Folger Tech Kossel Delta 2020 Full 3D Printer Kit w/Auto-Level

Hi, I've finally got mine working pretty good after making some big messes and I had a few questions as I get things dialed in.

What is the best method for clearing out filament that has gotten melted into the threads in the hot end and steel tube from the J-head? I had a print that went bad when I was out because the new fan shroud I added fell of causing the j-head to over heat. My son hit the off button but didn’t shut down the print properly so I came home to a hot end and j-head packed full of melted filament. I disassembled it and burned out all the melted filament with a propane torch but I’m figuring that wasn’t the best solution. Now all the threads are a little loose and I have to use Teflon tape to keep it from leaking.

Which leads me to my next question, I want to get a better quality hot end and j-head. Who sells the best quality ones?

I ordered some different size nozzles. If I go to the 0.2mm nozzle is there any other settings in the firmware or slicer that need adjusted other than the box in slicer for the nozzle size?

A while back someone posted a link to site with pictures of common print issues and causes but I can’t find the link, can someone share it?

Thanks for all the help!

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2015 12:31PM by matthew900.

Quote
matthew900
Hi, I've finally got mine working pretty good after making some big messes and I had a few questions as I get things dialed in.

What is the best method for clearing out filament that has gotten melted into the threads in the hot end and steel tube from the J-head? I had a print that went bad when I was out because the new fan shroud I added fell of causing the j-head to over heat. My son hit the off button but didn’t shut down the print properly so I came home to a hot end and j-head packed full of melted filament. I disassembled it and burned out all the melted filament with a propane torch but I’m figuring that wasn’t the best solution. Now all the threads are a little loose and I have to use Teflon tape to keep it from leaking.

Which leads me to my next question, I want to get a better quality hot end and j-head. Who sells the best quality ones?

I ordered some different size nozzles. If I go to the 0.2mm nozzle is there any other settings in the firmware or slicer that need adjusted other than the box in slicer for the nozzle size?

A while back someone posted a link to site with pictures of common print issues and causes but I can’t find the link, can someone share it?

Thanks for all the help!

Site for better prints: https://0x7d.com/2015/01/a-guide-to-high-quality-3d-prints/

For clogged throats, you have a couple of options, heat the hotend and try to extrude some. If that won't work you can soak it in a solvent for the type of filament you are using. Better, get a solid throat not one with PTFE tubing in it.

Hotends - Nothing wrong with what you have, I won't be replacing mine unless it physically breaks. However, you asked for some better ones and these are the best on the market.
[e3d-online.com]
[www.lulzbot.com]

Youtube Thomas RE the E3D [www.youtube.com]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2015 02:30PM by thevisad.

Thanks! I figured my blow torch method was a bit heavy handed. I was pissed and it made me feel better. What's the best solvent for PLA?

On the plus side removing the thermistor and heater from the hot end helped me learn something useful. I added thermal paste to both when I reassembled it and discovered my hot end heated up way faster and I think the thermistor is responding to temperature changes quicker.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2015 02:45PM by matthew900.

Quote
matthew900
Thanks! I figured my blow torch method was a bit heavy handed. I was pissed and it made me feel better. What's the best solvent for PLA?

On the plus side removing the thermistor and heater from the hot end helped me learn something useful. I added thermal paste to both when I reassembled it and discovered my hot end heated up way faster and I think the thermistor is responding to temperature changes quicker.

I use ABS, but I believe acetone will work to soak it in for a week or so to release everything.

Hi... I'm Dario
a new Folger Tech Fan...

I order my one the 20 June and yesterday I have at home my "baby".... (in Swiss)

All Ok ... a big thank's to all the team of FolgerTech..... and now at work...

Dario

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2015 11:56PM by Dariuzzo.

Anyone have a link to a good fan shroud that fits the print head these ship with? Im getting some heat creep and a shroud should help a lot.

I'll see if I can find the link to what I used, but it's a clone E3DV5, so anything for that will work, and there are plenty on Thingiverse.

A very helpful addition too!

- Tim

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2015 02:55PM by tadawson.

Hello Everyone -

I am having quite the morning - Cleared a hot end jam, replaced nozzle and was extruding great. Started a print and i have been getting:

Error:Heating failed, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0
[ERROR] Error:Heating failed, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0

and a "Heating Failed" on the LCD

whenever i get around the 170-190 degree mark

Any ideas? i've checked the thermistor, and the heating "lug" inside the aluminum block and i dont see any damage

Thanks much for the help

Quote
thevisad

Quote
matthew900
Thanks! I figured my blow torch method was a bit heavy handed. I was pissed and it made me feel better. What's the best solvent for PLA?

On the plus side removing the thermistor and heater from the hot end helped me learn something useful. I added thermal paste to both when I reassembled it and discovered my hot end heated up way faster and I think the thermistor is responding to temperature changes quicker.

I use ABS, but I believe acetone will work to soak it in for a week or so to release everything.

