Core One - cheerless experience
My C1 was ordered on the 22nd of May, arrived on Monday, ready for the first print on Friday. Assembled in around 8-9h. No issues at all, comments from users helped a lot! No previous 3d printing experience but I feel comfortable with electronics.
So, my C1 on grey prusament (new from a sealed bag) experience after 3 days - very mixed results:
1. 3 first prints - just wow - keychain, spatula (must have), a test print for a terrain for a tabletop game. 2 first ones from the pendrive, the third one from the slicer on fast detail settings.
2. A series of failures, all prints ended with a clog. Maybe 6 of them. Nothing really complicated, toppers for miniatures, maybe 20-30m in a range of 3 to 20g of filament. All prints eded with a clog. Basically in the middle of the print, the filament stopped flowing. My fault to be fair, was too ambitious probably as I 've just replaced a few stock settings in the slicer with "the best for terrain printing". Among them, there was one that was causing issues (wasn't aware of that back then).
3. I've contacted support. They asked me to print any item directly from the pendrive to make sure it wasn't an issue with my slicer settings. Boom, the robo lama was perfect (a 4h print!). The setting that is causing issues was ironing (will test it in future for sure!)
4. Cheerfuly resumed slicing! This time just "Fast details" on 0.4 CHT nozzle! The first print - again perfect! But it was just a tiny print, 4g of filament in total.
5. The next one (today). "Fast details", 20g of filament, 1h 55. After 1h the filament stopped flowing... Again the same? Tried to unclog the nozzle. Not so easy, unloaded and disassembled the hotend. While in all the previous failures the filament was sticking out of the tube and had no issue with taking it out easily with fingers, this time it got stuck deep inside. Tried to heat it with a heat gun, it reaches around 300deg. After a few sec the filament in the tube just exploded... Literally, it blew up pushing everything up. I suspect there was a socket of air in the tube. I'm not sure if I want to use the set again on a 1k euro printer... Just ordered a new one.
6. But, as I had an another nozzle (0.25 brass), I just changed it and repeated the same model. The settings on the printer adjusted! Sliced for 0.12mm, vanilla settings. The filament stopped flowing after 15m. That was the moment I decided to share the story.
The printer is still in my workshop, 25deg there today. I'm not expecting less in Europe for the next 3months. The chamber reaches >30 easily during the prints. All the vents working fine, the top ventilation opened (I just need to secure with a sticker or so to prevent from accidental closing).
I'm just confused. Is it something that I should expect from 3D printing? Thoughts? I expected something easier... Removing each clog required from me disassembling the entire hotend. Relatively easy but the top cover doesn't make it pleasant.
I need to chill before I unclog the 0.25 nozzle...
RE: Core One - cheerless experience
That's some bad luck for sure. I've not had any clogs on my machine thus far so I'm not sure I can offer a ton of suggestions other than to say that that's not the typical experience. My chamber is regularly at ~35C and PLA has been printing great.
I do have a couple of questions:
1. Where is your filament placed? Is it in the side-mounted filament holder or some other sort of arrangement?
2. Can you post some pictures of your printhead / hotend? My thought here is maybe the nozzle hasn't been pushed fully up into the printhead? Have you checked this?
3. How tight are the screws on the nextruder idler? A picture here would be helpful. The ends of the screws should be just at the end of the printed part.
4. Is the printhead fan working?
RE:
Sorry to hear that :/ Seems to be heat creep. Please go to the settings on the printer display, User Interface - > Footer - > set the empty slot to "heatbreak".
Now you'll see the heatbreak temperature during printing and can check, if it's going up. The standard slicer settings set the target temperature to 36°C for PLA. However, depending on the backpressure at the tip of the nozzle, the resistance in the nozzle and the extruder clamping force, the filament can get stuck. For me, some clicking from the extruder starts around 39°C heatbreak temp.
Ironing causing the issue makes sense. The nozzle is basically scrubbing on the top surface, causing a lot of backpressure at the tip and very little filament flow, causing the filament sitting longer in the heated parts, making the heat creep up.
So a few "maybe solutions":
- Set the heatbreak target temp to just 32°C instead of 36 in the Slicer settings - filament - Custom G-Code (scroll down in the little window). If your heatbreak fan has some headroom left, it will spin faster.
