dont use any pre-programed snapmaker calibrations or tests. they are all f’ed up with temps and retracts. Sometimes you get lucky and they work other times, well not worth it to me.
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Doesn’t it make you wonder how they took all those great looking pictures of perfect prints sitting on the work surface of whatever printer they were trying to get you to buy?
I wonder if they have ever gotten these demos to work on the machines they sell.
If they had they would have updated the default profile settings they send out.
Probably never ran it off the built in g-code.
Or environmental variables where so different.
Or somebody just didnt care
I was able print my first “big” (9h) print with Dual Extruder!!!
My problem was definitely heat creep. To fix it I opened my extruders and applied termo paste between heat break and this funny oval radiator.
This fixed my clogging issue !
PS: Termo paste has a working temp up to 150C but this part should never go over 60C so it will be fine.
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Thanks for sharing this! It is an interesting point: May well be that production tolerances lead to bad contact between heat sink and heat break…
Thanks!
I like that it’s very easy do. It’s 5min (3 screws) fix and you only need included screwdriver and a termo paste.
I hope that someone will be able to replicate my result.
Thank you for sharing. Same Problem with Heatcreep. Tried so many things but nothing helped… I even have 2 Dual Modules (one i bought and i won the other one from the community present challenge as second place) So i have the first batch (which needed the wedge but this doesnt helped with the heatcreep) and the second Batch with the rubber wedges. Nothing helped. I have some spare Hydronaut from my CPU and will try it right now. My problem started around 45mins - 1 h after Printstart. I will post my result here.
Wish us all luck!!!
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So, after 1 hour and 45 minutes it started to clog again. For testing i started this print with stock settings from luban with the 16mm retraction at nozzle change. (i think that is one of the main issues)
Next thing i will try, is to tweak some of the settings like retraction and i changed the way i applied the thermal paste.
I will share my results after some more testing.
Peace, Flo
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For PLA I would try something like 5mm or even 3mm at 25mm/s at nozzle change and idle 150C from current Luban profiles looks to work for me.
Hope you will find good setting and this termo paste will work for you.
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Thank you so much for sharing this ! I’ve been struggling with the dual extruder since the beginning (got the first batch) and didn’t have one successful print yet ! Same as many others : clogging after 40-60 mins… I applied the thermo paste and I got my first successful long print today ! (the dual color Phil astronaut). I used the default Luban settings (the most recent version 4.7.3) which also seems to have the retraction settings updated. Thanks again - I’m off to printing some more 
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You are takign the hotend apart and adding the paste to the little tube? this is helping you?
Has anyone thought about filling the cooling fins on the extruder with thermal paste?
Im getting such inconsistant results id like to try anything at this point.
Guys,
are there two extruder fans, one for each nozzle? Are they independently controlled?
It seems not - I tried the relevant GCode commands and in all cases both fans (either part cooling or heat sink) turned on or off together. IMHO not an issue.
Sigh, this thing… even PVA wrapped around the gear.
how exactly do you guys recommend applying this termal paste?
I have the hotend in my hands, should i loosen the set screw for the heat break to come out of the spring mechanism?
Im afraid to even take it apart because the lead time is askew on the replacements so i dont have a spare right now.
I figured it out. While I am at it, I added some to the threads of the heatbreak and nozzle. i had to disassemble it anyhow because it was completely jammed up with the PVA.
I also put on a new nozzle, an e3d nozzle. I was gonig to try to put on one of these other ones i have that have a coating for non stick, but i dont have one in .4 and didnt wana mess with a new size right now
Has anyone thought about filling the cooling fins on the extruder with thermal paste?
Do not do this - leave them as little fins with no obstruction. The whole point of all those little fins is to increase the surface area and thus maximise heat transfer to the air flowing past them. The air is absorbing the heat from the heat break, and because it is moving you get convective heat transfer. If you fill the fins then the surface area decreases and the thing will probably overheat.
Thermal paste is to maximise conductive heat transfer between two solids. There are small air gaps between the two parts, but in this case the air is not moving, so you would get an insulating effect. The thermal paste is very conductive and fills those gaps so the heat can flow directly from one part to the other.
