Worsening Prints And Grinding Sound

[ceramicbullet 0]

Hey guys, I've been having an issue with my work's Ultimaker 2 extended. I've been trying to print these small cylinders (about half an inch tall with a cross-hatch on the inside). What has me worried is the grinding sound, which only seems to happen after I print a few layers. I've uploaded an image here. As you can see, the one on the left is roughly what it should be, but there's a weird spiraling pattern happening. The second one was the very next print... I don't even know why those gaps are there on the sides of the cylinder.

I tried to unclog the tip, tighten any axis screw I could, messed around with bed, nozzle, and fan temps, nothing is working. Please help.

 

[swordriff 119]

"grinding" sound is most probably because you have a minimum layer time setting.

This means that it will slow down to not arrive at the same place again before the minimum time is set! The "grinding" comes from moving the print head very slowly.

Edited July 17, 2016 by Guest

[gr5 2,265]

What swordriff said.

You can print much better quality and much faster if you print 2 at once so that one is cooling while the other is printing. Select "all at once" in cura menu.

The spiral pattern is probably underextrusion. You don't appear to be printing all that fast so I'm not sure why you get that. What is your:

speed, nozzle width, layer height, nozzle temp? These 4 variables work together to tell me if you are printing "too fast". Also how old is that work machine? I suspect it needs a new teflon part as that is the most common thing to fail and cause underextrusion.

[ceramicbullet 0]

I'm not around my computer, so I can't pull the file with the exact information. As soon as I can, I'll reply with the settings. Changing settings within ultimaker (print speed, extrusion and flow) do nothing to solve my problem, nor does printing any parts of any size that I've successfully printed before yield better results. Whatever the problem is, it seems to have nothing to do with what I can change in the Gcode  (otherwise the other things I tried to print would have come out like they did before).

Now, this thing was used heavily for a few weeks, then all projects were put in hold, so it went into the storage cabinet for a little while. I recalibrated it times to try to fix it, and oiled the axis rods, but it hasn't sounded the same since before it went into storage. I will research more about replacing the teflon parts, but is it possible anything else might need replacing?

Edited July 19, 2016 by Guest

[SandervG 1,521]

Are you printing PLA or ABS, and has that always been the same material during the heavy use over the months or did you change between the materials?

Did you ever do an Atomic Method?

[gr5 2,265]

Well here is my complete list of what causes underextrusion - but it's a LOT of things to check and most of them are unlikely:

CAUSES FOR UNDEREXTRUSION AND HOW TO TEST FOR THEM AND REMEDY THEM

As far as underextrusion causes - there's just so damn many. none of the issues seem to cause more than 20% of problems so you need to know the top 5 issues to cover 75% of the possibilities and 1/4 people still won't have the right issue. Some of the top issues:

1) Print slower and hotter! Here are top recommended speeds for .2mm layers (twice as fast for .1mm layers) and .4mm nozzle:

20mm/sec at 200C

30mm/sec at 210C

40mm/sec at 225C

50mm/sec at 240C

The printer can do double these speeds but with huge difficulty and usually with a loss in part quality due to underextrusion. Different colors print best at quite different temperatures and due to imperfect temp sensors, some printers print 10C cool so use these values as an initial starting guideline and if you are still underextruding try raising the temp. But don't go over 240C with PLA.

2) Shell width confusion. Shell width must be a multiple of nozzle size. If nozzle size is .4mm and shell width is 1mm cura will make the printer do 2 passes with .5mm line width which is possible but requires you slow down much more to make a .5mm line out of a .4mm nozzle. If you really want this then set nozzle size to .5mm so it's clear what you are asking Cura to do for you.

3) Isolator - this is most common if you've printed extra hot (>240C) for a few hours or regular temps (220C) for 500 hours. It warps. It's the white part touching the heater block. Test it by removing it and passing filament though it by hand. Also if you notice parts of it are very soft then it's too old and needs replacing.

4) Curved filament at end of spool - if you are past half way on spool, try a fresh spool as a test.

5) curved angle feeding into feeder - put the filament on the floor -makes a MASSIVE difference.

6) Head too tight? Bizarrely MANY people loosen the 4 screws on the head by just a bit maybe 1/2 mm and suddenly they can print just fine! Has to do with pressure on the white teflon isolator.

5b) Bowden pushing too hard - for the same reason you don't want the bowden pushing too hard on the isolator.

5c) Spring pushing too hard. Although you want a gap you want as small as possible a gap between teflon isolator and steel isolator nut such that the spring is compressed as little as possible.

7) clogged nozzle - the number one problem of course - even if it seems clear. There can be build up on the inside of the nozzle that only burning with a flame can turn to ash and remove. Sometimes a grain of sand gets in there but that's more obvious (it just won't print). Atomic method (cold pull) helps but occasionally you need to remove the entire heater block/nozzle assembly and use flame. Or soak it in acetone overnight (after removing 90% of the material with cold pull).

8) Temp Sensor bad - even the good ones vary by +/- 5C and bad ones can be any amount off - they usually read high and a working sensor can fail high slowly over time. Meaning the sensor thinks you are at 220C but actually you are at 170C. At 170C the plastic is so viscous it can barely get out of the nozzle. You can verify your temp sensor using this simple video at youtube - on you tube search for this: mrZbX-SfftU

9) feeder spring issues - too tight, too loose

10) Other feeder issues, one of the nuts holding machine together often interferes with the feeder motor tilting it enough so that it still works but not very well. Other things that tilt the feeder motor, sleeve misaligned so it doesn't get a good grip. Gunk clogging the mechanism in there.

11) Filament diameter too big - 3mm is too much. 3mm filament is usually 2.85mm nominal or sometimes 2.9mm +/- .05. But some manufacturers (especially in china) make true 3.0mm filament with a tolerance of .1mm which is useless in an Ultimaker. It will print for a few meters and then clog so tight in the bowden you will have to remove the bowden from both ends to get the filament out. Throw that filament in the trash! It will save you weeks of pain

11b) Something wedged in with the filament. I was setting up 5 printers at once and ran filament change on all of them. One was slowly moving the filament through the tube and was almost to the head when I pushed the button and it sped up and ground the filament badly. I didn't think it was a problem and went ahead and printed something but there was a ground up spot followed by a flap of filament that got jammed in the bowden tube. Having the "plus" upgrade or using the IRobertI feeder helps you feel this with your hand by sliding the filament through the bowden a bit to see if it is stuck.

12) Hot weather. If air is above 30C or even possibly 25C, the air temperature combined with the extruder temperature can soften the filament inside the feeder such that it is getting squeezed flat as it passes through the feeder - this is obvious as you can see the problem in the bowden. The fix is to add a desk fan blowing on the back of the printer. Not an issue on the UM2 "plus" series.

13) Crimped bowden. At least one person had an issue where the bowden was crimped a bit too much at the feeder and although the printer worked fine when new it eventually got worse and had underextrusion on random layers. it's easy to pull the bowden out of the feeder end and examine it.

14) Small nozzle. Rumor has it some of the .4mm nozzles are closer to .35mm. Not sure if this is actually true. I'm a bit skeptical but try a .6mm nozzle maybe.

15) CF. The gnurled sleeve in the extruder can get ground down smooth - particularly from carbon fill. 4 spools of CF will destroy not just nozzles but the gnurled sleeve also. Look at it visually where the filament touches the "pyramids". Make sure the pyramids are sharp.