Material station change over failure

[Super_paulie 13]

the material station changed materials after the spool ran out. Great I thought, that's the exact reason why we invested in it. So it changed over, no worries there. Then the material didn't make it to the nozzle and it started "printing" again, but obviously with fresh air...

 

What gives? This is kinda the only reason we bought the material station station and the first time it changed over its failed and we lost a 36hr print. Grrr. Didn't see any way to manually wind the material forward so was just stuck in limbo and eventually had to cancel the job.

 

See attached, material got as far as you see in the right hand tube before it started up again.

 

 

[Gero 54]

That's a shame, of course, and shouldn't really happen. I have never had this mistake with my material station. 
I would first test to see if this was a single error or if it repeats itself. I would suggest starting a small test print here and after a few minutes cutting off the filament in front of the spool to check if another material change is also faulty. 
When changing the material, keep an eye on the back of the printer to see if something is wrong with the tubes or the couplings. 
I just assume that the tension lever and feeder tension are set normally?

[Super_paulie 13]

a follow up. This has just happened again. I have allowed the filament to run out twice to test the change-over feature, and it has failed both times. So thats like a 100% failure rate on this... see attached for how far out the filament was this time.

 

I mean there is nothing else i can do, when i load the material as normal, you basically push it into the hole on the material station and there is nothing else you can do. This is really frustrating, not just the loss of the job but the horrible amount of time it takes to get back to a useable state. The S5 is such a great machine, but some things of it are just crazy slow and frustrating.

 

Does anyone have any advice for this? Tension is totally fine, if i were to install a roll of material it would take it just fine, it only fails on the change over from an empty spool.

[Carbon 29]

When the material changes over, are you using the same Spool every time?

[Super_paulie 13]

its the exact same type of material and spool size yes. Basically like for like so it will change over when its out. Or at least... is meant to.

[Super_paulie 13]

ie, station C and D both have Black ABS, same brand and size.

[Carbon 29]

It looks like the filament is being restricted by something, could be that the filament has been damaged maybe by the feeder (remove filament and check for "grinding" marks)

 

 

 

or there is debris in the feeder it self.

 

 

 

Credit: 

 

 

[Winchester 1]

I had the exact same problem in the beginning when I got the Pro Bundle. The reason was a mistake I had made when setting up the printer: I had clamped one of the bowdentubes, which come from the decouplers of the material station, to the back of the printer. The reason was to bring the bowdentube closer to the printer, because without the clamp it bent slightly out and touched the wall behind the printer.

Clamping the bowdentube resulted in the decoupler not being able to move freely. This resulted in some problems, including the one you described above. When I unclamped the bowdentube (and moved the printer slightly away from the wall so it would not touch it) the problem never occurred again.

So, I would suggest you check if the bowdentubes, which come from the decouplers and lead the material into the feeders, are in any way restricted to move freely. They should not be attached to anything (except the decoupler and feeder of course) and also shound not touch anything.

[Super_paulie 13]

further to this, the material station is frankly pathetic... almost every time it does a change over i lose the job and there is simply no recovery. For example today it changed over and the material didnt make it to the head but the printer started "printing" again. No matter what you do at that point its non-recoverable. Even if you pull the material out, the station then states "Material Empty" but the printer still attempts to print. You cant select to switch it over to a new spool, nothing. Honestly, the its an absolute disaster... 

Even an option to pause the print, and then a button to click to "Change to Spool B" for example, that would be 100% better than "sorry but im going to continue with these spools anyways, whether its jammed or even if you like it or not". Im literally losing more jobs than i have ever had with any other printer.