Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble For the last two days iv been hearing the occasional click,. early today it was clicking more frequently, with an occasional bad void, and now this evening it jammed up with 3 prints in a row,. Apparently the seasoning does wear off,.. On a brighter note though, once you have the solution, re-seasoning only took about 30-45min, and i didn't have to disassemble anything,. While it was baking in i also did my monthly re-greasing of the rods and bearings,. all and all 45min a month for maintenance is not that bad especially when paired with other basic maintenance. best if you didn't have to, but meh,. as long as it fixes the problem every time,. not optimal, but acceptable,. And now shes back to printing like nothing happened. Unfortunate i don't have a second .4 nozzle to test the swapping out the nozzle theory,. On a side note, still haven't figured out the thermistor #5 issue (5deg temp flux), even re did the firmware just to make doubly sure the setting took, and re-positioned the thermistor,.. will be changing back to the #6 tomorrow,. maybe #5's and I just don't get along,. maybe i got a dud,. or maybe i damaged it somehow,. Ultimately I prefer all my hot ends having the same thermistor anyway,.
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble It sounds like you are making progress. Let us know what you finally figure out about the thermistors. Have fun!
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble mhackney's solution worked great for me. I was experiencing EXACTLY what AlexC stated in his first post. I have a Prusa i3, and recently ordered a direct drive, a bowden, and a spool of red 1.75mm from E3D-Online. I figured if they sell it, it should work their hotends . I'm a noob, and as I was calibrating, I kept assuming I was doing something wrong. I messed with the drivers, the temps, the speeds, just like everybody else. I finally found this thread, and realized it wasn't me . I was about to "season it" when I saw mhackney's idea about reducing the bore length. My bore was about 1.25mm, so I got out a proper drill bit and started slowly removing material. I can't find my pin vise, so I rolled the drill with my thumb and forefinger. I'd heat the nozzle quickly with torch( 2 or 3 waves through the flame), push some filament, hit it with cold water and yank it out. Worked like a charm. After about ten 3" pieces of PLA, I had the bore down to around .5mm in length. I had a very good feeling about this because I could even feel how much easier the filament was pushing for every 10th I took off. Before reducing the bore I couldn't feed any PLA below 205, at any speed, now I can extrude 100mm/min @ 175!. I only have a little foil in the thermister hole, so it may be running even cooler. It's early, but I have had prints running for 6 hours straight now with no seasoning or polishing, just the bore reduction. I'm even getting clean overhangs now!
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble Glad to see it worked for you ww_kayak. To date, I have heard form 14 people that all had bores > 1mm who did this mod and can now print at reasonable temps . Cheers, Michael
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble One more testimonial to the PLA jamming issues... Ordered the E3D a few weeks ago based on excellent reviews online, but honestly have been a bit disappointed, I haven't yet been able to get a decent print done and was already thinking about ordering a J-head from hotends.com, but then I stumbled upon this forum thread and started reading about drilling the inside of the nozzle, and seeing that it improved things for others, I am definately going to try it when I get home. To be on the safe side, I placed an order for another 0.4mm nozzle, just in case I damage things a bit. Will report the findings later in the evening. For the machine I am using a classic Rostock with Richraps geared-bowden extruder.
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble OK, well, I did do it, it's now exactly 0.5mm, however, while things improved a bit, I still cannot get it to print reliably. The whole drilling process took me around 20 min, doing it very slowly and carefuly. I have tried everything - temperatures up/down, speed up/down, retraction up/down, but it still does not perform very well. I should have really gotten the J-head :/
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble I suspect there is something else going on then. There are way too many of us who are getting superb results with this hot end. A couple of tips: PLA needs a slow retract speed. If you retract too fast, a phenomenon I call "hydraulic jamming" results. Try 20mm/s with 2-3 mm of retract. Dial in your temperature - most PLAs can print at 185°C (on a calibrated hot end, measure yours if you are not sure that your thermistor reading is accurate). Start reasonably slow - 25-30mm/s print speeds. It might also help if you tell us how it is failing and what part you are printing along with infill settings and slicer used. What printer are you using?
