In light of making TO/T the place again where we can discuss our shared interests, and get help on anything other than cars, I'll start. 😁
I just received my first roll of ASA filament. I understand ASA needs a (much) higher hot end temperature than even PETG and to get any layer adhesion, you need to turn down your fans. But even with a hot end temp of 260C (500F) and my fans turned off, I get terrible layer adhesion. Is there something else I can do?
unfortunately as a newbie to 3d printing the only experience I have so far is with PLA, I plan on moving on to some more difficult materials at some point and am very interested in what you find out about this.
No I don't have an enclosure. It would need to be a pretty big one since it's a printer with a 300mm x 300mm print bed...
I hate to recommend it... but have you tried looking at AliExpress? If you use the right search words, they pretty much have everything on there, and pennies on the dollar.
It really makes me feel bad buying stuff from there (China), but I can literally get products for 1/4th of what they cost in the US. In MOST cases, it's the *exact* same part / tool / item, just rebadged.
Years ago, I bought a spot welder from Harbor Freight. I paid $79 for it. I had been shopping around for a spot welder to help me re-attach my trans-am body panels. I discovered that what I had bought was actually a Hobart spot welder. I can't emphasize this enough. It was the *exact-same* spot welder. Exactly. Wooden handle, cable, casing, prongs, everything. The one with the Hobart badge was $500+. The one with the Chicago Electric badge was $79.
China has a rule that after 3 years, the Chinese people get the rights to whatever it is that you're manufacturing in their country.
So for example, I work on watches as a hobby. There are a lot of extremely expensive tools that are sold by a "Swiss" company called Bergeron. In reality, these tools are now made in China. They sell specialized watch tools for 1000s of dollars, but you can get the exact same thing on AliExpress for $20-30 bucks.
I see a lot of enclosures there on AliExpress... but just know that you're helping to fund a Communist regime.
You might be running too hot rather than too cool. I print ABS at 235 with no enclosure with a 110 degree bed. Just need to avoid drafts and have a brim.
I regularly print ASA on my open frame cartesian without issues at 100mm/s.
What is your layer height when printing? What size nozzle? Have you calibrated your extruder steps? What temp are you running your heated bed at? What is your build surface? Wall count? Top/bottom layer count?
On my very heavily modified CR-10s, I print ASA at .1, .15, and .2 with a .4mm nozzle at 245C with a hotbed of 100C on a 1mm thick PEI sheet fixed to a borosilicate glass surface, which is fixed to the aluminum using a large silicone thermal transfer pad the size of the bed. In fact, it's in the process of "giving birth" to it's successor, a modified AnnexEngineering K2 Summit that will run BLDC servo motors and should be able to sling ASA, PC, and some other exotics at 1500mm/s or faster when done.
Toss some photos up of a couple of your failed prints if you would, with detailed shots showing the layers.
BTW, it's an Ender 3D-Max with a Dual Z upgrade. Just bought it a few weeks ago to replace my DIY 3D printer (which prints great but has a small 20mm x 20mm bed and I needed to print larger things)
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Originally posted by Synthesis:
What is your layer height when printing?
0.2mm
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What size nozzle?
0.4mm
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Have you calibrated your extruder steps?
I had constant extruder clicks (violent retractions) so I did an E-Step calibration. Turned out it was actually feeding to little filament. I calibrated it and obviously that did not help the extruder clicks at all.
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What temp are you running your heated bed at?
I found that a bed temperature of 60C (140F) gives me great bed adhesion with ASA.
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What is your build surface?
Glass with 3DLac.
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Wall count?
3
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Top/bottom layer count?
4 and 3
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Toss some photos up of a couple of your failed prints if you would, with detailed shots showing the layers.
Will do so when I get to print something ASA again. Had to print "Among Us Cookie Cutters" for my kids first (PETG). 😄
No, the Ender-3 Max actually has an all metal extruder. I get the extruder clicks even when it's purging filament - so when the hot end is nowhere near the bed or print. Increasing the nozzle temp makes no difference...
I'm with MEM on this. Extruder clicks should not be a thing. The clicking you're hearing is missed steps on the extruder stepper, not slipping gears.
What this means is your flow resistance is too high when you're extruding or your stepper amperage is too low. The other thing I have found is a loose or disconnected pin or broken wire on the stepper itself (that was a pain in the ass to find on my Galileo extruder). The E3-Max has an all metal extruder, but not an all metal hotend per the specs I can find.
Change the nozzle, and if you get a chance, consider an all-metal hotend upgrade. You may also want to consider a move to a direct drive extruder kit.
[This message has been edited by Synthesis (edited 02-23-2022).]
There are a few odd things with the extruder clicks. Increasing temperature (to slightly past the filament's max) doesn't help. Decreasing speed doesn't help. The only thing that helps a bit is increasing baby Z steps mid print. Which is weird because the first layer is perfect. Not spread out or anything and all other layers after that are fine too. So flow is in no way blocked. And like I said, I even get extruder clicks when purging.
I've checked the gears and they were fine. I've also tightened/loosened the extruder's pivot screw, as well as the spring adjustment screw. Loosening the spring got rid of the extruder clicks, but it was massively under-extruding then (and the gear was actually simply slipping on the filament).
I've already tried replacing the nozzle. That didn't make a difference.
At one point, I suspected the thermistor might be off and it was measuring too high temperatures. But replacing it made no difference.
