RE: Tension pulley broken
Cheaper than good PA-CF 🙂
I found I had to creep up a half turn or less at a time on each tensioner or it would pull the gantry wildly out of square. Release tension and its back to square.
RE: Tension pulley broken
42$/1Kg Spool. I printed a few Core One mods, and spares w/ it. I can't say how satisfied I am yet, as the mods have only been in the printer a week, and haven't used the spares, but they seem to be adequate.
Thanks but that's only available via Amazon US, I can get it shipped to me (in the UK) but with import fees etc it's bordering the price of Prusa PCCF.
RE:
My money is on your gantry not being square at the start (even if it was, after applying enough tension to open up a 1cm gap it likely isn't any more). I'm sure you've seen the procedure for squaring it - it involves using a spacer on one side so you can pull the other side hard enough (with belt tension removed completely) to bend the brackets until the gantry is squared up.
Yes, well aware of gantry squareness... Gantry is square (or it is again after this incident). There is currently no way (that I can determine) to adjust the tension such that there is a 6hz difference between the belts without introducing significant skew in the gantry. For now, I'd rather live with any VFA's but it's making me want to have my MK4S back...
RE: Tension pulley broken
Yes, well aware of gantry squareness... Gantry is square (or it is again after this incident). There is currently no way (that I can determine) to adjust the tension such that there is a 6hz difference between the belts without introducing significant skew in the gantry. For now, I'd rather live with any VFA's but it's making me want to have my MK4S back...
yeah, I'm starting to feel the same. part of me wants to just switch it back to mk4s. But I have another upgrade in the box waiting to upgrade my 2nd mk4s. I really would like to see this work. I'm not touching the other mk4s until this one is figured out though.
RE:
Yes, well aware of gantry squareness... Gantry is square (or it is again after this incident). There is currently no way (that I can determine) to adjust the tension such that there is a 6hz difference between the belts without introducing significant skew in the gantry. For now, I'd rather live with any VFA's but it's making me want to have my MK4S back...
yeah, I'm starting to feel the same. part of me wants to just switch it back to mk4s. But I have another upgrade in the box waiting to upgrade my 2nd mk4s. I really would like to see this work. I'm not touching the other mk4s until this one is figured out though.
If I had a second MK4S, I would just keep it as such unless you have a need to print material requiring an enclosure. I was even thinking of buying a Mini just in case I need a spare printer to make replacement parts for my C1. I'm being slightly sarcastic but I'm still annoyed that I've been spending the last 1 month with endless tweaking to get this printer to work.
If it wasn't for this forum and the fixes I've found here for various errors and crashes I would have returned it to Prusa for a refund. Although, not sure how you "return" a conversion kit.
RE: Tension pulley broken
My money is on your gantry not being square at the start (even if it was, after applying enough tension to open up a 1cm gap it likely isn't any more). I'm sure you've seen the procedure for squaring it - it involves using a spacer on one side so you can pull the other side hard enough (with belt tension removed completely) to bend the brackets until the gantry is squared up.
Yes, well aware of gantry squareness... Gantry is square (or it is again after this incident). There is currently no way (that I can determine) to adjust the tension such that there is a 6hz difference between the belts without introducing significant skew in the gantry. For now, I'd rather live with any VFA's but it's making me want to have my MK4S back...
This sounds like something is not right. Did you check the following?
- Make sure you take care to properly place all of the pulleys and idlers and doublecheck the belt path. Check the orientation of the motor pulleys!
- Check if the gantry is square. If not, fix that before assembling the belt or make sure to disconnect the tensioners.
- During belt assembly, make sure to pull the same amount of teeth through the Nextruder carriage on all four belt ends.
- Make sure to pull five teeth through and disconnect the tensioners to make that easy.
- Tune the belts after assembly to check if the gantry is still square. Use the new web based belt tuner and a mic without noise filtering.
RE:
Yes, well aware of gantry squareness... Gantry is square (or it is again after this incident). There is currently no way (that I can determine) to adjust the tension such that there is a 6hz difference between the belts without introducing significant skew in the gantry. For now, I'd rather live with any VFA's but it's making me want to have my MK4S back...
A simpler way to look at this is if you start with zero tension on the belts and a perfectly square gantry, then incrementally increase the tension in both belts until they are both at the required (equal*) tension, there should be no way for the gantry to be pulled out of square unless something is broken. If a pulley somewhere has a broken spindle mount, or a mounting block or motor isn't properly secured so that it moves under tension etc, then I could imagine that equal tension could have an unequal effect.
*Equal tension in both belts is what you get if you tune the top one to 98Hz and bottom one to 92Hz.
RE: Tension pulley broken
well I think I figured out my problem, unfortunately I broke one of my replacement pulleys in the process. Stupidly I hadn't screwed in the y pulley all the way in.
I just ordered a spool of this, and it should be here tomorrow. I only have the brass nozzles on my other MK4S and XL printers so hopefully it won't abuse it too much to print a single pulley.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZ6RBC31?smid=A2THDFIHK3C7WS&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1
I probably should replace the nozzles on my 5h XL and my other mk4s while I'm at it since I'll no doubt be printing this stuff more now.
RE: Tension pulley broken
This sounds like something is not right. Did you check the following?
- Make sure you take care to properly place all of the pulleys and idlers and doublecheck the belt path. Check the orientation of the motor pulleys!
- Check if the gantry is square. If not, fix that before assembling the belt or make sure to disconnect the tensioners.
- During belt assembly, make sure to pull the same amount of teeth through the Nextruder carriage on all four belt ends.
