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Edited: Mar 09, 2022

Anyone else getting thermal runaways??

So I'm getting thermal runaway errors when printing a simple temperature tower from 220°C till 180°C using cura's calibration shapes.

Anyone else experiencing the same issues??

My guess is that the firmware currently checks if the hotend temperature is a certain value above the set point and triggers a thermal runaway if it is above that point...Not sure.

I've attached my gcode.

Edit: I can't attach my gcode here so I used pastebin

https://pastebin.com/g1LC8y8K

43 comments

43 Comments

Akisame -

Mar 13, 2022

Okay. I decided to switch to Prusaslicer. That seems to have fixed the jamming issues. My best guess....It might have been the fans being on 100% right after the first layer. Prusaslicer has a low fan speed at big layers and only uses 100% on small layers. It might be that the fans cool down the tip too much and that causes the PLA to solidify in the tip. Not sure

Akisame -

Mar 13, 2022

Replying to

@Martin Bahmann I have had very similar experiences... Small prints are fine but as soon as I tried a big print it clogged up.

I made a profile for prusaslicer and it seems to work much better than the cura profile. No more clogging.

Try setting the default fan speed to 25-30%. That may help.

My temperatures were correct for me but I've heard of others where the temperature are widely off.

Dries Douterloigne

Mar 18, 2022

Replying to

I did my first prints today and have the same issues: clogging with 'larger' prints. Going to reassemble the hotend, pid autotune and make a profile for super slicer. The printer came with a silicone sock (at least there was one in my box) and removing it will cause thermal runaways for me , certainly when part cooling is at max

Akisame -

Mar 20, 2022

Replying to

@Dries Douterloigne Same. It seems the fans are angled too high and are cooling the heating block. I still get thermal runaway errors at higher temperature even with the silicon sock with the fans at 100%.

So far I've printed about 1.5 kg of filament for....1 large print, 2 largeish prints and 3 small prints....Just because so much gets wasted with these clogging issues on large prints.

Ooh and the filament runout sensor doesn't work. It triggers but nothing happens.... Another Big print wasted.

Honestly....So far I am quite disappointed with this printer.

- The bed is warped like crazy (+0.8mm up on one side. -0.04mm in the center and +0.46mm on the other side.)

- Clogging issues are a real pain with this printer. Rarely get any clogs on my UM2+ but this one has been nothing but clogs....

- The hotend's quality is....not so good.... I've had to disassemble and reassemble this thing so many times now....Leakage from the heatbreak (I did tighten is properly at 250°C), PTFE tube popping out of the extruder, backflow of filament due to the high pressure causing a jam in the heatbreak, etc.... I am honestly considering high temperature (1000°C) treat-lock to prevent the hotend from unscrewing itself.

- I'm getting nowhere near the print quality shown in the kickstarter.

- Having to wait nearly a month on build instructions....

- Repeated broken promises....

- Bugs in the firmware.

- Bugs in their version of Cura

It works now that I'm using prusaslicer but it isn't living up to its promises so far...

Akisame -

Mar 12, 2022

Nope. Still got issues.

The PTFE tube pops off at the top it seems. Small prints are fine. No issue. but every big print I tried just ends up in the PTFE tube popping out of the extruder. I bought some different tube. Hopefully higher quality and I am going to try it with that.

Frederik Weis

Mar 12, 2022

Replying to

@Akisame - are you sure your ptfe isn’t too long or too short? Best bet would be, just to disassemble everything and reassemble it while carefully following every step in the manual

Akisame -

Mar 13, 2022

Replying to

@Frederik Weis I actually have disassembled and re-assembled it several times already.

I have tried cutting my tube shorter and longer... It doesn't seem to work. I really don't know what to do to get it to work.... Also. Be careful btw. I had one run where the ABL failed and it crashed into my build plate... It is kinda ruined now....

Akisame -

Mar 12, 2022

Now researching retract distance vs jamming rate. It seems I need a high retract distance.

Johannes Weis

Mar 12, 2022

Replying to

You won't need more than 1mm. Also the Orbiter has a max retract speed of about 30mm/s because of the 7:1 transmission.

The higher the retract distance, the higher the chance to glue your cold end shut.

Akisame -

Mar 12, 2022

Replying to

@Johannes Weis The v1.5 has a maximum retraction speed of 60 mm/sec according to their product page. When I print with 1 mm retraction distance I get a mess. 1.8 mm is where it starts to took good.

This is my retraction tower going from 1.7 at the bottom to 0.2 at the top with 30mm/sec retraction speed.

On the right is my retraction tower with 1.8 mm retraction and 50mm/sec. On the right you see 1mm with 30mm/sec.

And here on the left with 1.8mm retraction at 50mm/sec and the right with 1 mm retraction at 30 mm/sec.

I do really need the 1.8mm retraction at this speed to get good quality prints.

Akisame -

Mar 11, 2022

It appears that changing the spool position did the trick. I'm currently the furthest into my temperature tower I've ever gotten without jamming.

Edit: Nope. It still jams and does this to my PTFE tube

Frederik Weis

Mar 12, 2022

Replying to

@Akisame - what the hell?!? Check Temperature, flow rate and line width.

I print with Retract distance 1mm and retract speed 30mm/s

also check every bolt and screw in your build. Seems that everything that could go wrong, went wrong on your printer ._.

Akisame -

Mar 12, 2022

Replying to

@Frederik Weis I need a retract distance of 1.8mm at 50mm/sec with a Z-hop. That seems to fix the problem (most of the time). Still researching

And yes....They forgot to pack about 70 pounds of stuff in my package so yeah.....I think that's a fair assessment. Still waiting for a response from Makertech about a refund of the missing stuff since I bought it locally now....

