My ender 5 stopped printing

[champsteve778 1]

Hey guys... I am just still a beginnner...

 

Just simple problem today... my ender 5 just stopped printing... this is the second time it did that.

 

 

See there is a chip that stopped the printer... Anyone know how to stop this from happening again? Or stuff like this just happens sometimes and I have to deal with it?

 

Steve

Edited June 24 by champsteve778

[Slashee_the_Cow 355]

The "Authoritarian Assistant Moderator" Slashee in me would want to tell you that this isn't a Creality support forum... but you've been nice and from what I hear Creality support sucks and places like the reddit communities can be a bit brutal, so I'll let this one slide 🙂 

 

I'm sure @GregValiant will have something to say too but my guess just based on that is you've got a clog somewhere that needs to be cleaned out.

[champsteve778 1]

sorry about that figured out the problem

[Slashee_the_Cow 355]

3 hours ago, champsteve778 said:

sorry about that figured out the problem

Don't worry about it 🙂 All that I ask is that you share the solution both because I'm curious and in case anyone else with a similar problem happens to find this while they're searching for a solution.

[champsteve778 1]

np the solution was... needed the temperature a little higher....

[GregValiant 1,320]

Creality printers are bottom end machines.  "You get what you pay for" and I knew that when I decided on the Ender 3 Pro.  It took about a month before things started going south.  I am not one to blindly throw money at a problem.  I want to know what's wrong and then to figure out how to fix it.  The hot end problems were fairly continuous but there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason.  Intermittent problems are the toughest to solve.

I was mad at the printer for the constant aggravation and decided that if it wasn't going to let me figure out THE problem with the hot end, then I would fix ALL possible problems with the hot end.

 

With that as a starting point:

• I replaced the hot end with an "All-Metal" unit that has a titanium heat-break that would (hopefully) keep heat-creep to a minimum.  I think you can buy just the heat-break without having to buy the whole hot end, but my nozzle threads were stripped so I needed the entire thing anyway.
• 40 x 15 ball bearing hot end fan.  Since it was replacing a 40 x10 sleeve bearing fan - it didn't fit.  I printed a 3mm shim to move the hot end housing away from the mounting plate and then the fan fit.
• I designed and printed a deflector to aim the hot end fan output directly at the heat exchanger and to block some of the fan flow from escaping downward towards the print.  A lot of the airflow was escaping to the left out of the housing vent slots and downwards through the open housing bottom.  Hardly any air was actually going to the heat exchanger.  The deflector/baffle thing did the trick.
• With the deflector in place the air could only flow at the heat exchanger, but I had blocked the exits.  I drilled two 1/2" holes in the back of the main print head mounting plate that are sort of on the left and right of the heat exchanger.  The air now only has one path.  Fan > heat exchanger > exit out the back.
• The fan blades kept getting full of strings and dust.  I printed a cover that draws the inlet air from above the hot end housing.  Without that cover a lot of crap was being pickup up off the build plate and was essentially clogging the fan.

It was a couple of years later that the first "accordion" problem showed up.  It went away with a different roll of filament, but the "stopped extruding" problem occurred during a 21hr print.  I just couldn't figure out the accordion thing but it went away without me doing anything.

Last winter the accordion problem showed up again.  A close inspection of the extruder arm revealed that over time - the filament had worn a groove into the top of the filament entrance hole.  It was tight enough tolerance that it could cause problems with the filament moving through it.  A micro rat tail file fixed that.  Looking at the accordioned filament I could see the tooth marks in it, but I also noticed that it was smashed into an oval.  Hmmm....round bowden tube>oval filament>round bowden tube>oval filament.   When I installed the aluminum extruder I figured lots of tension was good.  Silly me.  I loosened up the tension and Lo and Behold, the accordion problem went away.  Round bowden tube > Round filament.

 

I still have the same printer.  I have replaced the hot end, the motherboard (twice), ALL of the fans, I painstakingly calibrated the frame so it is absolutely square, I perform a monthly PM routine that includes checking the frame, removing all the wheels and cleaning and lubing them, and taking the hot end apart for a good cleaning, and giving the entire machine a good wipe down with IPA, I check the belts and tension, and then it's ready for another 50 or so hours of printing.

 

Somehow someway, you have to get a handle on the "Stops extruding" thing.  Nothing but heartbreak there.