Acetone does not dissolve PLA. I have had success with Scigrip 4 and Weld-On #4. It's nasty stuff, but it works. The key ingredient seems to be Dichloromethane (methylene chloride).

Made some choices to replace all of the plastic parts on the machine with aluminum parts. Despite my best efforts, my effector and motor mounts were showing signs of warping due to the heat. These parts decrease the interior dimensions by an additional 10 mm.

I received my replacement Duet and this time the USB header was actually on the board. I soldered the lower two ground connectors as they were not soldered and touched up the ground solder points on the side as they were mediocre. Since I have the machine torn down for the metal part upgrades anyways, I am deciding on whether to upgrade the machine to the Due/Ramps/lcd combo or add in the Duet with no lcd.

I replaced all of the acrylic bed parts as they were warping under the heat/bed weight and replaced it with a 6mm thick sheet of aluminum. I need to add a hole for the wires and the mounting holes for the bed. I am considering laser cutting a new board and insulation layer for the bed to sit on. The other board looks hackish on the printer now.

I added an additional 6mm aluminum panel on the top of the unit, I am thinking about mounting the extruder underneath and the filament on top to minimize the desktop footprint.

While the unit is down, I decided to replace all of the missing bearings in the rail blocks, even though they are running pretty smooth and were not presenting a problem.
[www.amazon.com]

I am also upgrading all of the mechanical endstops to optical sensors, but will need to create new mounting plates and line breaks for the carriages.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2015 01:22AM by thevisad.

Quote
thevisad
Made some choices to replace all of the plastic parts on the machine with aluminum parts. Despite my best efforts, my effector and motor mounts were showing signs of warping due to the heat. These parts decrease the interior dimensions by an additional 10 mm.

I received my replacement Duet and this time the USB header was actually on the board. I soldered the lower two ground connectors as they were not soldered and touched up the ground solder points on the side as they were mediocre. Since I have the machine torn down for the metal part upgrades anyways, I am deciding on whether to upgrade the machine to the Due/Ramps/lcd combo or add in the Duet with no lcd.

I replaced all of the acrylic bed parts as they were warping under the heat/bed weight and replaced it with a 6mm thick sheet of aluminum. I need to add a hole for the wires and the mounting holes for the bed. I am considering laser cutting a new board and insulation layer for the bed to sit on. The other board looks hackish on the printer now.

I added an additional 6mm aluminum panel on the top of the unit, I am thinking about mounting the extruder underneath and the filament on top to minimize the desktop footprint.

While the unit is down, I decided to replace all of the missing bearings in the rail blocks, even though they are running pretty smooth and were not presenting a problem.
[www.amazon.com]

I am also upgrading all of the mechanical endstops to optical sensors, but will need to create new mounting plates and line breaks for the carriages.

8fbe29447f.jpg

Those sheets looked really nice and would help with stability.
Would you mind sharing the lengths of the sides of that sheet? (metric if possible)
I'm away from home helping my GF's father with some electric stuff so I cannot measure it for myself, but on the plus-side he's got access to a lasercutter...
I'm using the same metalcorners as you have there (robotdigg) so I suppose we have the same measurements.
I'm thinking I'll go with M4 countersunk screws though for the sheets. (have some left that I ordered to use with the corners from robotdigg)

Would it help much to change to optical sensors for the endstops?
I have had that thought as well.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2015 03:26AM by Koenig.

Quote
Koenig
Those sheets looked really nice and would help with stability.
Would you mind sharing the lengths of the sides of that sheet? (metric if possible)
I'm away from home helping my GF's father with some electric stuff so I cannot measure it for myself, but on the plus-side he's got access to a lasercutter...
I'm using the same metalcorners as you have there (robotdigg) so I suppose we have the same measurements.
I'm thinking I'll go with M4 countersunk screws though for the sheets. (have some left that I ordered to use with the corners from robotdigg)

Would it help much to change to optical sensors for the endstops?
I have had that thought as well.

Thanks! It took a long time to cut/smooth/drill the holes, but I like the way it looks overall. You are right, the thing is so rigid now it's like a teenager on prom night. The long sides of the plate are 205 mm and the short side is 115 mm. This brings the plates just to the inside edge of the metal corners so the plate is supported by the corner bracket. I onl had M5 x 10mm bolts on hand, it really calls for 12mm, so I might order some of those and replace them. The metal corners also have the channel ground out and you can slide in pre assembly t nuts into the groove with a little wiggling.

My hot end and nozzle seems to seep out a bit while it prints. Finally getting solid objects although I know I will need to tweak some more. Is it normal to seep out a bit?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2015 01:57PM by cman8.

I have a weird problem,
When I slice, in the platter it looks fine. but when I load into printrun to print, its off the circular graph. It prints fine just dont know what Im doing wrong if anything. Any ideas?

You need to adjust your settings for center and offset in Pronterface . . . it is likely setup by default for a cartesian printer with 0,0 at one corner of the bed, not in the center.

