Geeetech

Hi guys!

So last week I got new nozzles for my printer and was able to print a few pieces correctly and they came out better than the default nozzle. Then why I tried printing a third piece the printer got half way through it before it just started printing air! I noticed that the extruder head was clicking back and forth. After a few tests i noticed it mainly did it when the x axis motor was moving but if both x and y axis were moving then it moved fine. This led me to think it was a power issue but all of the boards read 0.8v. It also works fine when i just set it to extrude a 20mm piece.

One other think happens as well. The LCD display will either say "Sleep...." or will literally display gibberish. Ive checked that thermometer cable and did find it was lose but that doesn't explain the gibberish part.

Ive also tried multiple nozzles and get the same problem so I dont think its a blocked nozzle either :/

Any help would be great guys as its melting my head!

Timdog wrote:Hi guys!

So last week I got new nozzles for my printer and was able to print a few pieces correctly and they came out better than the default nozzle. Then why I tried printing a third piece the printer got half way through it before it just started printing air! I noticed that the extruder head was clicking back and forth. After a few tests i noticed it mainly did it when the x axis motor was moving but if both x and y axis were moving then it moved fine. This led me to think it was a power issue but all of the boards read 0.8v. It also works fine when i just set it to extrude a 20mm piece.

One other think happens as well. The LCD display will either say "Sleep...." or will literally display gibberish. Ive checked that thermometer cable and did find it was lose but that doesn't explain the gibberish part.

Ive also tried multiple nozzles and get the same problem so I dont think its a blocked nozzle either :/

Any help would be great guys as its melting my head!

hi, please tune red driver board voltage. increase the trim pot voltage to 1v. besides could you shoot a video about the problem. i want to see the first layer and other problems you mentioned.

Hey thanks for the reply

I check the voltages again and bumped them up to 1.1v each but it didnt seem to help :/

I took a video of it starting a print.

https://vid.me/delete/qcfgvn7u6isko0c80ks8wgw8

You can see the extruder motor just clicking back and forth without printing anything and I also took some pictures of the LCD display. The display only ever does this when the printer starts to print something.
http://imgur.com/a/m6osG

Thanks again and hopefully we can figure out whats up

hi, the nozzle tip scratch print bed.the nozzle tip is too closed to print bed. please lift z home position a bit. and regarding to the "sleep" in lcd, did you select sth in LCD menu?

Hi, the nozzle actually doesn't touch the board at all :/ if you are talking about the noise you are hearing, its the x axis polls making the noise. As for the sth in LCD menu, im not actually 100% sure where to find that as im still a bit new with the printer, sorry!

I also just checked the power supply going into the printer and when its idle it sits at 12v but when I start a print the voltage drops to 9v. I asked someone on another forum and they told me that it means the power supply is broken and that ill need a new one. Do you think this is the case?

yeah the PSU is not stable, it should be about 12V when heated up the heaters, might need to change it.

Hi, I found that the PSU had been set to 220v instead of 110v which fixed the power dropping issue. It also fixed a few other problems expect for the main one. I have also updated the firmware but it hasnt fixed the extruder problem.

OK ive just noticed something rather strange. Whens its doing a print, it will only stop extruding if it goes onto the further half of the print bed. If its printing along the closest half of the print bed then it works fine. What would cause it to do this?

Problem fixed!!! The problem actually ended up being the cable that runs to the stepper motor had somehow become damaged. After fitting a replacement, the printer runs great again. Hope this helps others in the future!