Author Topic: Trouble completting prints with my Cube 2  (Read 306 times)

lbeach1984

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Trouble completting prints with my Cube 2
« on: December 28, 2014, 11:08:06 am »
I bought my husband a cube 2 for christmas.  We found your website and have implimented the bulk filament hack.   It seems to work just fine MOST of the time.  However,  in the middle of some of the builds the machine will mess up and then continue fine.  but this leaves a layer or 2 messed up and therefore messes up the entire piece.  Any ideas why it is doing this and how it can be avoided.  Also is there a way to stop mid build an fix a problem like this and pick up where you left off??

Great site by the way! We searched and searched for hours to find good informaiton on the Cube and your site was the most helpful!

Oh per your bulk filament post we adjusted the pulley wheel to accomidate the 1.75 filament.

Cube 2 v 2.08

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Dan

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Re: Trouble completting prints with my Cube 2
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2014, 06:09:21 am »
Firstly Lbeach, welcome and congrats on buying your husband possibly the coolest thing he'll ever get for Christmas. 

In response to your question, you'll need to be more specific.  By "Messed up" exactly what do you mean?  Is the extruder not pushing enough filament through? Or is it offsetting the "messed up" layers so they're not inline with the rest of the print?

My feeling is that it's likely "skipping steps" on the extruder side of things.  ie, not enough filament is coming through on certain layers.  There's a number of things which could cause this, but I suspect its temperature related as it seems to be with many others here.  THere is no fix for this (if that's the case) other than to try different brands of PLA.  Some melt at around 210 C, others much lowe at 180. Another possibility is to use a chip from an ABS cartridge with after market PLA being fed instead of ABS.  THe chip definitely controls the temperature so changing chip types may help.  Other possible issues could be to do with the alignment of the filament at the point it moves between the extruder toothed gear and the opposing pulley; if it's not going through straight, that can also cause issues. 

I hate to say it, but im somewhat cynical about the stock firmware these units have loaded and the complete lack of ability to control calibration settings like temperature and speed.  That's why I "frankencubed" my unit.  I found that stock firmware was great for some things, and terrible for other things.  Often the solution was merely being able to control temperature or print speed.  Unfortunately, unless you want to screw with your unit further or modify the files you are printing with (just check out some other posts here for detail on both), you're out of luck. 

Best of.
Dan

lbeach1984

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Re: Trouble completting prints with my Cube 2
« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2014, 08:44:59 am »
Dan,

Thanks for the reply.  And yes my husband loved his gift!!  :)... I would say that the extruder is not pushing out enough filament.  Because it seems to be that there is a gap in the print and the piece doesn't seem to stay together properly.  My husband already made a small modification with the pulley to hopefully allow the thicker filament to move more freely. It doesnt seem to be a constant problem so we will see how it goes.. I unfortunately have another few for you...

We are having trouble with the wifi.. our wifi is working fine and we have been using it fine.  we moved the machine and now we cant get it to reconnect to the wifi... its sitting right next to the router so I know its not signal... Any suggestions??

Also is there a way to stop the machine mid print and make adjustments and pick up where you left off??

Again thanks for your help!

Camstar

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Re: Trouble completting prints with my Cube 2
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2014, 09:02:42 am »
Hi Lbeach,

I'm also quite a new user of the Cube, and over all it has performed well. Both issues you describe are familiar.

Filament:  Just like Dan mentioned, it all depends on the filament. Some work great others don' t. In my experience it also depends on the item you are printing. If there are a lot of retraction actions (the filament is slightly pulled up to bridge a gap) my  "bad"  filament seems to not get pushed into the extruder (clicking noise) and I get a couple of layers that did not print well. As a result you can throw away the object ;-( I have also purchased an example bag of filament (12 colors) on aliexpress where none of the colors have this issue. So try to find the right filament. (I can mail the resellername, but cannot guarantee it will work with your printer)

WIFI: No solution here, just confirming the same problem (sort of). I have managed to connect the printer to my acces point, and have printed through wifi. But after turning the printer off, the next day I could not connect, I could not even enter the wifi menu. After a reset, I was able to connect again. But now even though the printer seems connected (it has an IP adress), the Cube software cannot connect to it. So it is back to the USB stick.

Best regards,

Chris (The Netherlands)

Dan

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Re: Trouble completting prints with my Cube 2
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2014, 07:17:28 am »
Second that.  Wifi is pointless on the cube, unless you plan on screwing with it on a daily basis.