Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️I have resumed the folly of 3d printing after a nearly year long hiatus
place your bets until how long it'll be until I'm ranting about how printers are a sin against man and god
crashed my slicer
I'm printing a calibration cube because I don't know what state I left this printer in.
presumably in the standard state of "it kinda works but I don't trust it"
crashed my slicer again
and again
and again
third attempt worked.
I probably should have updated octoprint before hitting go, and I probably should have done some manually leveling, but hey, it seems to be printing so far.
also the filament has been sitting in a garage, loaded into the printer, for a year.
it's probably really shit by now. as soon as the cube finishes I'm gonna need to swap to something, anything, else
it's probably really shit by now. as soon as the cube finishes I'm gonna need to swap to something, anything, else
there's a lot of work that can and should be done on this printer, but it's all gonna be limited by the fact I can't stand up for more than 5 minutes
well, there's something going on with the z-axis, but it printed more or less.
I've also got to switch to a different power supply for the pi that's running octoprint, and upgrade the pi to a new OS (which requires backing up and restoring existing octopi settings) because my python is EOL.
so it's working, but I'm still sighing a lot
anyway I loaded new filament and I'm printing a chep cube again!
okay I printed a CE5P calicat after attempting to fix the z-offset issue. It still is horrible.
possibly this is mostly a temperature issue: I'm using the stock temperatures but I think I upgraded this to an all-metal hotend that needs to run higher?
reprinted with higher temp. it's better, but still bad.
so probably there's another issue. I remember I did a lot of rebuilding of the hot end in the final days of using this before, so who knows what's clogged in there?
I printed on a raft because the z-offset is still fuckt
a higher temp (220°C) and 110% flow rate seems to be working well enough.
had to dig out my flir phone to take pictures for silly cellphone reasons.
Anyway, this is the 220°C 110% flow calicat. It looks way better, right?
also octoprint is yelling that my pi is undervolting. I'm specifically using a dedicated 5v 2.5A wall-wart, how is it STILL undervolting? ugh.
I need to throw away and replace every part of this setup and I don't have the time, money, energy, or space to do that
Thanks to everyone who has given suggestions for how to fix this. Unfortunately most of them require me standing up for longer than I can manage, so I've mainly just fiddled with settings (since I can do that from my bed).
but when I can, I'll be:
* calibrating the extruder
* trying to clear clogs in the hot-end
* calibrating the z-axis offset (which is a multistep nightmare in this setup)
I need to upgrade the octopi install so I might switch to a newer pi. I have one somewhere, it's just probably up in my office where I can't really get to it (stairs)
installed a USB power blocker to try and fix the undervolting. it didn't work.
So I'm gonna have to find another power supply for that
I'm gonna try cold pulling next because that's easier than getting to the extruder
okay I tried switching to a different USB power supply (5v 2A) with thicker usb cables: No difference, still undervolting.
I also cold-pulled the hot end a few times, to see if that'll help.
the extruder is still difficult to reach
printing another calicat to see if that changed anything
okay I think my extruder is fucked. damn it, that's the most annoying part of this printer to access.
Hugo Mills@foone Ouch. That's... not healthy.
calico liz@foone awww poor calicat
myrmepropagandistThis is the worst print I've ever seen.
StarkRG@futurebird @foone Yes, but It *did* finish, so it's got that going for it.
@StarkRG @futurebird that's the annoying state my printer has been stuck in for over a year.
it WILL print the thing you want, it'll just be really shitty and fragile
it WILL print the thing you want, it'll just be really shitty and fragile
@foone @futurebird I feel your pain.
(for the record, these were two separate incidents, the print surface damage came after I got the replacement heatbreak)
Proto Himbo European@futurebird @foone Oh, wow. You're in for an experience, then.
I love this, so I@foone damn, this is looking like what my printer was spitting out 2 years ago. I haven’t touched it since.
michel v@foone the Ancients tell about mysterious "E steps" settings that may be tuned, but otherwise I’m out of ideas now. Do you have other filaments to check, by the way? There’s also a Reddit community called FixMyPrint, who may take pity on the poor feline.
@michelv I've got plenty of filaments but while most of it is sealed, it's pretty old. maybe I should pick up a new roll before I test again
@foone could also be a faulty PTFE tube. Is your printer using a Bowden setup (I assume it is since the extruder is hard to access?). I once fell deep into a rabbit hole, tweaking settings left and right because I thought the printer had started malfunctioning, until I realized it really was the tube that needed changing.
@michelv it does use a bowden tube, yeah. I definitely replaced it at some point, I think I replaced it with a better one? it seems to be in good condition, though
rx13 
@foone
@michelv Also, if the extruder is just above the hot end on your print head, some printers have a small tube between the extruder And and hot end separate from the tube going to the extruder, which can also wear and caused this issue for me.