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble There is or there was an additional problem. Actually I am starting to suspect it wasn't E3Ds fault at all. One of the pneumatic fittings for the bowden tube I use was somehow starting to catch filament and cause the flow to stop. After I changed it to the plastic one supplied by E3D it started printing reasonably well. Still need to tune slicing settings to get the best prints, but looks like I have found the root cause of my stalling issues. Discovered it by accident. Had another stall, the hobbed bolt ground off the filament, but when I tried to remove it from the ptfe tube, it was very difficult - needed a lot of force to pull it out. Then I started looking for the problem and found the faulty fitting. Replaced that and it looks like it helped. Set it to print and during 1.5hrs I had no stalls at all and the part came out +/- fine. As for the drilling - anyone expierancing these problems can still do it, the process is quite simple without a need for some expensive tools (I just bought a new drill bit for 0.2 eur). Just remember to go slow, remeasure after each time and clean out the inside of the nozzle afterwards. Well, at the end - lesson learned! Before blaming something, check everything related to the problem. The extruder, the hot end, the feeding pipe, the filament etc... Going to try a longer print in the evening to see how it will perform, but I feel that I have found the real culprit and eliminated it.
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble I hope that you did find the root cause of your problems. We should know in a few days of printing. Thanks for letting us know what you suspect was the real cause.
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble imyz, absolutely check everything first! That's what I've been saying all along. Once you get all of those other things sorted, if you still have problems printing PLA check the nozzle bore and then proceed. cheers, Michael
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble On page one of this thread you opened, you have a picture of your printer with a fan on a bendable shaft and a clamp. Can I ask if you purchased this fan or did you make it? If you purchased it I would like to find them and buy a couple.
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble Signed up to report that I had the bore issue as well. The problem with clicking/missing E-steps manifested after I upgraded to a Bulldog XL extruder. I assume my old stock K8200 extruder just slipped on the hobbed bolt, whereas the new extruder's superior filament grip transfered the increased resistance to the motor which thus started missing steps. Before, I tried everything I could muster, and a combination of peanut oil and extremely high temperatures worked so-so, but I would still had missing steps every now and then. Also, the oil made it a real pain in the ass getting PLA to stick to my heated bed mandating a degreasing alcohol rub between every print, which is quite bothersome to say the least. After reading this I drilled out one of my nozzles quite roughly with my Makita to approximately 0.5 mm, and I could lower print temp by 20-30 C, and once again print black PLA on 190 C as is reasonable. I did however thoughtlessly use a 3 mm drill, which weakened the nozzle enough that it burst after a few prints, plastic gushing out of a rupture half way up the cone. Rinse and repeat with my last nozzle. :shock: This time I ended up using a 2 mm drill instead and probed the drill depth with a cut piece of tooth pick, measured against the full length of the nozzle minus approximately 0.6 mm. Success! Now the printer once again purrs like a kitten, without hiccups.
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble Great that you got her purring again. Happy Printing!
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble Those bendable shaft fans are a work in progress of mine,. kind of thinking about putting them up on ebay to see if anyone will bite, since i haven't seen anything like them on the market,... but the unit cost is kind of high as i am using high end fans that iv tested to work exceptionally well with 3D printing. buton the flip side of that in reality they aren't that hard to make yourself if you know the secret ingredient,. so, not sure if its even worth it in the end,. but the current versions that i am testing are near final versions,. and are working out perfectly with three connection options, a dual spooler version, and power switches at each attachment point. Iv added quite a bit to the bot since that first pic =) I will be releasing the STL's and BOM on thingiverse (non compete) once they are final.
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble OK, a few days have passed since I made the modification to the nozzle and found out about the pneumatic fitting problem and I have to say, that the hotend now performs extremely well. I am now getting really fantastic looking prints from the machine. Not really sure if it was the nozzle modif or the pneumatic fitting, or the fact, that I upgraded to an extruder with geared stepper (works fantastic btw), but really - wow! Sorry no pictures as I'm too lazy to take them A big thanks to E3D guys for an amazing product!
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble It was the nozzle mod Seriously, enough people have now made the mod and emailed or pm'd me with their results and all have been very pleased. I agree, these are great hot ends. cheers, Michael
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble I'v had a few more lock-ups in the last few weeks, re-season and it works again, for a while, but not for much longer than ~ 3-4 weeks. so i just ordered a backup nozzle, and when it arrives ill be doing the nozzle mod too. hopefully that will get rid of this problem once and for all for me. Its funny i have one particular PLA that i now call "De-seasoning Blue",. if i put this stuff in it pretty much immediately ruins the seasoning. all other colors i have will go for weeks without a re-season,. but not this one particular color. Also grabbed a spare heat sink for a water cooling mod i have planned. will start a new thread for that when it arrives and i get started on it..
Re: E3D v5 All Metal w/Direct Pinch skipping/clicking proble All of that sounds interesting,and I am really interested in your vapour smoothing mod!
