8

I have an M3D Micro 3D printer that printed fine for a couple of weeks and then was plagued with issues afterward. I've done the fixes from the forum to get proper heating and cooling of the nozzle (I've added aluminum foil around the nozzle to make sure the hotend is fit snug against the nozzle and I've added an external fan, powered externally, to compensate for heat creep).

This works very well for short prints and it usually finishes successfully. When I do a longer print it always stops midway and usually at the same exact point.

I tried printing at 200 °C with black PLA and then again at 215 °C with the same filament and it stops at the same exact point. I also tried M3D brand white filament. I am using CURA slicer with Octoprint GCODE sender and M3D Fio.

I know it is not clogged because if I stop the print and press extrude without letting it cool down, it extrudes fine.

What is causing my printer to stop printing?

Greenonline
  • 6,748
  • 8
  • 40
  • 68
Airfield20
  • 459
  • 1
  • 3
  • 9

2 Answers2

2

I'm not sure how similar the two systems are, but I use a Stratasys uPrint SE Plus and I've run into a similar problem.

There are two rollers in the head that pull the filament through to the extruder nozzle, and in one instance they appeared to have heated up, melted the filament enough to create two "indentions" on either side of the filament, making it such that the rollers had no purchase on the filament itself. There was never any clog, no material feed error, but it was still failing to print. Wound up having to replace the head altogether.

Again, not sure how similar the extrusion mechanics are in the M3D, but suggest checking the components that actually advance the filament, and the filament itself.

Golightly
  • 146
  • 7
1

Placing this suggestion as an answer, because all information appears to point to the slicer software and/or the operating system. Consider to use alternative methods of slicing and sending the model, such as the previously mentioned Craftware or other free slicers, such as Slic3r - both of which have Linux versions. If, as you suggest, your firmware is so tied down that it won't run alternate versions without re-flashing, that would be your next step. Unfetter yourself from the limitations of the current suspect software.

If you are able to use other slicers and discover that the problem remains, the re-flashing of the firmware is likely the only solution.

Greenonline
  • 6,748
  • 8
  • 40
  • 68
fred_dot_u
  • 12,140
  • 1
  • 13
  • 26