Geeetech

I recently received a new control board and swapped the A4988 stepper drivers from the old control board to the new one. However, when I attempted to print, a few things weren’t working. It seems that one of the A4988s stopped working when I swapped them over and I had to buy a new one for the Y-axis.

But now also the extruder motor doesn’t seem to be working properly. The extruder heats to 190 degrees and if I press the extruder release lever and push the filament, it extrudes manually so the heat and nozzle are okay. I can feel a pulsing when I press the extrude button (on Repetier) but it looks like the extruder wheel is rocking back and forward and not moving the filament along. I’ve increased the voltage to around 0.9V (it was 0.81V). Could this be another broken A4988 or would I have no voltage if it was faulty?

hi, im no expert but i can try and help.
does the extruder gear turn properly when there is no filament inserted?
could be that its not gripping the filament tight enough, some people i believe have put a shim under the spring to make it tighter. you dont want it too tight because that will damage the filament.
again a quick vid would help a lot as i have found with 3d printers, its more than 1 thing that can stop something working and people have different descriptions to a problem (if that made sense)

heres a vid of jimmy shaw doing a shim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dgll9rtrPA

Thanks for your help. I tried to extrude without the filament and the wheel was still moving back and forth, which made me think it wasn't the tension that was the problem (although I tried a shim, just to check!). It turned out to be a problem with the 4988 stepper driver. Fortunately, when I replaced the driver for the Y-axis, I bought a pack of 5 drivers, so I just used another one of the spares to replace the driver for the extruder and it started working again! Thanks again for your help. It helped me to narrow down the problem.
(PS. I took a video of the problem before I found the solution, but I couldn't find a way to upload it on this forum! Where is the best place to host videos for sharing on this forum?)

Hello.

MrJoatmon wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:27 pm

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(PS. I took a video of the problem before I found the solution, but I couldn't find a way to upload it on this forum! Where is the best place to host videos for sharing on this forum?)

Upload your video on Vimeo or YT. Paste a link to it here.

Glad you sorted it out
You will no doubt come across more problems ( thats the world of 3d printing) but you sound pretty clued up to solve them, if not some one on here might be able to give you some tips

Happy printing and we would like to see some of your results