More to come
Hi Ryan, after many many clogs on my cheap Chinese MK8, I am ready to invest in something better. In your shop you are selling the Titan Aero and an all metal MK8. Is the Aero that much better to justify the cost?
Clogs are clogs, the extruder doesn’t really control that. Typically that is bad filament, or some other error to make it bake in there. If you have had your extruder for very long your PTFE sleeve is probably just bad. I have switched to the microswiss throats because every 6-9 months I had to replace the PTFE…not anymore.
You can just replace yours with a microswiss from the shop or try the aero. This might irritate a few people but I feel the Areo is a bit harder to use, or at least set up correctly. I have one screw completely removed and the others need real ideal tension to work well and filament tension is much more tricky to get right. Once it is dialed in I love it, and I feel it will work better with higher temp materials but I am not happy with the price point. My markup on the is $4 I think…and I print a part to go with them so that might be zero.
Can you provide a link for the bracket so we can print it? I happen to already own a Titan Aero and I can’t find a decent bracket.
1 Like
I may or may not have completely overlooked this little piece of info, but what size fillament does the titan aero use you sell in your shop? 3mm or 1,75mm?
I’m planning on buying one (and the entire kit) in about a month or so but would like to plan ahead a little in terms of upgrading to a pancake extruder stepper.
It comes with a nozzle that fits 1.75 filament, It also comes with parts to make it ready for 2.85 but I think you would have to just swap the nozzle.
1 Like
I upgraded to the microswiss mk8 kit… not super happy. Keeps clogging. Not sure what to do here.[attachment file=58821]
I upgraded to the microswiss mk8 kit… not super happy. Keeps clogging. Not sure what to do here.[attachment file=58824]
I know it might seem like an easy question but that is by far the most difficult problem to solve of any of teh problems on all of teh machines I make. I need a lot of details please.
This is not a titan aero.
The picture you sent just shows a mess but not the extruder to check for any obvious build issues.
Has it worked before?
What filament was in it previously, what is in it now? What temp and speed?
What control board, what E steps, what driver voltage?
Lets see the gcode.
From what I see you have a rather large part on there with a brim. If your first layer is slightly too low any extruder will choke on that, how about some smaller parts to get the calibration dialed in.
I don’t mean to sound harsh, I know you are frustrated but you literally gave me no information to go off of so all I can do is ask questions as I do not like to make wild guesses.
Dust really messed up my printer - just have a dusty home and garage I guess. Can I recommend putting something to dust off the filament as it enters the hotend? I just have a bit of microfibre cloth kind of jammed (softly?) in that seems to have done the trick.
If it makes you feel any better… I’m having the same problem with the micro-swiss hot end.
I think I’ve narrowed it down to the ‘cold’ end getting too hot and causing filament to melt on the wrong side of the heat brake.
My case is probably different, though. I broke the fan on my original MK8 and I don’t think the replacement I bought a while back has enough air flow. I have a new fan coming in tomorrow and will know for sure.
I also noticed my extruder stepper motor is running hot. I don’t know if it’s acting as a heat sink, or if my stepper driver is miss adjusted. I’m leaning towards the former as the driver worked fine with the old heat tube I was using.
If the filament is sticking then it is pushing harder and getting hotter. Make sure the throat is as far into the aluminum as possible (some have the nut on the other side). That cools it quicker and less room for drag. All metal hot ends are more difficult to use, but not by very much. You can also try printing just a little faster (few mm/s) to reduce heat transfer up the filament itself.
My appologies Ryan. I had walked into my room and found the mess of filament and snapped a picture to share out of humor. That is something that has happened to all of us. I am sure.
I will give you more detail:
True, It is not a titan aero. I commented in this thread because in one of your replies you suggested upgrading my MK8 with the MicroSwiss.
It has been working very well. I was using a standard throat and nozzle with ptfe tube. I finaly got that dialed in for PETG and did some big, long prints.
The filament is MakerGeeks PETG. Running the Nozzle at 255C and bed at 70.
I monitor the first layer religiously to make sure the PETG is not squishing. Adhesion is great.
After reading the other posts, I am guessing it is a problem with the cold end getting to hot. The Micro Swiss All Metal MK8 Hotend Upgrade is shorter than a standard throat.
It is flush with the top of the bottom aluminum block. I tried to give it as much distance between the block and hot end.
Running on a Ramps1.4
This isn’t what you want. You want it in as far as possible, without hitting the gear or physically touching the hot end, some even put the lock nut on the other side if it fits. The way you have it the entire throat is getting hot (and sticky to the filament). You ideally want the heat break right at the top of the small part of the throat. The small part is the actual heat break, small area small heat transfer.
I know what your line of thinking was, but air is an insulator, direct contact with an aluminum heatsink with a fan on it dissipates heat much faster than open air. I think we all used to do that, and only changed when switching to all metal hot ends. Thermodynamics is a tricky subject. Conduction vs convection.
Well darn. That could explain my problem too, then.
I sped up the printer and made some other changes to the extruder settings. We’ll see if I get a good print out of it.
If it still produces pasta, then I’ll tear the extruder apart and try to thread it farther into the cold plate.