I have a spare stepper motor so I can try to replace that and see if that makes any difference. If nothing works, I''ll probably replace the Bowden setup with the direct drive extruder from my DIY printer.
One thing to keep in mind (V2 and the dual Z may help) is on my E3 I had a direct drive when I got it, and you can not change filament during a print without screwing up the Z. I got fed up with it and went back to a bowden with a top-mount extruder. No problems since....well, except for blowing up a mobo and I'll get a 4.2.7 when this move is over.
In default Marlin, there is a DEFAULT_STEPPER_DEACTIVE_TIME setting that will automatically turn your steppers off after a period of time when the print ends or the machine pauses for filament changes. If you were to find a copy of Marlin with the config for your board/printer, you could modify a couple of features in there that would prevent the steppers from disengaging while paused. This would prevent the Z from moving when changing filament unless you REALLY torque the hell out of it.
i don't think the ender 3 max hotend is rated for ASA temps. The stock Bowden tube won't deal with it you would have to upgrade to Capricorn tube or go direct drive. At those temps the stock ptfe starts to break down and clog your nozzle. Creality is also so so on QC.
I got fed up with it and went back to a bowden with a top-mount extruder. No problems since....
In the future, I would like to experiment with TPU so probably need to switch to direct drive anyway.
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...well, except for blowing up a mobo and I'll get a 4.2.7 when this move is over.
I thought about that too. Mine still has the 4.2.2 board which was known for its faulty stepper drivers. The shop where I purchased this though, claims these 4.2.2 boards are the "new batch" which no longer have that problem. I would have changed to the 4.2.7 board just to be sure (since they are only $30 or so) if weren't for the fact I also want to install a BLTouch or CRTouch soon which won't work on the 4.2.7 board...
I thought about that too. Mine still has the 4.2.2 board which was known for its faulty stepper drivers. The shop where I purchased this though, claims these 4.2.2 boards are the "new batch" which no longer have that problem. I would have changed to the 4.2.7 board just to be sure (since they are only $30 or so) if weren't for the fact I also want to install a BLTouch or CRTouch soon which won't work on the 4.2.7 board...
Sucks to drop the cash, but pick up an SKR mini and something like a Hemera, leave that Creality stuff in the dust.
As mentioned above, if you ran super hot and you don't have an all metal hotend, you may have damaged your PTFE lining and are binding up. Can you run something easy like PLA with no issues after all of this experimenting? Something to ground yourself.
I've tried printing something with PLA but got massive under extrusion. I've ordered some Capricorn tubing.
A Micro Swiss hot end is around $100, but for only $10-$20 more, you can buy the Micro Swiss direct drive extruder whi h includes the all metal hot end as well.
I'll see what the Capricorn tubing does. I suspect the default tubing got messed up since I've been doing a lot of 18+ hour PETG prints these past weeks
I have a CR-30 im pretty sure it's the same extruder and hotend. My ptfe tube started falling apart really quick with printing PETG. I was proactive and had swapped to Cap tube early and didn't clog my nozzle. In the past i have had nozzle and extruding issues that was caused by broken down ptfe and had to replace the nozzle. ... What im saying is it's probably a good idea to swap your nozzle again once you get the cap tube.
Also what method did you use to calibrate your ESteps? I find using a light color filament and measuring 110mm from the entrance of the extruder towards the spool and marking the filament with sharpie then running 100mm of filament and remeasuring is best.
Also what method did you use to calibrate your ESteps? I find using a light color filament and measuring 110mm from the entrance of the extruder towards the spool and marking the filament with sharpie then running 100mm of filament and remeasuring is best.
Ah yeah I tend to shy away from Josef's projects so I dont have any tips for you there. I recently started using Ideamaker after years of using Simplify 3d and Cura. I did a bake off many years ago and Cura was the pretty prints while S3d allowed me to do some interesting things. Since S3d has not updated in years and I bought a belt printer that has limited slicer options. I decided to move all of my printers under ideamaker. Ideamaker has community printer profiles and I like its octoprint interface.
[This message has been edited by skywurz (edited 02-25-2022).]
I had ordered some Capricorn tubing which arrived this weekend. I decided to completely disassemble the hot end first, to see if perhaps the original PTFE tubing was damaged due to the high temperatures I had been printing with. I was shocked to see the PTFE tube had disintegrated completely and pieces of the tubing as well as molten filament had almost completely clogged up the heat break.
I cleaned up the heat break (actually had to use a drill to clean it), cleaned up the nozzle and reassembled the hot end using the Capricorn tubing. Did another 19 hour print and the difference is unbelievable. Not a single blemish. No under- or over extrusion. No blobs. Just a perfect print. No extruder clicks either. The print needs no clean up whatsoever. Even the smallest details printed perfectly. I'm happy again. 😄
Hot ends are so cheap I always keep a couple around and swapping them out is just part of trouble shooting. Same with the brass nozzles, I dont even bother trying to clean them, just change it. The hardened ones I try to get the mileage out of but dont really do that much abrasive filament either.
[This message has been edited by MidEngineManiac (edited 02-28-2022).]
i don't think the ender 3 max hotend is rated for ASA temps. The stock Bowden tube won't deal with it you would have to upgrade to Capricorn tube or go direct drive. At those temps the stock ptfe starts to break down and clog your nozzle. Creality is also so so on QC.