Frederik Weis

Mar 10, 2022

Have you tried leveling without the fan duct? :D or just cut off a bit of the above material, you don’t need it anyways

Frederik Weis

Mar 11, 2022

Replying to

@Akisame - I have it too and so far it’s being awesome! keep it on your watchlist on Amazon, a few weeks ago it was in sale for about 70€, which pretty surely is quite a lot but it is worth it!

Akisame -

Mar 11, 2022

Replying to

@Frederik Weis I started my temperature tower again with everything refreshed. Hoping it works well this time.

The dragon hotend is actually 74 euro at my local shop. What kind of flowspeeds are you reaching with it?? Very curious.

Edit: it was a failure again. Redid the PTFE tube again and checking one last time. This time with the spool on my TUSH spool holders so the spool is more straight below the filament sensor

Frederik Weis

Mar 11, 2022

Replying to

@Akisame - I can´t tell you the flowspeeds tbh, but I printed at 100mm/s and 0,6mm nozzle with no problems :D

Akisame -

Mar 10, 2022

Aah! No, that gap is even smaller for me than it is in your picture.

Frederik Weis

Mar 10, 2022

I mean this gap

Frederik Weis

Mar 10, 2022

Are you sure your Hotend sits on or in front your PTFE tube? Had a similar problem so the Fan duct was too far away from the metal plate because the fitting between PTFE and Fan Duct was to small. Had to cut a bit of the duct away that it fitted correctly

Akisame -

Mar 10, 2022

Replying to

How do you check?

Frederik Weis

Mar 10, 2022

Replying to

@Akisame - check how big the gap betw the duct and the metal part behind is. Shouldnt be more than 1-2mm

Akisame -

Mar 10, 2022

Replying to

@Frederik Weis do you mean the gap between the PTFE tube coming out of the direct drive extruder and the hotend? I measured that one exactly so I know there is no gap there. Or do you mean something else?? Thanks for your help btw. I really appreciate it

Akisame -

Mar 10, 2022

I think I figured out why it is always skipping during ABL....You know when it goes by the front about 1 mm away from the front edge of the top section? Well....That top square isn't cut straight. There is a 1 mm deviation across the front causing it to bump into it when doing the front pass throwing the axes out of wack....I'll need to reprint the hotend shroud and include a little thing to allow it to pass by this without bumping into the top section....

Johannes Weis

Mar 10, 2022

Replying to

@Akisame - have you checked if your carriages and rails are parallel? It's very easy to tilt the gantry 1-2mm when assembling.

I don’t think the square at the top is off since cnc laser cut parts are pretty difficult to fuck up.

Akisame -

Mar 10, 2022

Replying to

@Johannes Weis I measured it. You are right. The gantry is off square by 0.13°. I removed a bit of the plastic to make it work.

Johannes Weis

Mar 10, 2022

Replying to

@Akisame - then realign the axis. For the small price of loosening and tightening 8 screws you'll get unskewed parts :D

Akisame -

Mar 09, 2022

It seems it is unable to maintain 220°C with the fans on 100% even after (another) PID autotune.... At least at low layer heights. Once it goes up a bit it is fine with it.....This is a bit sucky..

Frederik Weis

Mar 10, 2022

Replying to

@Akisame - doesn’t sound that good… I‘m quite happy with the printer because it prints much better and faster than my old one in which I spend hundreds of euros and hours of time in upgrades. But you are right, the broken promises are annoying as hell. Just read the Faq of the Kickstarter page, there are very much points they never delivered. Also there were so much things that were and still are just a bit f‘d up, like not releasing proper build manuals or just don’t deliver a firmware for like a week after shipping…

Akisame -

Mar 10, 2022

Replying to

@Frederik Weis without the major bugs (??) I'm experiencing it would be a decent printer.

I'm just a bit salty about makertech's behavior. I asked for a refund of the missing items but I've not had any response so far..

Johannes Weis

Mar 10, 2022

Replying to

@Akisame - Let’s see:

-get a silicone sock or your heater block will lose too much energy to the air.

-realign x-gantry

-bed can be skewed by a LOT. Usually it’s 1.5mm with my printer. Horrible design, is solved by adding z-axis synchronization. I’m currently working on that and will share as soon as it’s ready.

-have you checked the current for your extruder stepper? Mine is set to 600mA and works. Have also printed a 12h job with no issues except for warping (btw, get insulation for the bed heater). If that isn’t the issue, check the pressure from the extruder wheels (how does the indentation of the teeth look on the filament), check your PTFE tubes (right length? Any defects at the ends?), could it be heat creep? (what’s your retract at?)

-yep. No helping that. Also a bit concerned about changing out parts and ordering bulk before changing the prototype and checking if everything works ._. -Which stuff? Except for the Raspberry Pi I was missing like 5 screws

Akisame -

Mar 09, 2022

It occurs on layer 4. Fans turn on at layer 3. It only occurs when the temperature goes from high to low. It seems it doesn't occur when the temperature goes from low to high. I will do another PID Autotune once this low to high temperature tower is done.

When the error occurs the printer turns off for a brief second. No logs are available but my sitting next to it just before it occurs I can check the error it gives

Frederik Weis

Mar 09, 2022

Do you know where the runaway occurs? Had that on my old Cartesian printer one time because of a broken thermistor and one time due to loose connectors. maybe also do a PID Autotune for the hotend and the bed (but only if you haven’t got the Mic6 upgrade!)

Marlin should also have logs where you pretty surely can see, where the problem occurs. And as always, check your connections if you get a hardware error :)