- Make sure to pull five teeth through and disconnect the tensioners to make that easy.
- Tune the belts after assembly to check if the gantry is still square. Use the new web based belt tuner and a mic without noise filtering.
Yes. And if the belt path wasn't correct I would have never passed initial calibration after factory reset.
To be clear again, the "old" method of tuning the belts works fine for me. I'll just stick with that.
RE: Tension pulley broken
well I think I figured out my problem, unfortunately I broke one of my replacement pulleys in the process. Stupidly I hadn't screwed in the y pulley all the way in.
I just ordered a spool of this, and it should be here tomorrow. I only have the brass nozzles on my other MK4S and XL printers so hopefully it won't abuse it too much to print a single pulley.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZ6RBC31?smid=A2THDFIHK3C7WS&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1I probably should replace the nozzles on my 5h XL and my other mk4s while I'm at it since I'll no doubt be printing this stuff more now.
I'll be interested to hear your experience with that - seems like reasonable value.
RE: Tension pulley broken
I've not printed PC or PCCF before but I've printed a bunch of ASA on the MK4S so I'll wheel the printers over to the window and hook up the ventilation and print one of these. I'll let you know how it goes. I guess I'll start with the prusament pccf profile and see how that looks. it will be nice to have some of this on hand since I have yet another one of these upgrades to do. Though I'm hoping all my mistakes will be over once I'm done and the second upgrade will be easier. I'm not even breaking the seal on the box of the second upgrade until I'm happy this thing is going to work. I probably should have bought one at a time since they'll likely not let me return the second one should I decide to do so.
RE:
I guess I'll start with the prusament pccf profile and see how that looks.
That'll likely have an Extrusion Multiplier of 1.04. I really can't think why it's so high, and I know that with genuine Prusament PC-CF it results in an oversized pulley that won't run smoothly in the mounting block. Especially for a different brand I'd set that to 1.00 until you find a good reason to change it.
RE: Tension pulley broken
IIRC, I used the Prusament PCCF profile when printing the stuff on my MK4, but FWIW, I also had a LACK cabinet too. (And a little bento box filter to circulate the air inside... -- It does stink somewhat...)
I did order/use a steel nozzle, but I suspect it'd be ok for a short print w/ brass..
RE: Tension pulley broken
Thanks for the info!.
So since I'm looking at harden nozzles now, would I be good to buy 7 of these, 5 for the xl and 2 for the two smaller printers?
https://www.prusa3d.com/product/e3d-prusa-nozzle-high-flow-obxidian-0-4-mm/
That'll likely have an Extrusion Multiplier of 1.04. I really can't think why it's so high, and I know that with genuine Prusament PC-CF it results in an oversized pulley that won't run smoothly in the mounting block. Especially for a different brand I'd set that to 1.00 until you find a good reason to change it.
RE: Tension pulley broken
Thanks for the info!.
So since I'm looking at harden nozzles now, would I be good to buy 7 of these, 5 for the xl and 2 for the two smaller printers?
https://www.prusa3d.com/product/e3d-prusa-nozzle-high-flow-obxidian-0-4-mm/
Will they all benefit from the high flow version? I reckon you could save yourself a tenner each and go with the standard non-high-flow ObXidian nozzles. Even on the CORE One the print time difference between high flow and normal is quite small, and then there's the issue of the high flow design's risk of clogging - I believe it splits the filament path into three(?) narrower paths to achieve the higher flow, and if your main use is to print 'filled' filaments I believe there is an increased risk of clogging with these narrower paths.
I'm no expert on this though - perhaps others can comment.
RE:
I guess I'll start with the prusament pccf profile and see how that looks.
That'll likely have an Extrusion Multiplier of 1.04. I really can't think why it's so high, and I know that with genuine Prusament PC-CF it results in an oversized pulley that won't run smoothly in the mounting block. Especially for a different brand I'd set that to 1.00 until you find a good reason to change it.
I've found even 1.0 to be too high. I have non-Prusament PCCF and I've found 0.9 with a HF nozzle gives me the best prints as well as being more dimensionally accurate.
RE: Tension pulley broken
the two mk4s printers(including the one I'm upgrading) have the highflow nozzle. they came as part of the mk4 -> mk4s upgrade. the xl originally came with .6 nozzles, but of course after folks started getting the xl it was realized they drip a lot while changing extruders so I went ahead and replaced those with the non HF .4 nozzles. I figured if I'm going to be putting hardened nozzles in I might as well do them all. But I would be interested in whether folks in the know would recommend HF for the XL. I don't do a ton of printing. in fact I don't make anything to sell so the non-HF variety are probably fine though.
RE: Tension pulley broken
in fact I don't make anything to sell so the non-HF variety are probably fine though.
There's an option in Prusaslicer to specify whether the extruder has a high flow nozzle or not. Might be worth you slicing a couple of your typical models to see what difference it makes to the print time. IF (TBC) the risk of clogging is higher for filled filaments you'd need to weigh that against the time saving.
RE: Tension pulley broken
Everything I've read suggests avoiding high-flow in 0.4 if you're using any "filled" filament (carbon, glass, wood, metal, sparkles... doesn't really matter) for the reasons mentioned; increased chance of clogging. I use the Obxidian 0.4 and haven't bothered changing back to the HF (I got a small collection of sizes/options when I ordered the Prusa PCCF).
RE: Tension pulley broken
I have Obxidian 0.4 HF nozzle and have shoved all manner of filled filaments through it, and have never had a single clog.