I suppose at some point reaching out to Snapmaker support is inevitable.
Just one question: Did you print the lever blocks and apply them in your prints? I still find this a likely reason for filament feeding failing. There are the extreme cases, where the feeder lever pops open, but I would not be surprised if those levers that don’t pop open still give a few fractions of a Millimeter under stress, and that might be enough for the filament slipping. The locking blocks firmly wedged in might be a temporary solution then.
So, I have not had any issues with the feeder levers coming undone, EXCEPT in the case where my nozzle has already clogged. I’m fairly sure that the clog happens first, and then the grinding of the filament happens second. Could it be the other way around? I hadn’t considered that at all. Those handles have only ever popped out when unloading the expanded, hardened filament. From what I’ve seen, I don’t have any feeding issues coming from the gears themselves. Could be worth looking into though as I spent half a day calibrating a filament only for the clog to happen mid way through an 8 hour print. Very disappointing. I can’t believe you have to print a piece of plastic to keep a $400 piece of hardware together while it prints. I appreciate the advice, I’ll have to print those and see if it yields any better results.
Yep, I agree. In the same thread someone wrote something about a repair kit being prepaired by Snapmaker - looking forward to that.
What made me consider this possibility was that on the one failure I had, I pushed the filament manually down the nozzle after opening the feeder, and filament came out the nozzle, i.e. it did not really seemed to be clogged. Admittedly, I did this after pulling out the “stuck” filament. In hindsight, I did a very bad problem assessment When I have my next “clog”, I’ll go about problem analysis more carefully, but it is hard to tell when this will be, since I currently have no immediate printing projects in the queue.
I’ve had the same experience. I must pull the clogged filament out first, or else I can’t get anything to extrude even at higher temperatures. I’d say about 90% of the time when it clogs like this, I am able to extrude filament after just unloading the clogged filament. After so many failed prints in this manner, I am decently confident that the issue is that the filament undergoes expansion, causing the clog, which causes the grinding. I could be completely wrong though.
The reason I think the issue is not caused by grinding first is because I have not had any issues with the levers popping out unless I’m unloading the already clogged filament. If the grinding is indeed the cause of this whole cascading issue, I think the point brought up that the lever is creeping out by a mm or two would indeed make sense.
A lack of movement would definitely cause some issues with heating up the filament What gets me though is that when looking at the clog itself, it seems that there are multiple sections to the blob. To me that indicates some form of movement, such as the filament retracting, pushing back up against that hardened tip, and adding another “section” to that hardened bit. I have also taken a second look at some of the clogs, and noticed that on ones I seem to have stopped early on in the issue, there seems to be no grinding. Just a hardened tip, and nothing else.
I don’t know. I’m just trying to document this issue as best I can so hopefully Snapmaker can step up and fix this issue, or the community can fix what is broken. Best of luck to anyone out there having this issue. I look forward to finding the solution.
OK, especially the orange piece indeed does not look like grinding happening, and while it first puzzled me, I think it is even a point in favour of my theory. If indeed the feeder would engage properly and it is a nozzle clog of whatever kind, the feeder would have tried to push the filament down with all its force against the clog, grinding a dent into the plastic until it loses grip entirely. Since there is no indication of grinding, I guess the feeder to some extent disengages and fails to push the filament. Everything else then is secondary.
But that’s a theory still, I agree: Snapmaker needs to work this out and come up with a solution.
Although I have nothing to print in the pipeline, I consider pre-poning a project I wanted to do later in order to help in the assessment, and also establishing if my DX needs warranty exchange… Will let you know how it went as soon as I got time for it…
I did used some unsucesfull print plastic to lock those in place but still in one case it stopped extruding on second extruder and when I explored what happened I found filament grinded in way there was acumulated bump on it and it was impossible to get it trough on either end … had to cut it and use pliers to get it out … now Im skeptical about locking it more firmly helping to get rid of all the issues it has … hopefully Im wrong about that.
