Flashforge Creator Dual / Pro How to fix Dual Extruders dragging across prints.

[Geoff]

And clogged nozzle fixed - tried 250c preheat and pushing it through, no dice, so i disassembled and found this:



so i pre-heat to 250 again let it cook for a minute, and grabbed it with a pair of pliers and it came straight out.. no force at all.

I'm getting reasonably proficient at removing the extruders.

Ahh I see what you mean about the offset, ah well , it's not like you need to adjust it often and as you said, you are getting handy taking them off. It's only a couple of screws really isnt it for an extruder, im glad they made it as basically constructed as they did, makes my simple brain work much less harder.

[nmcafee]

I appreciate the great pictures. However, when I tried to remove the screw I found that my hot ends (and the whole square heating element) screw in instead of slide up. My right side is about 1mm higher than my left side. I tried loosening the hot tip on the right side to make them even, wasnt a good solution.

Is your hot end assembly threaded also? One other tidbit, I thrashed the teflon tape wrapped around my heating element. Is it horrible to operate the machine without that orangish brown tape?

[Paul Jolly]

Ahh I see what you mean about the offset, ah well , it's not like you need to adjust it often and as you said, you are getting handing taking them off. It's only a couple of screws really isnt it for an extruder, im glad they made it as basically constructed as they did, makes my simple brain work much less harder.

Just for interest, this is the procedure I used to align the extruders.
First - align the bed CAREFULLY with the one extruder this is an extreemly important step and must produce a good result.
Second - using the information on previous posts release the higher of the two extruder tubes.
Third - use the baseplate to level between the extruder tips (I used a thin metal foil on the base to act as a reflector to help to see when the hights were the same).
Forth - with the base still in place screw the nozzle in place.
Fifth - screwing the nozzle up (tightening) can cause the nozzle to change hight so check again for both nozzles in contact with the base.
Sixth - reassemble the extruder and re-check.

now when you level the base next time be sure to check the hight on both extruders at each step. There is an advantage with dual extruders, it is easier to set the bed level as both extruders have to just clear your paper at each step; any tilt will jam one extruder or the other causing the paper to pivot round that nozzle.
Hope this helps others. Regards, Paul.

[why am i here]

Hi, I am new here and I literally just got my printer yesterday, and I have a problem. When I use FlashPrint, I set my preferences to "Left Exturder". But it starts printing (Or trying to print) with the RIGHT exturder and vice versa. I spent like an hour trying to figure it out. I am not sure if it falls into this forum, but why not.

[iankb]

Hi, I am new here and I literally just got my printer yesterday, and I have a problem. When I use FlashPrint, I set my preferences to "Left Exturder". But it starts printing (Or trying to print) with the RIGHT exturder and vice versa. I spent like an hour trying to figure it out. I am not sure if it falls into this forum, but why not.

Select the displayed object, right mouse-click, and select 'Choose Left Extruder to Print'. If printing with the left extruder, the image will probably be displayed in green. If with the right extruder, the image will probably be displayed in yellow.

[Billzilla]

Okay got my first blockage last night. A bit cheesed off about it as it was six hours into a seven hour print.
The machine started to make a ticking noise and after a few minutes (couldn't see anything obviously wrong so I let it keep going) I could see the nozzle wasn't very close to the object and the heat from it was just roughing up the surface.

Any tips on how to clear the blockage before I start?

[Geoff]

Okay got my first blockage last night. A bit cheesed off about it as it was six hours into a seven hour print.
The machine started to make a ticking noise and after a few minutes (couldn't see anything obviously wrong so I let it keep going) I could see the nozzle wasn't very close to the object and the heat from it was just roughing up the surface.

Any tips on how to clear the blockage before I start?

It depends on how long you let it click for, if you let it clicking until it stopped, then you will most likely need to take that fan off, and just the front of the extruder case (nothing falls apart, its pretty easy) and get the gunk out, because most likely its ground to a powder in there and clogged the gear.

If it only clicked for a little bit and you stopped it, then you might be able to do a preheat purge, ie set your preheat to like 245c and see if that can get the main gunk out, then try feeding filament ontop of that to push it through.

[Billzilla]

It depends on how long you let it click for, if you let it clicking until it stopped, then you will most likely need to take that fan off, and just the front of the extruder case (nothing falls apart, its pretty easy) and get the gunk out, because most likely its ground to a powder in there and clogged the gear.

If it only clicked for a little bit and you stopped it, then you might be able to do a preheat purge, ie set your preheat to like 245c and see if that can get the main gunk out, then try feeding filament ontop of that to push it through.

Ah, fan-off it is then.
I tried to heat the extruder and back the filament out but it was still pretty jammed.
A job for later today.

[Geoff]

Ah, fan-off it is then.
I tried to heat the extruder and back the filament out but it was still pretty jammed.
A job for later today.

Once you do it the first time, you will laugh at how remarkably simple it was. It's easier than taking apart a bubblejet printer. There are no tension aspects, no springs magically burst out leaving you wondering where it came from.. it's is literally a couple of hex screws and the fan slides out completely (toward you) and you have full access to the extruder. I think I was into the 6th or 8th week with my machine when it happened, you get it down to a speed record after a while

[lycan]

Gday All,

Shortly shall be purchasing my first 3D printer and as it will most likely be the flashforge Creator X with dual extruders, can anyone tell me the diameter clearance you have when printing on one extruder only before the second extruder starts to become an issue ?

IE : Basically what is the distance between the two extruder nozzles.

Thanks in advance
Steve