adamp2006

Thanks gr5 will give that a go once i'm back next to the printer, guess that got added into the firmware while mine was in storage lol *EDIT* gr5 you beautiful human being, thank you so much for that info , turns out that was indeed the issue, and there is nothing wrong with the extruder at all , many many thanks for saving me a lot of time and possibly money trying to get it working

Anyone got any ideas at all about this issue ?

You can just swap over the complete sub board, they just pull out , just make sure that you plug them in the correct way , because the extruder driver faces the opposite way to the other 3

Just a quick thought, have you tried swapping over the driver chip for a known working one (i.e the Y axis one) in your case it could well be that the chip overheated and its fried itself as alot of your symptoms are what lead me down the bath of lowering the power to my extruder in the first place, failing prints and blocked heads were common place before i did.

Your problem sounds very similar indeed, did some more experimenting last night , checked as many components as i could , including the caps under the drivers, even have the schematic sat on screen and there doesn't seem to be anything that just goes to the extruder ports and not the others aswell, really hope someone with a working knowledge of the electronics finds this soon, because otherwise i'm going to have to go down the route of a cheap chinese copy of the board due to real lack of funds, i really don't want to do that i'd rather fix this board if possible.

Ok so tried changing the pins to 48,47,49 in marlin and uploaded it to my spare mega and still no joy (even worse now i definitely have one burnt out driver due to wrong direction) so i really don't know what it is, unless its a resistor or something that serves those 2 sets of connections only thats gone.

Looking into the rerouting of the pins.h right now , and yes i do happen to have a spare Arduino (or 3) lying around lol will have to see if my Mega2560 is in use though

Have tried the stepper driver in the x axis today and its fine, if i put the x axis driver in the extruder still nothing , so its not the driver (was my first assumption / thought too , know how easy it is to kill things) as i said tested the driver and the motor and they are all functioning perfectly on the other axis is just when plugged into the actual extruder section of the pcb.

Anyone point me towards how to first activate the second extruder port on the original ultimaker and then force either cura or the ultimaker itself to use that as default ? atleast until i can work out whats gone wrong with the extruder 1 port and move back to that

I tweaked the driver motor on the extruder on my original Ultimaker because it was over heating and got it to almost a sweetspot. moved it down just a touch more then the extruder stopped working :( Have tried : Changing over the drivers with another axis - nothing works in the extruder channel but that driver does work on other channel Plugging the motor into another channel - the extruder motor works but any motor plugged into extruder position doesn't visual inspection of the board - nothing seems to have blown and now dry joints or anything Anyone got any suggestions, really could use getting it back up and running asap as have several projects on hold waiting for prints off of it.

The blockage was a different colour , more of a gray and i'm using clear / natural pla currently Swapped everything back to the original parts that came with the kit , so fan shroud and extruder (as i was using a Berthos version) i managed to get one ok print (all be it with lots of stringing and now got my leak back in the print head (sortable though i'm just always weary of snapping the brass tube) yeat today we are back to a couple layers and then no filament being extruded , slightly fed up now .

Thanks for the advice gr5 , looks like theres a blockage where the brass tube meets the nozzle, gonna let them cool down then clean them up why the filament couldn't get past i don't know , although it is blocking atleast half the hole

It seems that although the nozzle was being cooled by the other fan that was not the only issue, it still seems to block up , took the bowden off when i notice it wasn't extruding and it seems to be something down in the nozzle, once its cooled i'll take it apart and have a look

Ok did a force test , didn't have any gallon water jugs around so used plastic dumbbells pulls easily with a single 5kgs (11lb) weight and also with 2 so almost 22lbs , i'm setting up to run the last print it failed on and see if it happens again , if it does then i will examine the print head for clogs , am also checking the position of the fan as suggested by illuminarti EDIT : I think illuminarti may be on to something , preheated as usual , and measured the temp with my thermocouple probe , nozzle read about 203 ish , measured on the far side of the nozzle furthest from the fan , switched fan speed to 100 and the temp droppped to 160 -180 range , so seems the PLA fan shroud could well have warped and moved after several months of use and now be cooling the nozzle and not the print, going to switch back to the origarmi version from the kit (hope i still have it) and retry the test see if it eliminates the head cooling , if it does i will do a test print

Ok will give the force test a try tomorrow , and see what results i get and report back , thank you for taking the time to try and help me resolve this issue

So when a print fails if i stop it and unhook the part of the extruder that puts pressure on and push the filament up it feels like something is stopping it , and if a apply more pressure it will push through the blockage and flow again , thats what leads me to think its a plug Its all types of prints, it pretty much prints the first few layers (very well with no problems) nice and smoothly as i have the first and last layer thickness high to get a good smooth outside to my finished prints If it is indeed underextrusion and not plugging what are my options ?

Right printing at 0.04 layer height and been having beautiful results with these settings till now , its one of those works fine one day and then just doesn't the next day scenarios :(

Ok lets see what i can answer : Print speed : 149mm/s Temp 205 : Filament is free flowing and not tangled (as much as it tries to be lol) I have noticed alot of heat transfer to the metal plate that the hot end passes through , when i was clearing the head at 250 it was enough to soften the PLA fan shroud Having just turned the printer on to remove the PLA all i got was puffs of smoke out of the hot end , which is what happened last time (i posted about it and was told it was most likely a plug) , have to push the filament through by hand till i feel it give , and then it flows again , not sure if the nozzle is blocked again and that causing the PLA to back up and plug ?

So after getting used to a new supply of PLA and gettting the best out of it i thought all my teething problems were behind me , but it seems not , over the last couple of weeks i've struggled to get a print to finish successfully , it seems that after the first few layers (or sometimes after a 5-8cms which is way more annoying) a plug forms and its print over I've loosened off the hot end and reseated everything , made sure there is a nice straight / level end to the bowden tube, cleared the print head i'm at my wits end , was hoping to provide a paying friend with his prototypes for his custom PC tomorrow but it looks like he'll have to wait as i can't leave the print over night with such unreliability Any suggestions , new things that i've not already tried , permanent solutions ? greatfully received Running Ulitmaker 1 with V2 hotend

Took the bowden tube off and looked in but couldn't see anything , heated the head up and fed the PLA in by hand , felt it stop , put a little pressure on it and felt it give then it started flowing again so definitely thinking it was a plug between the end of the tube and the head , thanks gr5 for the suggestions, will put it all back together and see if it still flows

So i'm finally coming to the end of my complimentary reel of PLA, was nice to have so much to dial in the printer and learn loads in the process, but now i just about have enough for 1 more print. Everything was fine yesterday but today i'm not getting any plastic flow at all , i usually us the controller to feed a little material out before i start the print so i find it stops any gaps appearing in the first layer , but nothing is coming out , thought maybe i had a plug so wound the heat up at ABS levels but still nothing , if i wind the extruder (Bertho's upgrade installed) back a little and then forward i get a little puff of smoke from the print head and maybe a small bubble of molten plastic but nothing more. Anyone have any ideas ?

Seems like it was a blocked nozzle, found a pin small enough (till i can get hold of those drills) and it comfortably flows at 220 and below now , many thanks for the replies and possible solutions

New to 3D printing so bear with me , so i've had my Ultimaker for a couple of weeks now, sorted out the teething problems (leaking hot end etc) and all was going fine , prints were coming out great at 215 and 100%fr on the supplied PLA , a couple of days ago though things changed over night, to get a good print i've had to bump the temp up to 230 and have 100 - 110 % fr, now no adjustments were made between it being good at 215 and now Anyone ideas what can make such a difference ? maybe because its reaching the end of the spool of PLA and the thickness is different or something ? Thanks for any advice given