I have my A10 for two weeks now and everything worked fine in the beginning. During my last print severe underextrusion occured. I cleaned the complete hotend did calibration of the extruder and Bed levelling, but I simply cannot print.
My problem is that hardly any material comes out of the nozzle when printing. When i push a filament through the hotend manually everything works just fine. I have absolutely no clue what to do, maybe someone of you can help me.
Extrusion Problems
Re: Extrusion Problems
might need one of these ... https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3383435
Re: Extrusion Problems
I found myself in a similar situation as you a while back. This kind of problems always come in pair with the issues with your hotend (e.g. clogged nozzle) or PTFE tube, so you might want to check those as well. I will comment on the extruder for now.
In short A10 extruder is rubbish. The spring is crap, the gear is dull, ungeared extruder isn't enough for the hardware issues A10 has and the ultimate fix is to get another quality extruder. You can however attempt to temporary workaround the issue and it will get you somewhat better results.
Check out the great video: Under Extrusion - 3D Printer Troubleshooting - Chris's Basement by Chris Riley. He is troubleshooting Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus, but it is perfectly applicable for most of the printers. If you decide to print a new lever, I would suggest going for Wanhao i3 Adjustable Tension Extruder Lever with press fit feeder cover instead of the one he has linked in the description. It fits nicely on A10.
Firstly you need to check if the extruder stepper motor skips steps (clicks) or if it is not enough tension and it doesn't grab on to the filament. If it is the tension the lever mentioned above will help, but it will also put more pressure on the stepper motor and it might start skipping. To mitigate it you will have to raise the Vref (reference voltage) on the stepper motor driver. I would not recommend attempting this procedure without a multimeter and some basic electronics theory understanding like the Ohm's law. However going higher than 1V will get your stepper motor to heat up quite fast reaching unsafe temperatures without additional cooling (at least passive). So it's a balance between the tension and stepper motor Vref value.
Keep in mind though that there are several iterations of the same printer out there, so what works for someone not necessary will work for you. You will just have to try and see.
Personally I have solved my issues by buying a Bondtech BMG which is a substantial financial set back compared to the overall printer price, but I wanted to solve it once and for all and I was sort of prepared for it. There are of course cheaper alternatives either from E3D, some chinese Bondtech copies. You can even print your own and just buy a gear kit, a few screws and a spring.
Most of this is covered by 3D printing youtubers like Michael, Thomas Sanladerer, Stefan and many more.
Youtube is your friend! Good luck!
In short A10 extruder is rubbish. The spring is crap, the gear is dull, ungeared extruder isn't enough for the hardware issues A10 has and the ultimate fix is to get another quality extruder. You can however attempt to temporary workaround the issue and it will get you somewhat better results.
Check out the great video: Under Extrusion - 3D Printer Troubleshooting - Chris's Basement by Chris Riley. He is troubleshooting Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus, but it is perfectly applicable for most of the printers. If you decide to print a new lever, I would suggest going for Wanhao i3 Adjustable Tension Extruder Lever with press fit feeder cover instead of the one he has linked in the description. It fits nicely on A10.
Firstly you need to check if the extruder stepper motor skips steps (clicks) or if it is not enough tension and it doesn't grab on to the filament. If it is the tension the lever mentioned above will help, but it will also put more pressure on the stepper motor and it might start skipping. To mitigate it you will have to raise the Vref (reference voltage) on the stepper motor driver. I would not recommend attempting this procedure without a multimeter and some basic electronics theory understanding like the Ohm's law. However going higher than 1V will get your stepper motor to heat up quite fast reaching unsafe temperatures without additional cooling (at least passive). So it's a balance between the tension and stepper motor Vref value.
Keep in mind though that there are several iterations of the same printer out there, so what works for someone not necessary will work for you. You will just have to try and see.
Personally I have solved my issues by buying a Bondtech BMG which is a substantial financial set back compared to the overall printer price, but I wanted to solve it once and for all and I was sort of prepared for it. There are of course cheaper alternatives either from E3D, some chinese Bondtech copies. You can even print your own and just buy a gear kit, a few screws and a spring.
Most of this is covered by 3D printing youtubers like Michael, Thomas Sanladerer, Stefan and many more.
Youtube is your friend! Good luck!