Im happing Im hearing about repair kit being prepared … I did not heared from support for quite long time now … I was getting disapointed and a bit scared what will happen … Im not as experienced with solving all those printing issues and I did not wanted to - thats one reason why I bought more expensive machine with better quality (I hoped) and more clever features.
Im also suspicious there is still some incorrect temperature issue.
Your statement has me in sweats over here, upon realizing that the fact the orange piece has no grinding could in fact mean that the levers are only slightly disengaging. I have a 24 hour print going now and I can only hold onto the hope that this does not happen. I was operating under the assumption that it was purely down to temperatures and heat zones and such.
I can not remember what print I took this orange piece of filament from entirely, but I believe that is an important thing to consider. I know it came from a small, 10mm^3 calibration print. Whether or not I was watching that specific 17 minute print when it failed, and stopped it, I do not know. If it failed halfway through and continued on anyways, the lack of grind on the material would in fact indicate that the gears were not engaged, meaning the levers were partly popped out. However if this was the result from a single nozzle switch, the material could have expanded during it’s inactive, standby state, gone to prime the nozzle, and failed. That situation would have resulted in a small hardened piece of filament, with no grinding on the upper part of the filament whatsoever, assuming I had stopped it at the time of failure.
I think that documenting failed prints in terms of “Grind/no grind” and “Time continued after failure” could be of some help in determining the cause. If a print that has failed some time ago has no grinding, I would assume that means it’s a problem in the lever/gear area. If a print that has failed some time ago Does have grinding, that would indicate most likely that it is a problem in the heat zone/ nozzle area perhaps? Who knows honestly. Take this for what you will, I’m just some random person spewing out ideas that could be close to some relation to this issue, or just rambling on about a problem that’s driving me crazy.
In any case, I appreciate the conversation going on as every little effort helps us get to the bottom of this.
There are some advantages of having a SnapMaker, but in my limited experience, I have gotten Very familiar with tuning the machine over and over. That is only exacerbated by switching from 3d printing to laser, etc.
So, I have a question for you. Did the lever disengage in the middle of the print for you? If so, what are your retraction settings? I believe that it’s totally plausible for a decently high retraction/ nozzle switch retraction distance to bring that clogged piece of filament all the way up, popping out that lever.
I have never had the levers pop open during a print. I have 2mm and 10mm set as my retraction distance/nozzle switch retraction distance respectively. The only situation where my levers pop are After the failure has occurred, and I go to unload that expanded filament.
To be honest I dont know … I use defaults until something is not working and I have to search how to fix that or I need something specific. I think it was only loosening and not completely disengaging but I was messing around with it in attempt to fix that somehow when I figured thats the issue (atleast one of them) that everything is kinda blur now. It looked more like widened by grinding on both sides but it is hard to tell for sure I guess.
It could be as you are describing … I hope somebody more knowledgable will figure it out and fix it … atleast its global issue so hopefully snapmaker will do something about it … I want to be more user who pushes button and forgets about it than you guys messing with settings and trying stuff tbh
I was happy I was able to figure out that estep calibration … I think it helped with the first layer but Im still kinda confused about the process because it seemed like there is only one value … I thought there will be two (one for each extruder). Im artist and programmer … engineering is a bit out of my comfort zone
I know I’m right there with you hoping someone will come along and fix this up. I will say in my time of 3d printing, slicing an object can be an art, just as creating the model itself is. If you do want to get some prints in before official solutions come around, I would try lowering your default retraction values possibly… I think the default “Nozzle switch retraction distance” Is about 16? That’s what it’s called in Cura at least. I put mine to 9-10 and it’s working a slight bit better. Best of luck!!
Only one value for the e step calibration? That is interesting. I actually never calibrated my dual extruder e-steps as that part seems to be doing just fine. I would have assumed there was one value for each nozzle as well.
