots im assuming. Again your thoughts?

Thank you for your post , im feeling a bit more confident. Still need a new hotend though

[Alibert]

I will definatly read up on what you have linked. The nozzle may very well be dead , but its the hotend itself that has croaked. After posting I decided to take it back apart for the 3rd time tonight, because the fliement was not even making it thru the throat. In the process the set screw that holds the heating element stripped and the head broke off ( homemade set screw because they didnt send one with printer) guess it couldnt take the heat.

Anyway , im a little overwhelmed at how many different types there are out there. I need a hotend that will fit on this printer and cheap (as possible). Would you be able to direct me to one for my printer?

There are a number of j-hed hotends on aliexpress. They differ in either the cooling fins part (I have encountered two different sizes) and the heating blocks (the square part at the bottom). the in-between piece is usually the same. An example is here: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/prod...746190433.html

Or you can just buy the loose parts you need. Look at the pictures carefully. If the cooling fins part is shiny, it usually conforms to the E3D V6 size, the non-shiny one is a little wider and higher (which may give problems with your fan).

Im also thinking about disassembling the printer and make sure that everything is square. your thoughts?

Not much there. I do have this link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:746202 You will need a working printer to make them though. If you can machine, then make something similar.

Lastly , when i went thru the guide that came with this thing I did the manual leveling and the last step wanted me to adjust the smoothing offset ( make center height match tower heights) anyway I could get no changes. When I do the autoleveling , it seemed to make no difference. the prints that i got worked , but in spots it seemed to smear the extruded filament.... so to close in those spots im assuming. Again your thoughts?

Yup, it means that the plane of printing is not perfectly flat but either concave or convex. This can be remidied by proper calibration and dimension updating in the firmware (best solution), or by autolevelling and calculated corrections (not my preference). However, you will need a probe for the autolevelling which was not included in your kit I guess?

Thank you for your post , im feeling a bit more confident. Still need a new hotend though

Keep the faith and you will get there, and become a lot wiser as well

[Nickschaos81]

Mine actually uses a limit switch and the extruder as the probe, either way I have not noticed a difference when using auto level.

The hot end I'm looking at is thisAll Metal long-distance J-head hotend JHEAD for 3D Printer bowden extruder RepRap MakerBot Kossel Deltahttp://www.aliexpress.com/item/Geeetech-All-Metal-long-distance-J-head-hotend-JHEAD-for-3D-Printer-bowden-extruder-RepRap-MakerBot/1849034687.html
(from AliExpress Android) you think this will work

[LuckyImperial]

I would steer clear of Geetech. Here's a great hotend for the price:


Signswise Assembled J-head Hotend 0.4mm Nozzle Printer Head for 1.75mm Filaments 3d Pinter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SWLMWDM..._Qb8hwb5S84Y8K

As for calibration, it's not as difficult as people say. It's just impossible to get PERFECT haha. Thermal fluctuations throughout the day effect my Z height, which I chase all the time with my delta.

It's funny, I had the exact same hot end clogging issue when I got my delta printer. I fought and fought trying to clear it and then just broke down and bought that signwise hot end. So much better.

The truth is that most hot ends these days are just E3D clones. They are typically 3 pieces that thread together and it's important to snug everything up on the first heat up since everything expands so much. Be careful though because the aluminum will strip or even break if you try to go too tight. The three piece hot ends are much easier to clean over a compression fitted jhead.

[3DPBuser]

I have the E3Dlite6 and it works great. Low cost.

Print 20 mm cubes first, and get them correct before moving on.

[ZorAxe]

@Nickschaos81

What area do you live in?

[Nickschaos81]

montana usa

okay guys here is where I am at. I have almost rebuilt this whole thing. I followed the guide that came with it and adjusted the carrage screws but when going to adjust the #delta_smooth_rod_offset it says to do it in increments of 0.x , It does not matter which way i adjust it i get no change of bringing my Zm to my Zz (currently Zm = 10.6 and Zz = 10.3) I have adjusted that offset as much as 20 or 30 mm either direction and it still does not change. Just to clarify the situation , I dissconnect from repitier upload new sketch , restart printer , reconnect with repitier , home , m114 , g1 z20 . then i take z down till i get tension on paper , then back off .1mm . So yea i dont know what to do at this point on this thing. any reason it would not change? any ideas?

[LuckyImperial]

#delta_smooth_rod_offset controls the "dishing" of your hot end. Ideally, if it's set up right, then you won't have any dishing and everything will stay nice and level as the hot end moves around. It doesn't effect the nozzles height at X0Y0 (centered). It will will effect the Z height at X0Y50, X-30Y-50, and X30Y-50 which are three good test points for dishing.