A10 unstable nozzle temperature

[Shinobi]

Hi guys,

I received my A10 yesterday and already did some test prints... There seem to be a few issues, but overall its printing. One thing I noticed today, was that the preheat is very weird. Bed heats up fine to 50° and then the nozzle starts to go to 210°.

When it reaches the 210° it fluctuates between 206-218 and keeps jumping up and down... The status is still on heating and the print did not start at this point. After 30-50sec jumping around, it finally seems happy and starts printing, but the temp still varies during the print.

Today I also started noticing the extruder skipping steps. Not sure if that is related to the temp issue, but it sounds reasonable.

I hope some pro or geeetech support can help me out.

FW: Marlin 1.1.8
Nozzle: 210
Bed: 50
Slicer: CURA
Filament: Geeetech PLA

Thanks a lot!

[buttervonwaffle]

So I know personally when I received my geeetech, I had a lot of skipping and issues with my nozzle but ill get to that in a second. One fluctuating nozzle temps could be a poorly built power supply. But it also can be just the fact your nozzle temps are off. If you want I replaced my power supply with a mean well one - here -

But unless you do some actual testing there's no way to tell if that's your issue or not. But the mean well power supply gives a nice piece of mind and if bought through places like amazon that offer warranties, you get a nice warranty with it.

Now as for my printer, the reason I had nozzle issues and the extruder skipping, one it needed the E-steps calibrated, which if you dont know is setting how much and how fast filament is getting extruded, if your trying to extrude to much the nozzle cant keep up and you will begin to skip. If your extruding to little you wont be getting enough filament extruded. Honestly a skip once every now and then is healthy it lets you know your printer is ahead of the game just a tad.
here is a link to a nice article from matter hackers on how to do e step calibration - here

Now the next problem I fixed, which probably has to do with a combination of filament (which was solutech pla ultra white), power supply and hot end. I would try to print at 220 and I kept having issues with extrusion and extruder skipping. My problem was even though my hot end reads 220 on screen its actually a nice 190. So I upped it to 240 and then beautiful printing began. Which I fixed this by getting a new power supply because my one hated my whole soul, and until I did I had to up my temps.

All printers will be off a bit on temps, so play with your temps a bit and see what temp works for you.

[Shinobi]

Thanks for the reply. I will try to do the e-steps calibration. If the PSU is the problem, I expect geeetech to replace mine. I just spend the money on a printer and don't want to invest another 50$ into a broken part...

[Shinobi]

prolly needs to pid autotune the hotend and bed everyone should be doing this every machine is slightly different

thanks. how can that be done? any guides out there?

[Shinobi]

prolly needs to pid autotune the hotend and bed everyone should be doing this every machine is slightly different

thanks. how can that be done? any guides out there?

http://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M303.html

Thanks, that really seemed to help. Temps are pretty stable now!

[Shinobi]

yea everyone should be autotuning there pid for there hotend and bed.

runs pid autotune on bed and then saves it.
M303 E-1 S60 U
runs pit autotune on hotend then saves it.
M303 S200 U

hm, unfortunately the temp is still jumping around again between 207-214... i even saw a short spike to 204/219 once! that is definitely not normal :/

[Shinobi]

The Geeetech support told me to "check the resistor". Thats all they wrote. Unfortunately I don't really know what to do now and what to look for when I found it. I hope someone maybe has some pictures and suggestions on what to do.

[Shinobi]

ok thx thats helps me a bit, but when i google "Hotend cartridge" I'm still not really sure where I can find it on my A10. lets say I do find it... what should be the expected values?