Nozzle Temp drops in middle of print

[John Wildman @albattros]

Hey all,

I have seen on a couple of prints that the print job is going fine, looking good. Then somewhere in the middle of the job, the nozzle heating element seems to shut off. And then the print job starts to fall apart. I have paused the job and the nozzles will reheat, but then the nozzle temp drops significantly.

I am not talking about variations in temp ~5C. Is there some kind of thermal shutdown logic for the printer.

I am printing with the door shut and I have seen this on relatively small prints and am larger prints.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,

John

[BHudson @bhudson My Robox is a Green Kickstarter Beta]

@albattros I would open a ticket with CEL. This isn’t something I have seen before.

I am not affiliated with CEL; I operate two Betas and one Production Robox.

[uhuglue @uhuglue]

@albattros

I’ve had something like this, and the symptoms roughly the same whereby I could pause the print and it would get back up to temp before dropping drastically again. Unfortunately I had two problems at the same time, so I can’t remember which fix was which (but probably was the second one)

Problem and fix #1:

Power cable that goes to the head - I noticed that the contact to the head seemed to be a bit loose, so I disassembled the head to take a look. The molex connector seems to be a bit crappy. This used to contribute to the B-axis stuck problem as well, but it seems to have been ironed out with later versions of AM.

Long story short, one of the pins in the socket looked a bit corroded, with a very loose fit. Didn’t have any replacements to solder in, so I just wrapped some kitchen foil around the pin and pushed the head back into the socket for a tight fit.

To troubleshoot this, check if you can turn the lights on and off in AM, and if the lights flicker while printing.

 

Problem and fix #2:

Not all the print data is sent to the Robox. I didn’t notice this at first, as I would usually click the ‘make’ button and leave it to start. However I kept having problems with a particularly complicated print, and decided to keep an eye on the whole process. Turns out that the print data would go about 30 odd percent and then the USB connection would reset. I never noticed this with other prints, as they were smaller and would make it through.

To troubleshoot this, just make sure that all the data is sent. I had to change over to another USB cable with a ferrite bead and the print subsequently completed.

 

cheers

 

 

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