Anet A8 3D Printer.

[ukracer]

I do feel your pain with the printer problems, I have now amassed 3 of them, an Ender 3, a CR10 (It came at the right price and has a nice big build bed) and a delta printer (I just like to sit and watch the marvel of it printing)

I thought at first I would never get the delta printer to work properly, I now (hopefully not jinxing it saying this) have it working reliably (and it actually makes some great prints and is a mater at overhangs) and I had the other printers working well.

Then the Ender 3 started under extruding one evening shortly into a 20hr print, I suspected it may be the problem with the bowden tube lifting slightly, then when I went to look at the printer the next morning my suspicions were confirmed as the tube had come out and there was the printer printing in fresh air whist unwinding the roll of filament onto the floor. Fixed that and it now seems to be ok only for problems to tart with the CR10, which appeared to be a bowden problem. New fittings and tube later and it seems to be ok apart from it keeps depositing balls of molten PLA so is over extruding for some reason.

I think the saying is true.

If you like playing with a 3D printer, buy a 3D printer. If you want 3D printed objects, befriend someone with a 3D printer.

I had mine working fine in my weekend retreat now its been moved and then carried by the father in law to the back room i have had to chase a number of problems.

My challenge is to get the base layers right as it does seem intermittant.
I spent ages printing out a cross hair in a square for bed levelling and i really struggled.
So i tried a raft....that printed out awful but the led strip clips printed out fine...they even came away from the raft well (they just happened to be too narrow) lol

Dont forget the latest versions of cura has a lot of retraction that causes clogging and has to be reduced to 3 or 4mm in my case.

 

[ukracer]

I have been printing 12" by 12" by 6" sections that have 3kg of PLA in them, take ~45 hours and I have printed several in a row before now running into an issue with the bowden tube needing replacing (and a software issue with a setting changing during a Cura update which is not really the printers fault) so I am confident there was no build problem with the printer and after a few hundred hours of almost non-stop printing at reasonably high extrusion rates a bit of maintenance is not really unexpected.

What was the software settings change?

 

[ukracer]

Hmm not sure that's genuine but been ages since I priced them

The E3D lite had a ptfe liner and was say £23 ish as opposed to around £65 for the E3D

Its not...lol

 

[bigegg]

Dont forget the latest versions of cura has a lot of retraction that causes clogging and has to be reduced to 3 or 4mm in my case.

interesting...
because the model I've been struggling with was sliced in a brand new version of cura...

never thought to try an older, successfully printed model.

 

[130]

Its not...lol

for the pittance involved, considering quality issues, I'd go for a genuine lite

 

[130]

interesting...
because the model I've been struggling with was sliced in a brand new version of cura...

never thought to try an older, successfully printed model.

im still on old Cura, even though I imported profiles it still altered crap that mattered so as the printer hasn't changed no need to change software really

 

[bigegg]

im still on old Cura, even though I imported profiles it still altered crap that mattered so as the printer hasn't changed no need to change software really

I'll remember that for next time.

I'll have to wait for some more PTFE tube to arrive before I test with an old model: after cutting the damaged ends, it's now too short.

 

[ukracer]

I managed to print some clips..they look good to me.
Seems like i have some setting altering the base layers...

 

[DAPPH]

Yehaaa! I got a brand spanking new Prusa i3 MK3 3D printer, delivered by DHL this afternoon .
Trouble is the package was swaddled up like a mummy slathered in 100 mm wide bright yellow tape with red writing that stated " repacked by DHL ". The drivedr didn't say anything about it, so I signed for the delivery.

" No probs " ,I thought " They were the shippers all the way from Prague and would any customs check people " . On removing the outer covering bag it soon became apparent that some serious mishandling has taken place .
Thank goodness I took loads of photo's of the package as it arrived and as I started to uncover it ..
Here's a picture of the inside of the outer heavy duty cardboard packing box .. I'm waiting to see if Prusa are happy for me to try and build the printer knowing there may be damage to it .


Don't know how or why that picture has appeared .. will wait a while before I re try.

 

[tlovatt]

What was the software settings change?

The extrusion flow, there may be others I have not found yet, moving between different versions of Cura can be a pain, the most reliable version I use for the Ender 3 nd delta printer is 15.06 on the Octopi units that does the slicing and controls the printers - for that version my printers both came with a profile that gives good results.

 

[PhillipM]

I managed to print some clips..they look good to me.
Seems like i have some setting altering the base layers...View attachment 157416 View attachment 157417 View attachment 157418 View attachment 157419

That's a whole lot of wasted plastic for a raft. You really shouldn't need to use one on printers these days.

 

[DAPPH]

I thought that too . Surely the clips could be printed out on a ladder type grid or as a chain .
The way the clips came out …. Does that mean the clips will have to be fret-sawed off the base or do they have easily cuttable hairs supporting them ?

 

[bigegg]

I thought that too . Surely the clips could be printed out on a ladder type grid or as a chain .
The way the clips came out …. Does that mean the clips will have to be fret-sawed off the base or do they have easily cuttable hairs supporting them ?

the base should snap off by hand.
worst case, pair of scissors.