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Thats fair. Thanks. I’m quite rusty and used to be reasonably good with the machine, but having not done much for a year and also having to learn the new extruder module (which is riddled with problems, and shouldnt have surprised me).
I have some boron nitride thermal paste from before on the old extruder and tried to apply some of that.
It seemed a bit dry and i don’t know that it was really able to properly coat the material. It probably went bad and I should get a new tube. Its on there but not evenly.
Ultimately, while i am sure this helps, something tells me that I am going to need to figure out a way to change the way the material feeds with the gear. The old extruder I had gotten an assortment of springs from mcmaster call and was able to use a different one to print with TPU pretty well. That doesn’t seem to be an option on this extruder so I don’t know what to do about it right now.
The PVA is wrapping the gears same as the TPU, and honestly if I cant print with PVA and TPU i dont want the machine. So hopefully a modification is worked out to improve performance. I’ve done most all the hacks on the machine including the additional support rails for the platform, i had glass bed w sensor, etc. Im back to a metal print sheet bhecause i dont want to take apart the dual extruder right now, and im actually kind of pleased with the leveling performance right now overall so Im not in a hurry to repeat that yet.
I also want to revisit my heated bed mod attempt, before it failed on be because I didn’t engineer the correct solution to hold the glass down and the heat caused too much bending pressure and broke the glass. I think it can be done and have all my pieces from the last attempt so if I get tired of screwing around with the poor performance, I am going to go back to hacking the machine up.
It wont be long before I decide to disassemble the new module, altho i am not really convinced theres much that can be done to address it. I was going to look at different gear stock and make something on our equipment at work to try to do better, but thats going to be REALLY difficult to pull off… I am thinking the tooth count could have an impact on performance, but different materials would benefit from different things. I think fewer larger teeth would be better for the flexible material but would probably mess with more rigid filaments
There is something to keep in mind I remember from the past.
Many thermal pastes aren’t made to go to the high temperatures used by 3d printer hotends.
Some Cooler Master paste appears to be OK to 250 degrees, but the particular one you used is only good to 170c. you used this one right?
Cooler Master CryoFuze seems to be one that goes to 250c
Boron Nitride is a thermal paste made more appropriate for 3d printing temperatures. These will exceed 300 degrees
Slice Engineering sells it, which is a 3d printing accessories company.
Another one is Protronix Series 9 (NOT the series 7)
I don’t think its going to hurt anything to use the grease you used, but it likely won’t be effective (at least for long). Just trying to help, my old experience seems to be coming back a bit lol.
Hi folks,
just finished a 6:45 hrs print with the DX (single color/left hotend), all stock + added locking blocks, but no thermal grease. No issues whatsoever. Print quality ranges from very good to excellent. I am particularly impressed by the handling of overhangs and bridges which came out very good (so print cooling is good!). After all, despite being one of the first receivers of the DX, I seem to be lucky and have a working device (pending that my right nozzle decides to act up on longer prints), and I am really happy with the print quality. It is a notch better than the SX. The PLA I used gave me a lot of headaches with the SX, but now it is just fine! Part of the better result I’d attribute to the DX filament drive, which is much smoother than the tiny cam wheel in the SX.
The print I did was PLA, 205°C/60°C, 100 mm/s (sic!), old linear modules, 1.15.23 firmware, Cura sliced, 0.24mm layer height, 3mm retraction, 0.25mm³ extra prime amount, Z-Hop on. Still a bit of underextrusion after travel, so I guess I’ll increase extra prime amount for next print.
Here’s a photo:
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Hi,
Termopaste max working temps will not by a problem. 300C is a potential temp of a hot end (big cube at the button), next we have narrow neck of a heat break and a heat sink / radiator fins. Those upper parts should never go over 60C. Even Snapmaker official FAQ says that “the temperature of the PTEF tube is about 60℃ when the nozzle is heated to 300℃”
That is the whole problem with our heat creep. Filament should melt in hot end not in heat break.
TLDR: The parts where we are applying termo grease should never reach 170C.
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