Question: What is a normal temp for the extruder motor?

[greengecko 8]

Hi,

I have got a question. My Ultimaker runs great no real problems at this stage. One thing I noticed (and I did not find a discussion about it when I searched the forum) is that after about 30 minutes of printing (normal quality, 100%) so quite fast, I checked the temperatures of the motors (x,y and extruder motor). The x,y motors are fine and coolish, but the extruder motor gets quite hot - if I touch it with my fingers I cannot have the fingers down for more than 2 seconds then it starts to hurts. Is that a hint that I am extruding too fast/too much and if so what is a way to slow extrusion (runnig netfabb and printrun)? or is that normal?

Thanks in adance,

greengecko

Just to make sure my extruder stepper motor lasts for a while longer....

[IRobertI 520]

How hot is hot? Have you measured it at all? Steppers do tend to run quite hot but usually it's not something you need to worry about. Just pulling a number out of my @$$ from what I've read in the past I wouldn't worry unless it starts going above say 60-70C. Even at around 45C it will start to get uncomfortable to touch but it will not be dangerous to the motor. If you're still worried you could try lowering the drive current. You'll know you've lowered the current too much when it starts skipping steps.

[Daid 306]

Don't worry, you're more likely to damage the stepper drivers instead of the motors themselfs.

If you want a simple temperature check, put a PLA print on top of the extruder motor. If it doesn't get soft, then you don't have a problem. (One of my extruder motors is always on for some reason, and gets really hot, but it still doesn't make PLA stick to it)

[greengecko 8]

Ok at this stage I have not really a good way to meassure the temperature, but I will do. How would I lower the drive current though. Is there a firmware/software way to do this?

[greengecko 8]

@daid, sorry I was too slow for your reply (this forum is really awesome). So I put a PLA print on it and so far it is far away from sticking on it, so that's great news.

Thanks to both of you.

Cheers, greengecko

[mr_seeker 0]

Ok at this stage I have not really a good way to meassure the temperature, but I will do. How would I lower the drive current though. Is there a firmware/software way to do this?

No, there is not unfortunately, else I would add some "current sensing" to the machine

Best is to check the wiki. There is something about the pot settings on your stepper driver. Normally when you get them from Ultimaker they are fully tested and dont need adjustments.