jemma-redmond

I tried again... and changed the butterfly clip on top to a printed screw in system. I also put more cable ties on the feeder to try and get the balance right. It worked.... for a while, now the x and y axis keep slipping... grr again I've tightened all of the screws and it still keeps slipping. Well at any rate I will eventually have to change this printer for another function so it doesn't really matter. I have an old bfb so I'm currently trying to take the parts from the um onto that machine as the frame is really good and by the way it totally works with um electronics. Nope, there are no photo's daid, until I can figure out how to actually do that, there won't be....

Hullo, its jammed again :-( same problem. The extruder / feeder is the upgraded kit. When we finally got the original 1's here, parts were missing or had to be replaced as they were faulty. It was working fine until I tried to fit upgrades. Now it just won't work at all, it just keeps on jamming. The um 1 is a super finicky machine. If you build it and get it running, you should leave the machine well alone I have found. At this stage, considering the amount of time and effort I have put into trying to get the machine to work, I think I will start looking for another printer.

Ok so far, its printing well, very well indeed... (fingers crossed it continues) I loosened up the feeder, cut out a whole chunk of filament and fed through a large smooth section. Since then it hasn't jammed up, slowed down, etc at all. Its worked well. Now I wouldn't say its perfect, far from it but its so much better... :-)

Hi, I decided to keep away from this problem for the weekend... ok so in answer to your questions/ suggestions in no particular order... 1. There is no upload function in my gallery or an ability to create an album 2. The filament is fine, I have a digital calipers and it appears to be within spec 3. There are large indentations in the filament from the feeder which I am wondering are causing the problem, so I am going to remove it, put through smooth filament with out the feeder mechanism and see if I get any jams for the duration of the build. Also with regards the feeder we ordered two um1;s, the feeder never worked in either case unless you put cable ties or tape around the top. So there are cable ties there and its the only way it will work. I was also thinking about the fans and the machine worked perfectly well for a long time without them so I don't feel they have any relationship to the extruder jamming. My best guess so far is the deep indentations in the filament are causing a jam inside the extruder.... I'll test no and see. Hopefully I can solve this and get back to doing some actual experiments!

I can find the gallery but there is no upload option... Also I have a separate temperature probe, it doesn't fluctuate too greatly from what is there.I also have about 3 spare sensors, I've swapped them, it makes no difference, same with the heating element. The problem appears to arise not in the hot end itself but in the barrel I would say. I've tried to keep it firmly clamped, there are no leaks, but it just keeps slowing and slowing and then the filament stops going through. I would imagine a plug is continuously and gradually forming inside. ALL of the parts have been replaced even the filament.

Nope, even with all three fans on, it still stops extruding and jams yet again. This is more fun than jabbing a syringe in my eye.... :???:

So two of the fans I put on broke... so I replaced them with three 12v fans from a bfb (they are on a separate power supply), its worked ok so far but still... I'm not convinced it will keep working. When I clear a jam, usually I open up the bowden tube pull back out the filament, take off the hot end and put the screwdriver up to clear the blockage which always works. The temp is kept at 210. The last time I simply unscrewed the hot end, retracted the filament (all at 210) and then pushed the screwdriver up and cleared the blockage that way. It totally worked too. I also use a 34 gauge needle tip to clear the hot end. I would upload some photos but I have no idea how to do this with this forum????

Ok, I cleared the plug, installed the fan, the fan is now working and then the extruder jammed again. Another plug. I cannot understand the amount of problems I have had with this printer.

Ok, thank you very much for the advice! it's appreciated! However I'm still having problems with jamming etc, its a bunch of problems really. Some of the chips I have been using have been from ebay and the quality appears to have been dubious at best. I've had to tune them to get x and y working correctly. I replaced the chip on the extruder with a um 1. That worked better. There definitely was a software issue switching off the extruder when it started to print. This was a firmware issue. So now I am sure that the chip problem and the software problem have been resolved. However its plugging all of the time. I have completely replaced the bowden tube, heating elements, all components and the problem still persists. Now I don't have a cooling fan below, I found this didn't work and the printer worked foine without it. I got maybe 3 or 4 solid weeks of actual quality printing. However now it seems to be constantly plugging. The weather outside is hotter and the lab here is hotter which could be part of the problem. I do know that if the extruder tip is up close to the build platform then the heat will transfer up the top and cause a plug. So if I clear the plug again, I will get maybe 20 minutes out of it before it plugs again, I'm going to have to try and fit a fan and see if it helps.... otherwise I may just abandon this printer and go with something else. Its just too much of a maintenance pain. I

Ok I certainly had some faulty driver chips... swapped and I'm still getting flow problems... These driver chips are brand new.

i swapped the driver chip again, now its giving me max temp, checked all the cables cant clear it. fed up :-( i suspect the temperature sensor has broken again. (hurray another 30 euros) prior to that the extruder feeder completely stopped again, opened it up underneath, very hot, main fan was on. I just cannot seem to get this thing to run reliably.

its printing between 210 and 220, I reinstalled the default firmware, same problem, then i printed directly using usb and the problem vanished... The issue now is that the quality is quite poor, it seems to be an issue with the flow of the material.So I'm tinkering with the settings. I can only assume the controller is faulty in some way?