- Leave the door a little bit open should already help.
- Raise the chamber fans limit. Stock, it's at 40%. But they can turn into jet engines!
- If the print is sticking well enough without warping, lower the bed temperature. It massively reduces the chamber temperature for longer prints. Bambu plates fit into the Core One too, so maybe get some "Supertack Coolplate" or one of the Biqu Frostbite/Glacier or some other "Coolplate". But beware, even if the print keeps sticking to the sheet, the print might warp the sheet off the heatbed.
- Reduce the nozzle temperature. This can also lead to more clogging, since the resistance increases, but it can also reduce the chamber- and heatbreak temperatures.
RE: Core One - cheerless experience
Thanks for all the advices! Appreciated! As soon as I have a new nozzle (tomorrow/Wed), I'll apply slowly new settings. But... There is one concerning setting in the vanilla setup of Prusa Slicer. Why the standard nozzle temp for Prusament PLA on CoreOne @0.4 (the system preset!) is 230. I guess that's the first one to be fixed in the PrusaSlicer to help "rookies". When loading/unloading, the printer heats up to 215, which, as per the spec, is the correct default temperature.
Tried to heat it with a heat gun, it reaches around 300deg. After a few sec the filament in the tube just exploded... Literally, it blew up pushing everything up.
Almost certain to be damp filament - you boiled the water.
The warm air mass currently over Europe is humid enough to affect filament within a few hours.
We often hear of new users printing OK on day one (with fresh from the factory filament that hasn't been hanging around a warehouse) and then getting increasing difficulty on day two/three. Most experienced users will dry their filament between prints (and new filaments before first use), perhaps do two or three very small jobs without drying but not allowing more than half a day without drying unless the filament is being used up as fast as it spoils.
Avoid the detail settings at first and don't use ironing either until you have a few weeks experience; your extruder idler pressure *might* need tweaking but your choice of shallow layers and near-zero height ironing passes are always going to be trickier to manage as a new user. As @raaz-2 suggests they increase the chance of heat creep 'though as you can print the supplied files it doesn't seem insurmountable.
Cheerio,
RE: Core One - cheerless experience
The majority of the problems solved. A drier makes miracles. Printing in 210-215 fixed all the issues. Thanks for all the advices!
RE: Core One - cheerless experience
Hey, are you drying the filament and have you reduced the temperature from 230 to 215 or 210? (First layer 215 and other layers 210?). I am asking since I have experienced a similar issue and now the filament tore when I tried unloading. I would like to figure out what might be going on...
RE: Core One - cheerless experience
I've a MK3S+ also and noticing that even filament brands that stand up very well to normal summer weather (Smartfil PLA is especially good and a opened spool can print for years) need extensive drying after a few days of open air printing. Just get a dry box (or make one yourself) and print from that.
RE: Core One - cheerless experience
Thx! I am planning to print the dedicated Dry Box and I have already printed desiccant containers for my storage boxes. I have held back on the dry box since I need to print TPU since it is more sensitive to humidity and I wanted the containers first.
However, I am also wondering if you are referring to this dry box or a different, electric one which actually dries the filament with heat.
RE: Core One - cheerless experience
Thx! I am planning to print the dedicated Dry Box and I have already printed desiccant containers for my storage boxes. I have held back on the dry box since I need to print TPU since it is more sensitive to humidity and I wanted the containers first.
However, I am also wondering if you are referring to this dry box or a different, electric one which actually dries the filament with heat.
For very hydroscopic filaments like Nylon or TPU, I dry them first then print them directly from the dryer rather than spool them on the printer. When done I store them in a dry box using activated alumina instead of silica gel which keeps the relative humidity of the box to around 15%.
RE: Core One - cheerless experience
Why the standard nozzle temp for Prusament PLA on CoreOne @0.4 (the system preset!) is 230. I guess that's the first one to be fixed in the PrusaSlicer to help "rookies". When loading/unloading, the printer heats up to 215, which, as per the spec, is the correct default temperature.
I didn't see anyone address this question: most PLA melts at 190 to 215, but to make it flow well while extruding at faster speeds and higher volumetric flow rates, it needs to be even more fluid than 'just melted' ...