- Tim

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2015 04:22AM by tadawson.

Quote
cman8
I have a weird problem,
When I slice, in the platter it looks fine. but when I load into printrun to print, its off the circular graph. It prints fine just dont know what Im doing wrong if anything. Any ideas?

there should be an option to "offset" the bed area in the settings

Ok heres another that just started happenning to me. When I print, The bed seems like its not even. Ive checked and double checked and everything seems fine but when the nozzle moves towards the back, it hits the platter. WTF? I thought I had it good, printing things. What settings do I have off?

Likely an endstop issue. You need to calibrate your endstops (and can fine tune in Marlin and it's EEPROM settings with M666) to ensure that Z=0 is the same adjacent to all three towers, and then verify that the SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET (IIRC) is correct that you are neither high or low in the center. Get that done, and you will have uniform Z height across the bed.

- Tim

Hey Tim, thanks for the response. I have calibrated the end stops per the manual, and compiled and uploaded in the firmware. Unless I'm doing it wrong, I'm taking the measurement from the middle of my nozzle to the front of my rails and adjusted so all three are 178mm. Is that not what I'm supposed to do? How do you suggest fine tuning in firmware? I'm new at this but definitely wanting to learn all the tips and tricks. Thanks for all your help. It's much appreciated.

That gets it close, but is nowhere near exact. Jog the head as close as you can get it without hitting a hard stop to each tower, and then bring it down and do a paper test. This should match next to all towers . . . There are docs on delta calibration here on RepRap that go beyond Folger's stuff, and once I did a more detailed calibration, my print quality improved a lot.

- Tim

Quote
cman8
Hey Tim, thanks for the response. I have calibrated the end stops per the manual, and compiled and uploaded in the firmware. Unless I'm doing it wrong, I'm taking the measurement from the middle of my nozzle to the front of my rails and adjusted so all three are 178mm. Is that not what I'm supposed to do? How do you suggest fine tuning in firmware? I'm new at this but definitely wanting to learn all the tips and tricks. Thanks for all your help. It's much appreciated.

Follow the guide below, the manual they provide is mediocre at best. When it comes to printing the calibration part utilize this part and follow his directions on that site. [www.thingiverse.com] If you find that your towers are not properly aligned due to build issues, bad plastic parts, etc, then you will need to either merge the changes he provides into the firmware manually or use my branch of it which has it merged in the proper locations. [github.com]

[delta-calibration.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com]

Thanks to all. Tim so a quick question. I found some other info on using the M666 and M665 method to manually calibrate all towers. question is when I give the comands does it save it straight from printrun to the FW? or do I have to open audrino and input all the results I get into the configuration.h file?

C) - None of the above. Get as close as you can by physically tuning the endstops, and tweak in with M666. Once that is done, save to EEPROM with M500 and the settings will be there everytime, with no need to recompile. Unfortunately, if you needto tweak DELTA_SMOOTH_ARM_OFFSET, that *DOES* require a recompile/upload to change, but should not require future tweaking unless you change todifferent parts/geometry. (M503 will let you see what is set in running Marlin.)

- Tim

What do you mean by physically? Moving them with my hand or with printrun software? Sorry, dont mean to be a pain but I am really new at this and Im starting to get it but there are a few things over my head still.

Ok I move over in front of the X tower and bring my Z down and wont to bring it to the negatives but it doesnt go. Also If I send the M666 command it just sits sending. Is it because im on a mac?

Quote
cman8
What do you mean by physically? Moving them with my hand or with printrun software? Sorry, dont mean to be a pain but I am really new at this and Im starting to get it but there are a few things over my head still.

Loosen the screw, and move the endstop up or down until Z on that tower is as close as you can get it, then fine tune (if needed) with an offset set with M666 . . .

- Tim

Quote
cman8
Ok I move over in front of the X tower and bring my Z down and wont to bring it to the negatives but it doesnt go. Also If I send the M666 command it just sits sending. Is it because im on a mac?

The MAC dumbs down an awful lot, but it won't affect your gcode. By default, Marlin won't go negative, since on a properly setup printer, that's a nozzle crash . . . If you can't get to the bed, increase your height (the 253-ish) number until you can. The key here is not to get it in contact at exaxtly z=0, but to get all three tower points the *same*. Then the offset is set so the towers and center match, and *then* the actual z=0 point is set, and will apply anywhere on the bed.

M666 gives no reply - use M503 to verify that the setting is present.

- Tim

When I put in M503 command, how do I know if m666 took effect? Is it in the z home offset line?

So I just ordered one of these and I'm pretty excited. My plan is to replace the ardiuno and ramps with a smoothieboard, I'm just not sure when. Should I assemble it and get it working with the ardiuno first, or don't bother with it and hold off on assembling until I receive the smoothieboard?

Just ordered one 7/9/15, looking forward to tinkering. Hasn't shipped yet.