Endless Issues?
Folks I'm in a spot. We are a nonprofit printing prosthetics in a remote area. Getting stuff in here is a challenge but it can be done. We have had great results with our Mk3S+ printers for three years and thousands of hours. We developed a prosthetic for which we needed more space and multimaterial abilities like TPU/PETG. So we had some fundraising and got a two head XL. When it works it's fantastic but honestly it's down as much as it works. First there were all sorts of transient issues with the control screen. Customer Support seemed lost. Then I remembered similar issues with an industrial CNC router and put ferrite rings on in a number of locations and that went away. Then a brand new thermistor failed and while they replaced it they sent it to our ocean freight forwarder instead of our air forwarder like I asked. Two months later I get it and get running again. Two days later now it prints five layers of a smaller TPU part and the extruder stops. Every time. The filament is coming in from overhead so no dragging in a tube. I have reloaded firmware for the 10th time or more and as usual it doesn't solve anything. If I shut down and restart it will do the same thing. I'm now so far behind on work it has become a big issue. Worse people who had great hopes of receiving a prosthetic have to be told that right now nothing is coming and that hurts our reputation. I can't keep a chat connection and so resort to email which always takes four days of more lost time. I greatly envy you who have them that just run. Any ideas on a solution other than pitching this very expensive brick in the river? We are getting very desperate. What happened to the Prusa we used to know, this is becoming a circus but a sad frustrating one. We are out the money, those who donated to us want to know what is going on and we can't seem to get good answers. I have sent of yet another email to Prusa support but reading forums there seems to be a lot of this issue and precious few solutions. We are running latest firmware 6.3.1. dry all filaments since we are after all in the tropics. Have the fan mod on the control board. This is not a hobby, we change lives with what we do. But we can't if our equipment won't run. We are advising others in the world who want to do what we do and I no longer know who to recommend for printers. There's over 1.4 million people in the world who need prosthetics like this and we are trying to develop a solid program but at theis point I'm beginning to suspect Prusa is no longer a safe bet. But we need this one to run or we lose a complete model line. Frustrated to the extreme!
RE: Endless Issues?
I don't have any suggestions other than I can try to print on my XL and see if I have any issues. Can you upload the 3mf file?
I have not had any issues with my 5 head with regular printing. TPU is finicky on the XL and depending on the TPU your using the settings can vary greatly. I've actually had the best luck with hotter temps and minimal retraction.
I'll also note that you might think you're filament is dry but it's probably not. I keep mine and print directly from dry boxes with 15% relative humidity. My suspect is your moisture is higher than that and TPU in particular is hygroscopic which means it will absorb any moisture from the air. That wouldn't necessarily explain the extruder just stopping but it could lead to poor print quality especially with TPU.
If you upload the file I'll take a look at the settings and see if I can make any recommendations as well as trying to print it to see if I have issues. I will also note that I print from my dry box through Bowden tube I skipped the side sensor but I still have quite a bit of tubing that I drag through and still print without issue.
Can you also please provide information on the filament you're using including the hardness?
RE:
@sailoreric, are you feeding your tpu by the PTFE tubes or directly to the extruder?
You should disable the side filament sensor and feed it, from above, directly to the extruder, because the tubes drags the filament
RE: Endless Issues?
TPU is being fed directly from overhead. I live in the edge of the jungle in the tropics and have learned a thing or two about moisture control in filament over the years! Believe me that is not the issue. The extruder just stops turning. Side sensors are turned off I feed out of dryers. Another person took the code and printed fine. Hunting around a bit there seems to be a lot of issues with extruders just stopping to operate. If you open the door the wheel isn't turning. When it works this printer is fantastic but it has been one problem after another and customer support often seems to be guessing. For the amount this cost I've become pretty disenchanted with the endless issues.
RE: Endless Issues?
I haven't had this issue, I too feed TPU from overhead but it's still necessary to loosen the idler as in this video or it can jam...
Cheerio,
RE: Endless Issues?
Not jamming. the extruder wheel just stops. As of this morning it has quit completely. Waiting for the days long wait to get customer support.
I haven't had this issue, I too feed TPU from overhead but it's still necessary to loosen the idler as in this video or it can jam...
Cheerio,
RE: Endless Issues?
Can you use the other tool head?
RE: Endless Issues?
Hey SailorEric,
I have been reading the forum to see if I want to get a prusa again. And so I have come across this post:
It could have happened on a print when the room was too hot even if you do not have a case around the printer.
I hope you will get things running soon.
Jelbert
RE: Endless Issues?
Yes, but in my case and several others the extruder just suddenly stops. Customer Service is saying no returns but no solutions. Not good.
Hey SailorEric,
I have been reading the forum to see if I want to get a prusa again. And so I have come across this post:
It could have happened on a print when the room was too hot even if you do not have a case around the printer.
I hope you will get things running soon.
Jelbert
This is one of those issues that just doesn't happen here - so I'm powerless to help.
Cheerio,
RE: Endless Issues?
You say the extruder stops. Does the stepper stop or does the stepper keep turning and the filament stops? Because you said you had problems with spikes on the wires and you have that solved with ferrite beads. could it be an electrical problem?
Now I'm looking for the complete schematics, it should be open source, and I can only find the lcd board. I would like to see how the stepper drivers are hooked up to see if they could overload somehow.
