kimera

So recently I've been trying to use colorfabb's woodfill fine with my ultimaker original. At first it was all dandy but now I'm finding that some prints just stop half-way as no filament is coming through to the nozzle. I am getting some serious grinding on filament at the extruder and I admit that it's secured quite tightly there but if it isn't tight enough there just isn't enough force to push it through the bowden! During a print the extruder would keep trying to push the filament through but nothing is moving up the tube, if I apply a bit more force to the filament that's about to pass the extruder bolt then it moves up fine. The worst is since the bolt keeps turning when no filament moves through the tube, it eats away at the filament making the grinding even worse! Is this an issue to do with the softness of the woodfill, or is build-up in the nozzle prevent more filament from coming in? What's everyone else experience with woodfill?

Thanks for taking time to help! I have tried swapping the driver and motor but the problem is still there so I suppose it's the motherboard unfortunately. I don't own a voltmeter to check the voltage across the pins but thank you for your extensive advice.

I'm still completely stuck currently with my ultimaker, nothing has really developed since the last post. It seems everyone has given up on my case though :/ I've contacted support from ultimaker but I'm getting slightly sluggish responses so if there's any more advice on the situation it would be greatly received!

Oh and to reply to gr5's 'third most likely problem', the motor seems to be correct. To check I swapped the stepper motor I had with the one from the dual extrusion expansion pack and unfortunately the issue is still present.

< echo: M92 X78.74 Y78.74 Z533.33 E836.00 It's the same as your example, which is even more confusing... Yeah the clip is there. The washer between the end nut and the gear is quite tight, there's very little movement. Even now when the everything is off there doesn't seem to be much space for movement for those 2 washers, only when I'm printing does it go manic.

My board seems fine. All needed jumpers are there. I do have a an ulticontroller but haven't installed it yet since I wanted to iron out these issues before I try to add anything new. Where do I check the steps/mm on the printerface then? Here are some videos of the issue if it helps at this point. The first shows how the extruder sounds and acts when I adjust it through 0.1, 1 and 10 on the printerface. The second is a noisy attempt at printing. I try to focus in on the rattling washers to aid my earlier description. No filament was being extruded at all during the videos since it had already been stripped from previous attempts.

I would like to avoid fiddling with the pot since I don't really have much experience when it comes to those sort of things. After watching a couple of videos of extruders at work I think I can say that my extruder is rotating too fast. It seems to just continuously rotate without any retraction and the first layer of the print is very fat and blobby. And I guess this explains how my filament is stripped so quickly. Also the sound my one makes is much, much louder than what i've heard in videos, like it's hard to speak to someone else in the room! The 2 washers between the wooden gear and the bearings can be seen shaking vigorously as well but I've tightened that section with extruder bolt as best I can so I think that's a result of the fast rotation causing resonance in the whole extruder section. I'm not sure what this problem is related to now. My motor seems fine and surely the driver I just replaced can't be faulty as well. Unless I really do have to resort to fiddling with the pot.

Yes the printhead is absolutely fine.

Alright so I managed to replace the driver for the extruder motor (I had previously bought the dual head extension but decided to use the driver provided in that while I wait for a response from the support team) and now it works! Or so I thought... Now when I attempt to print something the extruder is making an incredible load grinding noise and everything is vibrating, I don't know if this is normal but it doesn't sound it. The filament also isn't going through the bowden particularly smoothly. I can observe it kind of jittering up the tube telling me something is up with the traction between the extruder bolt and filament. Initially the tightness of the extruder was too much I think since the bolt was leaving harsh teeth marks in the PLA. But even when loosening it so the teeth marks were small dots the issue still persisted. Any advice? When I turn the extruder wooden wheel by hand the PLA goes up the tube fine and out of the head so there's not a jam. Even when using the Cura print UI to control the extruder its fine and no horrible sound. It's only happening when I try to print something.

Ok I've contacted support and now awaiting a reply, hopefully I'll be able to get some replacement parts and this issue will be resolved soon. Thanks both of you for the advice! Learnt some things at least which is always great. And if something goes wrong again no doubt I'll turn back to the forums!

Ok just fiddled with the UI and trying to move the extruder motor does nothing. Does this mean I need a new one then?

No the gear wasn't turning at all. I could still turn the wheel as well. The connection seems fine and the 4 stepper divers are plugged in. However what I believe are cooling fins have fallen off 2 of the drivers. How much do those matter? And if so what can I use to stick them back on if possible?

I found that changing the printing UI actually somehow solved the problem and now it prints huzzah! But now there's no PLA is being extruded. I can manually turn the extruder gear and the PLA moves fine so it's not the traction between the PLA and the extruder bolt, so I think it must be my extruder motor. Has anyone experienced this before?

Anon4321: Haha yeah I clicked print, it says 'printing' but nothing is happening and there is no progress bar. The temperature is increasing, it goes beyond 220 and still nothing happens. I'll give changing the UI a go and see what it tells me thanks. James: No I don't yet but I have ordered one. I don't know if I would say it's the usb though since doing all the tests were absolutely fine. Also can I note that the head fan isn't moving either. Is it supposed to be constantly on once the machine starts up like the cooling fan at the bottom or only once I get printing? Another quick question while I'm at it: When I'm feeding in filament before a print, when do I know that how much I'm manually feeding is enough? When it makes a little blob through the head or is that too much?

So I've just recently put my Ultimaker together and hooked it up to Cura. I managed to use the start up wizard and the bed levelling wizard to set things up but when I load up a model and hit print the printer head just sits there, while Cura simply displays the current head temperature. Can anyone tell me what's going on? As this is my failed attempt at a first print, I'm not sure even what to expect. Does the head warm up a bit before doing anything? Does Cura show anything else apart from the temperature?