There may be two and I missed something. I followed this Extruder Calibration a must - #33 by Termin8tor and assumed when I do T0 and T1 I will have to set two different values but it seems when I set it first it had effect on both extruders but I could be wrong.
This reply from M503 seems to indicate single has one value and dual has one value:
M92 X400.00 Y400.00 Z400.00 B888.89Current E667.22, BACKUP SINGLE E212.21BACKUP DUAL E667.22
Its quite confusing and also confusing is fact those two are so different.
Wow those are wildly different. I wonder what mine are… I’ll check at some point to see if mine vary in such a way. It seems like other printers are capable of setting E values for dual extruders like this perhaps?
T0
M92 E(***)
T1
M92 E(***)
but that was just the result of a nonchalant google search so I can’t say for sure. Wacky learning new hardware like this.
Thats what I was expecting too but it seems its not the case? Maybe somebody will correct or confirm that. The M503 output is really confusing me (it also seemed to be the same for both T’s). Yeah, I was hoping they will release some tutorial how to do that or somebody more knowledgable but I did not found anything specifically for dual extruder yet so Im kinda lost. As there are calibration guides in software for lot of stuff it would be really great if they included this too … I was mentioning it in my ticket also but Im not having much hopes it will have some effect … snapmaker’s software development is not inspiring much optimism for me so far (atleast HW was fine … untill now ) … hopefully they will get there eventually … basics are in right direction but they need to fix and iron out a lot still.
Great - thank you!!
I configure my printer as you mentioned. BUT…
When I try to slide (thingiverse 329436) the Cura 5.3.0 inform after 10 sec. that “Slicing failed with the unexpected error…” What I can do?? Ot the other hand I noticed that I need “the extruder change tower”, but how I can construct that in Cura?? Please help me - I’m quite newbe even I had the SM2 A350 two years and until now my works did fine with Cura and Octoprint.
The two extruders are mechanically exactly the same. I too believe we should have the ability to tune both. But i ran the test on both and the value came out so close i didn’t chase down being able to make them different.
Remember e-steps are to calibrate the hardware. G-code says turn one mm and you get one mm.
Flow settings in the slicer are for different materials. PETG is %5 different (i dont know the actual number) then PLA so slicer programs PETG different then PLA. slicer says Petg give me .95mm etc
The tower is called “Prime Tower” in Cura, you find the setting in the “Dual Extrusion” section of the Cura settings.
If slicing fails, it may be caused by a defective model. If you’re on Windows, you can try Windows 3D builder - load the model, and if the program says that the model is defective, let it repair it. This sometimes takes quite long. Save it into a new file and try again. I seem to remember that Cura also has a repair function, but I never used it, so you’d need to look for it yourself.
;— Start G-code Begin —
M104 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Set Hotend Temperature
M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Set Bed Temperature
G28 ;home
G90 ;absolute positioning
G1 X-10 Y-10 F3000 ;Move to corner
G1 Z0 F1800 ;Go to zero offset
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for Hotend Temperature
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for Bed Temperature
G92 E0 ;Zero set extruder position
G1 E20 F200 ;Feed filament to clear nozzle
G92 E0 ;Zero set extruder position
;— Start G-code End —
;— End G-code Begin —
M104 S0 ;Extruder heater off
M140 S0 ;Heated bed heater off
G90 ;absolute positioning
G92 E0 ;Retract the filament
G1 E-1 F300 ;retract the filament a bit before lifting the nozzle, to release some of the pressure
G1 Z{machine_height} E-1 F3000 ;move Z up a bit and retract filament even more
G1 X0 F3000 ;move X to min endstops, so the head is out of the way
G1 Y{machine_depth} F3000 ;so the head is out of the way and Plate is moved forward
;— End G-code End —
When I have my next “clog”, I’ll go about problem analysis more carefully, but it is hard to tell when this will be, since I currently have no immediate printing projects in the queue.
) … hopefully they will get there eventually … basics are in right direction but they need to fix and iron out a lot still.