E-step difficulty

[JimG]

Thanks for the link. Very informative thread.

My creak is different from the noise I heard on the posted video. Mine is more like a rusty hinge.

My present working theories are 1) the sound of PLA rubbing against the plastic extruder body below the hobbed bolt, and/or 2) the sound of plastic-on-plastic gears.

I am using 3mm filament. In hindsight I wish I had drilled out the extruder body. The print that came with my kit needed some cleanup in most places. But I failed to test fit the filament path.

I'll also mention that I get a lot of white powder (my extruder is white) on the x-axis V-rails. There is a lot of wear going on with the large gear, and perhaps the small gear as well. This explanation for the creaking doesn't seem to explain more noise with PLA than ABS, unless PLA requires more extrusion effort?

Jim

[old man emu]

Wow! My extruder feed must have been waaay out. I short changed me 17 mm.

I used the wrong default value in my calculation below (working off the top of my bird brain). If I use the factory default of 841, then the calculated value comes out at 967 steps/100mm. That doesn't sound right when compared to your values.

OME

[printbus]

Wow! My extruder feed must have been waaay out. I short changed me 17 mm.

I used the wrong default value in my calculation below (working off the top of my bird brain). If I use the factory default of 841, then the calculated value comes out at 967 steps/100mm. That doesn't sound right when compared to your values.

Been there. I'll bet that if you put in 967 and run another test, you'll get results that say you need something like 800. At least that's what I kept running into. I then followed a suggestion I had read somewhere about never measuring the first lengthy extrusion after heating up the hot end. Doing so has really helped lead to more consistent results in my testing. If you're using Pronterface, others have reported improved consistency in test results by decreasing the settings/options E manual feed rate from the default of 100mm/min.

[printbus]

Another easy thing to check before disassembly - looking down at the top of the extruder, how well does the filament groove in the guidler bracket line up with the cut in the hobbed bolt? I know that on my printer, it took an unusual combination of a washer and R/C axle shims under the head of the hobbed bolt to get them lined up, and usarmyaircav has had a significant alignment problem with his. If the alignment isn't good, perhaps the filament moves around, sometimes riding on the deepest part of the hobbed bolt cut and other times riding on the shoulder of the cut. It seems like that could cause some extrusion variability.

Is the hobbed bolt free of any filament build up, as best you can tell?

[Roxy]

If the alignment isn't good, perhaps the filament moves around, sometimes riding on the deepest part of the hobbed bolt cut and other times riding on the shoulder of the cut. It seems like that could cause some extrusion variability.

This can also cause the filament to twist as it comes off the roll. Or actually, it twists going into the extruder, but its connected to the filament coming off the roll and it can look like the filament is coming off a roll that was wound with twists in it.

[old man emu]

What numbers are you getting for steps per 100mm? I hadn't calibrated my extruder and it had the factory setting of 831 steps per 100mm. I ran a calibration test and found that instead of 100mm it only pulled through 87mm.

According to the gurus, Calibrated E steps(100) = (100/measured feed) x original E step(100) value

For me this is Calibrated E step (100) = (100/87) x 831 = 1.15 x 831 = 955.

OME

[JimG]

I ended up at 880.

My factory default was 841, but this extruded a little less than 100mm in my calibration test.

Jim

[AbuMaia]

I run mine at 900.

[Stigern]

I had some creak noise, added some ptfe lube on my plastic gears and the sound went away.

[JimG]

I had some creak noise, added some ptfe lube on my plastic gears and the sound went away.

That seems to have also ended my squeaking. Thanks.

Jim