Ok, I have a problem that I just have not been able to solve... :-( I have a um1, when I switch it on, reheat it to 210, 220 whatever, I can turn the feeder motor at the back with the controller. Material comes out no problem. Then I run gcode, the motor is completely dead, its not disabled so I know its on but the software is not driving it. I go back to the controller and try and operate the motor again. Its completely dead. I have to switch the machine off and on again and it works fine. I have replaced ALL of the extruder parts, everything, drivers you name it and I'm still getting this problem. It seems to have started after 14.07. Any ideas? I'm pretty sure its not the hardware. And the firmware is the latest.

Ok I've swapped out clean filament and it still jams, always in the brass tube, I've cleared it several times, it keeps jamming, apart from having to replace the entire extruder all over again is there anything else I can do? I'm starting to think it would have been miles cheaper going with a mendel prusa or something.

Ok this is what I tried... I swapped the chips on the ramps board no difference.. I then went back to an earlier version of cura 12.10 updated firmware it printed a small clip, I tried something larger and again the filament started to taper off. I installed 13 something updated firmware again, it printed the clip then the same result for the second larger object. I then noticed a lot of debris in the Bowden tube and a lot of dust and dirt on the filament, it's been lying around for over a year and was from the bfb, now I figured the filament could be the problem so I swapped that with ultimaker blue and I still got the same result. The blue filament is clean. I think part of the problem is that I have dismantled the extruder so many times to fix it, it's probably slightly warped and some of the threads have gone on the aluminium plate underneath. :-/

It's possibly a combination of factors. It extrudes fine at the start, builds ok layers then it changes, the feeder slows to next to nothing and the extrusion pretty much stops. I've tried increasing the flow rate to compensate. Put tape around the feeder to get a better grip on the filament but no joy. Increasing the temperature makes no difference as its all related to the flow. :-(

Actually it appears that the feeder is not turning at all! its disabled again!! I don't know whats going on. It appears to be the software yet again but I can't figure out why its not working. I reinstalled the software yesterday and it worked fine initially.

Sorry I work in a lab, have a tonne of experiments to do and little time to keep fixing a printer that keeps breaking down! I'm running pla at 210C, 2.85mm diameter, a lot of the parts are worn or warped from trying to get the dual extruder to work. I have it running again but its not extruding properly. Its not the chip or perhaps even the software this time. If I manually force through filament it extrudes no problem but when the filament is plugged in with the bowden tube, there is too much friction. I have put cable ties around the feeder at the back but its not really working anymore. I tried the second feeder but its the same. Not enough filament being pushed through I've cleared the nozzle lots of times but I'm sure the problem lies with the feeder...

Unfortunately, the filament broke, sensor cable keeps falling out and its constantly plugging in the extruder assembly.... looks like this is going to take a long while....:-(

Ok I got it fixed. This is what i did. 1. Uninstall cura 14.07 2. resinstall cura 14.07 3. Setup printer again and install marlin firmware. = problem solved :-P

yup, I've tried default from 14.07, 14.06 and previous versions. I had this problem licked before and what i did was reload the default settings from 14.07 otherwise I had some weird stuff happening in the other versions of the software. Now that fix doesn't seem to work anymore.... :-(

Hi, I'm having another of the multitude of problems with my um 1 again. I had 14.07 and upgraded to dual extruder. One nozzle kept plugging so I switched it back to single extruder however when the gcode starts to run neither feeder mechanism at the back will run. Its definitely definitely the software. The last time I reloaded the firmware and it ran, now no matter what I do it won't. I can manually extrude using the preheat methods but the gcode won't run the hardware properly. Any ideas? It just seems no matter how many times I fix this machine, it finds some new way to break down! :-(

H! I have an off the shelf heated bed for a reprap machine and I wired it into a um1. Naturally It's not working and I'm pretty certain its the software rather than the hardware. There are 4 wires in total. Two are the heating element wires plugged into the heated bed on the main board. And there are two wires for the thermister, one red, one black, vcc and signal I assume. I upgraded the firmware and tried all permutations of wiring. It's definately wired correctly, but I see no lights for heating up the device on the mainboard. I can set the bed temperature but there is no change from 0. I even tried using one of the ultimaker extruder sensors and it doesnt read that either. Now the two thermister wires are wired into the small splitter thingy from the extruder. Assuming the hardware I received is fine, i can only assume the um1 software simply does not work. oh the bed also runs on 12 volts so it should totally work with the board. Has anyone gotten this to work?

gr5, you got it! that's what we have been trying to do.... however we have been designing grids on autocad and then loading it into cura, (any version)... what we want to do really is get teh machine to draw one line (xy) but it seems to sweep back over the same line no matter what we do. We are printing biogoop, not plastic and when it prints a layer on top, it tends to spread out, not build up, unless you give it time. Anyway what we really want is one line, one sweep, no redrawing the lines. Is that doable?

Hey all, So I want to print a grid for calibration... so what I am trying to do is print one layer at 1mm and create a spacing of 1mm between the lines however cura won't let you do this, you have to print with at least 2mm height. Is there any way to fine tune cura to allow one to print grids like this? ultimately I want to move from say 1mm spacing to 0.5mm spacing down as low as I can go. Is it possible to do this with cura? or is there other software I can use? Thanks!