Geeetech i3 Prusa Pro B teething problems

[superpetur]

Hi,

For educational purposes, and some learning on the job, I went fot a Geeetech Prusa i3 Pro B 3d printer. As a model kit enthousiast, building wouldn't be the problem. The elcetronics, not my cop of tea to say....
Building took some time, parts list didn't meet up with the building instructions. Other parts as listed, some poor quality nuts and bolts. But with the YouTube support i got it right more or less.
First print..... well sort of.... Electronics didn't work as promised. So had to find out by trial and error how connections had te be made, and with this forum found some solutions. Finally, I got right, the extruder did find it's homing position. Some fine tunig on the printerbed to get calibrated, even that was a small succes.
So, let the printing begin. First few prints, small flat objects, to get to know the printer, temparatures, gcode, printing speed, some results were there.
And now, things come to a halt of a misfunction in the extruding erea.
Symptoms are as following:
After 25 minutes of running, the extruder motor starts to make the clunky sound when it's trying to push the filament through the nozzle.Before printing, I set the temperature of filament at 220, but the firmware sets it back to 215 after 10 minutes orso. No idea why...
Taking out the filament after the clunky sound shows a thickening of the filament of a about 15 mm, and of course chunks taken out of the filament where the gear crushed the plastic.
Of course, when the clunky sound starts, the printing stops and the nozzle seems to be jammed. Usinf the ejector pin lets out the left filament easy, so what's the problem?
Another problem, the filament coming out of the the extruder seems seems to pull threads during printing, with several types of filament. Resulting in getting a print pulled of the printerbed and curled around the nozzle. Also not a result to be proud of....

So, any one recognizing this?

And yes, I've done some printing experience with a Vertex K series printer (not build by myself, but that one prints...) and some Ultimaker machines, and they also seem to print (with their minor problems to be honest).

thanks for your effort in this, I will drop a line with my findings later on.

Regards, Peter

[redangel1984]

I don’t know exactly what could your problem be, but it sounds like a multiple problem. The filament grinding/clicks from the extruder it can be a clogged nozzle, or the filament/hotend is cooling down. You forgot to mention what exactly are you printing? PLA or ABS or PETG? This sounds like ABS because ABS under 220 is beginning to cool a little down and the extruder can’t push it trough. If you are printing with PLA I doesn‘t think the temperature could be an issue. My PLA prints fine at 200°C.
The temperature drop after 10 minutes I could only explain as a forgotten Slicer settings somewhere. The firmware doesn’t drop the temperature without any comand. Check your slicer temperature settings.
The clogged nozzle could also be because the nozzle is to close to the printed part, and when you prInt solid infill the extruder can’t push the filament trough because it is to close to the part or simply you are printing to fast and the hotend doesn’t have the time to warm up. Try reducing the feed rate by turning the knob down a little bit. 60-80% when the clicking sounds begin.

I don’t have any other ideas for now.
Maybe you could tell in detail what part exactly are you trying to print. Some pictures, or maybe upload the Gcode file so that we could exclude slicer problems.
I have the same printer as you, so maybe we could figure it out somehow what your problem is. Leave me a PM if you want, it is way faster than waiting for the moderator to approve the post. And when the problem
Is solved maybe you could write a short post with the solution for further reference.
Regards,
Akos

[redangel1984]

Hi Peter,
Also check out the next troubleshooting guide on the Simplify3D website:

https://www.simplify3d.com/support/prin ... g-filament

https://www.simplify3d.com/support/prin ... d-extruder

https://www.simplify3d.com/support/prin ... e-of-print

Here are the most common problems an their possible solutions.

[Will2018]

Hi Peter,

Sounds like you need to use a higher temperature on your extruded.
In your slicer software you need to configure both the starting temperature, and sometime separately configure the in-progress temperature. This explains the fact the temperature drops during the print.
You should be able to also manually override the temperature during the print using your favourite software controller.
Either way, try 235c first, that’s what I have been using as my ambient temperature is a little low.

Good luck.