Either way, that tube wasn't accessible unless you removed the extruder, so equally annoying. Best of luck to you
Blue_ON@foone i would check if the hotend heatsink is properly being cooled. more specifically, damaged cooling fan can be problem. under-cooled hotend can cause fillament to expand before getting into meltzone, leading to high friction and jam. get SUNON or GDSTime brand 4010 size 24Volt fan.
i heared WINSINN and CAIZHU fans are good too but not sure.
regular PC fans like Delta and Noctua but you will need boost converter in most case.
but be aware of weak fans. they will get the print even worse.
i heared WINSINN and CAIZHU fans are good too but not sure.
regular PC fans like Delta and Noctua but you will need boost converter in most case.
but be aware of weak fans. they will get the print even worse.
@blue_on I specifically already replaced the fans on this printer, so they're quite fresh at the moment.
@foone then check out if the extruder is properly tensioned and enough current is supplied. are your extruder motor's steps skipping? you can check if it is making ticking noise. if so, you can adjust motor current with screen menu... if you have TMC stepper drivers. otherwise, you'll have to take its motherboard out and adjust onboard potentiometer. or, you can check if your gears are skipping. if so, you will see shredded filament if you take the filament out from the extruder.
Jim P.@foone @blue_on Are the new fans keeping up well enough? I made the mistake once of putting a Noctua fan on my hotend because it was quieter but it didn't have enough static pressure to cool it properly so I kept getting heat creep (which can also present like you're seeing). Basically the top part of the hotend gets too hot so it melts up higher than it should and gets bound up, then pushes past it with more effort.
That was unfun to diagnose and maddening.
Scout Da Woof@foone That just looks wet to me. Try a new roll, or try drying that roll. Also ip the print temp a bit.
As for the pi, they expect 5.1 volts, but also it's never been a problem for me, we've ran Pis for years "undervolted"
As for the pi, they expect 5.1 volts, but also it's never been a problem for me, we've ran Pis for years "undervolted"
Rue Mohr
John-Mark Gurney@foone
Have you tried printing slower?
I think I found that different filaments take a different amount of energy to heat up. So a speed that works for one filament might not work for another. Increasing the temp only ensures that it starts out ok, but doesn't ensure that it stays at temp. (I never did test this theory by monitoring the hot end temp as it printed.)
Have you tried slowing down the print speed?
Hakan Bayındır@foone Why not step by step? Do you need the printer urgently?
@bayindirh I need to print a case for something and I can't really use it until I do, so... kinda?
@foone Uh, OK. Fair.
Maddy has MOVED!@foone Oh noooooo 
Phil Nelson@foone Looks like an extrusion issue to me, yeah
@foone I would recommend doing calibration prints with https://slic3r.org/, it shouldn’t take much time and it’ll help you get a working profile. (One of the calibrations is about extrusion rate, which may need adjusting here.)
makkin thing@foone any chance this is a creality printer with the stock extruder assembly? Random underextrusion could be caused by the plastic extruder arm cracking (common failure)
@gbrnt it is a creality (ender 5 plus/pro, I don't recall which) but I believe I've replaced the extruder hardware
tekhedd
Plan A to Y@foone a few random things that might help:
-gently tug the filament line to make sure that it takes as little force as possible to pull it off the spool
-check the extruder tension (haven't seen what kind your printer has but there should be some kind of idler gear)
-bump up the extrusion multiplier a few percent if none of that works
-If the Z level is too low it can create what looks like a clog so maybe try raising it higher than you'd think? I dunno, that depends a lot on how you have been calibrating it.
-Printing a flat 1-layer square to check how much it's squishing the filament is probably the best way to test Z axis calibration
Edit: also it's possible it's that the room is too cold or the filament is old. I've had prints like that because of those two factors
accela
Kranston@foone i dont know what those rings around the print are for, i assuming that they're an extra way to make sure the print bed is level. but it makes me think that the printer is making a summoning circle to conjure the print lol
Michael Cook@sudo_EatPant It’s a border. Mostly I think it just gives the extruder more time to prime and get flowing before the real action starts. Otherwise the first few mm may not extruded well if it didn’t fully self-prime.
I love thinking of it as a summoning circle though! That’s great.
@sudo_EatPant yeah they're a summoning circle. 3d printing is forbidden magic
Bits&Terminal Jeff@foone You may need to dry that filament. A food dehydrator running for a few hours would probably do, but an oven that can be set at 120F (140F is a little high but would do) (not C!) for a couple of hours can work as well at least for PLA.
Alternatively you can print with filament that is still vacuum sealed.
Note that at 140F in an oven the spool itself if in plastic may start deforming. Make sure it's on a cookie sheet (or other metal flat surface) and flip it upside down every half hour.
@jf_718 This red filament is brand new, I only unsealed it before doing these two prints
@foone Ah, in that case I'd bump up the extrusion temperature by 10C and see how that goes. Sorry, I read earlier in the thread that the filament had been exposed for a year but didn't realize it was another spool. My bad.
@jf_718 no worries. that's what I'm doing now, yeah: I bumped up the temperature to 210C and lowered the retraction distance a little. it's printing now
@foone @jf_718 Unfortunately it's possible to get wet filament straight from the original vacuum sealed bags. They use water to cool it when making the filament, so it can retain moisture straight from the factory.
But this does seem more like something impeding the extrusion more than the filament itself since it seems to be somewhat consistent with both types.
Wouldn't hurt to do a cold pull/atomic pull to make sure there isn't a partial clog since it sat for a while.
dole