 

[ukracer]

I thought that too . Surely the clips could be printed out on a ladder type grid or as a chain .
The way the clips came out …. Does that mean the clips will have to be fret-sawed off the base or do they have easily cuttable hairs supporting them ?

Quite possibly....but it came as one clip and i am still trying to learn layouts etc.

They snapped off brilliant , far far better than i imagined. To be honest i am having a bit of trouble working out why the extruder is at 210 when i have it set to 192.
And its not sticking to the bed well on small things. I have always used hair spray but i am now on a clean washed glass bed nothing sprayed on.

Also the blower fan does not seem to work at all but it printed great.

So i am experimenting rather than optimising

 

[tlovatt]

Quite possibly....but it came as one clip and i am still trying to learn layouts etc.

They snapped of brilliant far far better than i imagined. To be honest i am having a bit of trouble working out why the extruder is at 210 when i have it set to 192.

Also the blower fan does not seem to work at all but it printed great.

So i am experimenting rather than optimising

Normally the blower fan should be set not to operate for the first few layers and even then, it is only really needed when you need to speed up the cooling such as overhangs or if you have small layers, with the time it would take to lay out all of those clips (unless you set it to print each one in turn) the blower would probably be of little use.

As for temp - in Cura check if you have changed both the initial and normal printing temp?

 

[ukracer]

That's a whole lot of wasted plastic for a raft. You really shouldn't need to use one on printers these days.

To be fair it was a godsend having the clips in one place and snapping them of as i needed them but that was more by luck than judgement.
I am messing about with base layer settings as it seems hard to get a balance between trying to squish the first layer and blocking the nozzle causing clicking from bowden set up.

I am trying to find a good clear you tube video of the printing process to see what it should be looking like. But most videos are time lapses....i will have a good search later.

 

[ukracer]

Normally the blower fan should be set not to operate for the first few layers and even then, it is only really needed when you need to speed up the cooling such as overhangs or if you have small layers, with the time it would take to lay out all of those clips (unless you set it to print each one in turn) the blower would probably be of little use.

As for temp - in Cura check if you have changed both the initial and normal printing temp?

I have changed it mate..thats why its bugging me.

As for blower i guessed it printed fine despite not having fan on......but i wondered why it was not operating at all.....its done this once before but i dont remember how i fixed it..lol

 

[tlovatt]

I have changed it mate..thats why its bugging me.

As for blower i guessed it printed fine despite not having fan on......but i wondered why it was not operating at all.....its done this once before but i dont remember how i fixed it..lol

It is another setting in Cura - although you can also change it once the print has started. To begin with you may have better luck with Cura 15.06 before they added 15,000 settings and hid most of them!

The airflow director on the blower for my CR10 got removed as part of a commissioning incident (i.e. a failed first print ripped it off!) and it has never been a problem anyway.

Instead of a raft you can use a brim which will use less filament but still provide good adhesion for smaller objects and it you set it wide enough provide a link to hold them all together until you peel them off.

There is no one clear answer to bed levelling - it is a case of finding something that works, some people use a business card and this work well, on my ender 3 I use a till receipt and that works yet there is a large variation in thickness between those 2 items. What you are looking for is:

The first layer to be stuck to the bed.
To be of consistent thickness.
For there to be no gaps between the lines (indicates the nozzle is too high or you have insufficient flow).
for the top of it to be reasonably smooth and not have signs of the nozzle being dragged through it afterwards - indicates the nozzle is too low.

If you print objects with a brim you can use this time to look at the lines coming out and adjust the bed levelling so it looks even - just keep going and you will get the hang of it and discover what is right for you

There are some good photos here of what things should look like

https://imgur.com/gallery/0Y7DC

 

[tlovatt]

One surprise I have had with the 3D printers though is the delta - it has been a sod to get running, but now seems reliable and is amazing to watch, especially at speed. I has getting concerned the printer would fall to bits, but right now with the speed over 170mm/s I am getting concerned about the table it is sat on

 

[ukracer]

It is another setting in Cura - although you can also change it once the print has started. To begin with you may have better luck with Cura 15.06 before they added 15,000 settings and hid most of them!

The airflow director on the blower for my CR10 got removed as part of a commissioning incident (i.e. a failed first print ripped it off!) and it has never been a problem anyway.

Instead of a raft you can use a brim which will use less filament but still provide good adhesion for smaller objects and it you set it wide enough provide a link to hold them all together until you peel them off.

There is no one clear answer to bed levelling - it is a case of finding something that works, some people use a business card and this work well, on my ender 3 I use a till receipt and that works yet there is a large variation in thickness between those 2 items. What you are looking for is:

The first layer to be stuck to the bed.
To be of consistent thickness.
For there to be no gaps between the lines (indicates the nozzle is too high or you have insufficient flow).
for the top of it to be reasonably smooth and not have signs of the nozzle being dragged through it afterwards - indicates the nozzle is too low.

If you print objects with a brim you can use this time to look at the lines coming out and adjust the bed levelling so it looks even - just keep going and you will get the hang of it and discover what is right for you

There are some good photos here of what things should look like

https://imgur.com/gallery/0Y7DC

Have you got the stl of that file??