Newbie with printer problems
Hi,
As the title indicates I'm new here, just finished the assembly of my first ever 3d printer. Yesterday I tried to print the PLA buddy off of the sd card and ran into some problems with crash report - heating and it ended up with the print head knocking the model off the steel print surface with the puppy's head half finished, so I tried again today. Started out well and about an hour into the print I started getting the same "crash detected - heating" again some times the print head would move of to the side for a few second and then start printing again without any intervention by me and sometimes I would have two or three in a short period and it would ask if I wanted to continue printing. What puzzles me is the the temperature displayed on the screen was always within one degree of the set temperature and I started taking pictures of the screen when these crash reports occurred, actually it shows "crash detected" and on the next screen it says "heating" and then goes to show the heating progress on yet another screen. I have assembled these photos in a zip file and will attach it if I can figure out how to do it, there is also a picture of the puppy that I finished today, you can see a little filament by it's right shoulder and that's the point where the problem started, kind of spoils the fun of printing when you have to watch the printer closely for more than an hour to get the print done. I turned the air conditioning of before starting the print so there would be no disturbance.
I don't know where I should start to look for the problem, so I hope someone here can point me in the right direction.
Any help will be appreciated.
Svenko
RE: Newbie with printer problems
"Heating..." is just a remnant text message and really means nothing (blame the developers).
Attach photos by dragging and dropping them into the text dialog. Be sure you change the LINK TO setting to Media File.
Finger prints will cause poor bed adhesion and parts will be easy to knock off the bed. Handle the sheet by the edges. Never touch the print surface.
Crashes are usually caused by dry bearings (they need to be packed with grease before installation). Add a few drops of oil on the rods and move the bed and extruder bak and forth to work oil into the bearings. Make sure the U-bolts are only snug, not tight. The clamping can crush the bearing housing. Same with extruder case screws near the X-axis bearings .. loosen them and see if that helps. The LCD has a menu option to show statistics. It will say which axis is crashing.
RE: Newbie with printer problems
Hello. Suggestions:
Turn off crash detection in the menu and turn off the filament sensor. Then try a print and see if that fixes the problem and lets you complete a print. https://help.prusa3d.com/ is a link to the knowledge base where there is good information for future reference...
It is frustrating when the new toy does thing work properly, So I feel your pain. however, it is not something that cannot be fixed. It sounds like the filament sensor is acting up from your description. Fortunately, it is not needed for the first prints since you clearly have enough filament.
If you go to the menu fail stats, you can see what kind of crashes you have. I had a similar problem to what you describe without changing anything after having printed for a while and turned off the filament sensor and it fixed the problem... I blew it out the sensor and it fixed it. However, since you just assembled the printer, if you can complete prints after turning off the filament sensor, I would check to make sure it is correctly assembled.
Hope that helps!
Strange women, laying in ponds, distributing swords, is hardly a basis for a system of governance!
RE: Newbie with printer problems
Thanks tim-m30 and jbinfl for the replies, I distinctly remember the assembly instructions saying the bearings were prelubricated, so much for that, checking the failure stats show me X-0 and Y-24 so now I know where to look for the problem. I really appreciate the quick response I'll make sure to check everything on the Y and the X as well. Thanks for the help.
RE: Newbie with printer problems
U-bolts need to be snug, not tight. Just enough the bearings don't move when banging the stops. Very easy to over do the nuts.
Also - look for low hanging cables that can snag the bed.
Ensure the bed cable harness isn't dragging on something close to the printer.
And check that the belt is tight, and the drive pulley is properly attached to the motor shaft (flat first). Start with both set screws loose. Align one set screw on the flat, tighten down; then the second set screw is tightened. If not done in that order, the gears are not properly attached and will come loose. To adjust the gear, loosen the set screw on the round first, then loosen the flat set screw. Order is important.
RE: Newbie with printer problems
Thanks again tim-m30 I'll be going through everything suggested and check my work carefully, appreciate the help.