RE: Endless Issues?
Extruder stops and only starts with a shut down and reboot. As of today it won't even reboot. Get a blue error screen. They are not answering support emails now for a week. I may have to ratchet this up to a chargeback. 5 months of issues is trying my patience.
You say the extruder stops. Does the stepper stop or does the stepper keep turning and the filament stops? Because you said you had problems with spikes on the wires and you have that solved with ferrite beads. could it be an electrical problem?
Now I'm looking for the complete schematics, it should be open source, and I can only find the lcd board. I would like to see how the stepper drivers are hooked up to see if they could overload somehow.
RE: Endless Issues?
Do you have any radio transmitters in the neighbourhood of your building? Any heavy machinery like machines with big induction on the net? Any other devices that could give transients on the net?
When I started out with 3d printing in 2009 my first printer was a repman. It was prone to faults that came from the induction of its own motors. I solved that with ferrite beads. Later I did bring it to a hobbyist show and someone was showing a Tesla device. It did blew out the logic board from quite a distance. The long wires to the motors were perfect antennas and the logic could not withstand that.
Electronics nowadays is much better against transients but the output from an mcu can still blow from stuff like that. And they can also just get damaged but not blow all the way and that results in wanky electronics, like sometimes it does work and other times it does not.
At a company I worked for they had an un-grounded conductive floor. The company below the used some machinery. And when measured there was a voltage difference from the floor to the ground of 110V. The current was tiny but it would burn a LED. Grounding the floor solved that problem.
So there are all kind of things that could go wrong that normally do not happen. And so it goes right most of the time. But in the out back things can be different and you could have all kinds of interference.
So here are some things you might already tried:
Try to make the simplest configuration of the printer you can. So make it a mono head printer. It could be that one of the boards of one of the heads is broken. Make a one head config and try all heads one by one. And make sure you are grounded when handling the electronics.
Use a grounded wall socket and make sure the grounding is of good quality. The ground is not always properly connected, like to the radiator pipes.
Try to print at night when all people sleep. This gives much less chance of all kind of interference from mobile equipment. Here at home in Almere (the Netherlands) I can measure a big difference in the noise I pickup when I build something sensitive.
If the input capacitors in the power supply are not so good then there can get a imbalance between the Live and Neutral wire. If you reverse the live and neutral (not earth or ground!) wire it could work better. Here in the Netherlands we can just turn the plug 180 degrees to do that.
Try to use an ups to power the printer or run the printer from a big battery and a dc/ac converter to create a clean net. For a printer like that it is not very practical to do that. A generator could work too but then You really have to do good filtering on the mains line. here Are some examples on that.
And if the surroundings are really bad you can try to make the room into a Faraday cage. You can use chicken fence gauze for that and ground it very well. Also use a RFI filter on the mains. I know some people who live next to a transformer station and they did this to their bedroom to be able to get a good night rest.
Because supplies are hard to come by at your location: For the RFI filter you can salvage the input transformers of a couple of old pc switching powersupplies. The needed capacitors are in there too. Try to have it put together by someone knowing electronics. If you need help please let me know I might be able to guide you through on zoom or skype.
I started out on reading about problems with the XL because I wanted to know all possible problems before buying one. So I can not test with you to see if I can replicate the problem. Like see at how much interference the thing would start acting up. But I hope I can help anyway.
RE: Endless Issues?
I have three other printers working on the same mains circuit. Each has it's own UPS. It seems Prusa has just admitted they have a firmware issue to another person. I haven't had a reply in over a week. We shall see.
RE: Endless Issues?
Are they also Prusa's? They make their own hardware. It is very easy to make a design fault in hardware like forgetting a bit of noise suppression. Then the circuit works for most people except in a noisy environment.
I did hardware design for years and made my share of mistakes too.
But hey I hope it will be solved with a software update.
RE: Endless Issues?
Two MK3S+ and one other .
Are they also Prusa's? They make their own hardware. It is very easy to make a design fault in hardware like forgetting a bit of noise suppression. Then the circuit works for most people except in a noisy environment.
I did hardware design for years and made my share of mistakes too.
But hey I hope it will be solved with a software update.
RE: Endless Issues?
You might want to look at your fan mod for the control board. I read someone did it which replaced the steel cover with a ventilated printed part. However the RF interference (possibly from the buck/boost voltage controller) was causing the extruder motor to stop mid print on all tools sporadically. The solution was to pull the mod out but then you risk over heating the control board. Try putting the steel cover back on. It does seem crazy that there is no vents on the cover but that may be to reduce RF interference. Good luck.
RE: Endless Issues?
Yup, I tried that also, no happiness. I run my fan on a 12 volt feed I have right there anyways. If I need to pull the fan I can just duct some air to it with the fan a few feet away. They are currently sending a new buddy board as the printer, on top of everything else, will no longer boot up and they think there's a bad chip in the Buddy board. Also trying two new print heads since the extruders stop after a few layers while it keeps moving.
You might want to look at your fan mod for the control board. I read someone did it which replaced the steel cover with a ventilated printed part. However the RF interference (possibly from the buck/boost voltage controller) was causing the extruder motor to stop mid print on all tools sporadically. The solution was to pull the mod out but then you risk over heating the control board. Try putting the steel cover back on. It does seem crazy that there is no vents on the cover but that may be to reduce RF interference. Good luck.