Ultimaker3 printing trouble

[knutselsmurf 2]

Hello,

i have an ultimaker3 printer which works very nice for years.  In the past i have replaced the 0.4 printerhead part and ofcourse used grease regularly for the rods. But since a month i can’t get good print results anymore. Tried different new filament, settings, etc. 
checked the hardware too, seems to be ok.

But looking at the results there is something not ok. So maybe the beatings, seems to be ok also. Tested with Petg and Pla, photos are Pla. Any suggestions??

[gr5 2,224]

Any problems in the first picture are too blurry for me to see anything wrong.  But in the second picture I can clearly see that you have a mixture of layers that stick out more and some stick out less.

 

1) There are many possible causes.  I guess I would first suspect Cura.  Did you update cura recently?  Did you try printing an old gcode file to see what happens?  Did you try going back to an older Cura if you upgraded recently?

 

2) Well this looks a little different but a very common cause where you have over and underextruded layers is a problem with the Z axis where it doesn't move down enough for one layer so it overextrudes and that layer sticks out and then one or two layers later the bed catches up and moves down more than expected and you get an underextruded layer.  But if this is the problem then the entier layers will be the same and the overextrusion will go all the way around but it looks to me like it's only going part way around.  Look at the part carefully and try to figure out if most of the over and under extruded horizontal lines exist most of the way around or if they typically only reach 1/4 of the way around like it looks to my eye.

 

3) I'd check the front fan on the print head.  It can stop working after many months/years.  Not the side fans.  The fan in the door that opens.  Just manually heat either printcore above 60C and it should star spinning.  Sometimes it gets clogged up with threads of filament.

 

4) Did you print with an abrasive filament such as carbon fill, glassfill or glowfill?  This can wear down the feeder roller which has a diamond pattern grip and it can round the tops of the diamond bumps such that the feeder isn't as strong and you get some slipping in the feeder.

 

5) Is the air temperature in the room with the printer higher when you have troublesome prints?

[knutselsmurf 2]

Thank a lot for your answers 😀

 

I am using the latest Cura, and indeed sometimes you can get weird issues with Cura (it’s nice but buggy), so i have done some test with Simplify3D also: same kind of settings (no much settings): same result.

 

There was a firmware update also, not sure if that could be the case?  
 

will check the fans again room temperature is about 22 ‘C, good conditions 😀

[gr5 2,224]

At this rate it may take years to help you.

 

Please reread my post.  I'm talking about the front fan.  Not the side fans.  Read what I said about how to test.  Can you answer questions 4 and 5 and can you post a larger picture of the first issue as I don't see anything wrong.