Author Topic: Repairing and Upgrading Cube Gen2  (Read 599 times)

ShadowedR

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Repairing and Upgrading Cube Gen2
« on: April 26, 2016, 06:06:59 am »
FINALLY,
After hours of struggling I find a pretty cool community to help me!

So I was given a broken Cube Gen2 by a very frustrated friend of mine.
Quickly found the problem:
  1. The cooling fan broke on the head
  2. This lead to the heat fuse blowing.

Easy fix - bridge the fuse and ignore the broken fan.
Ha, quickly found out print jobs longer than 3min tend to jam and fail.

I had another friend print me brackets for some old GPU fans I had lying around and fixed the cooling problem.
See the fan mod pics.

Anxious I set a 1hr print job to start (40mm tall model) with some rather tiny details.
Now I do realise that the model I used was a little too detailed for this printer, but to my horror I discovered this attached hot mess after the job was done.

Back to google we go and I see that people have started designing fan ducts to cool the material as it is extruded from the device.

So here is where I am at:
I think I'll print a whole new enclosure for the printer, open air, two 40mm fans keeping the feeding ramp cooled with an added 40mm fan that feeds through a funnel to the extruder tip.

Has anyone had any similar experience with the feed ramp getting too hot and jamming and/or making a duct fan to cool round the extruder?

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spegelius

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Re: Repairing and Upgrading Cube Gen2
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2016, 12:17:08 am »
Hmm, i din't have such problems when my Cube was in it's default form, every print with Cube's own filament went fine. But with bulk filament and after i've been modifying the nozzle, there have been more than enough filament jams, which seem to have been sorted out now. Also I'm now changing my hot-end to j-head, but that requires some additional work (regulating 24V-> 12V and adjusting the thermistor value (100k) to match what Cube's motherboard expects it to be (200k) ).

But Cube in it's default form shouldn't have problems printing small details. What you described seems to point to the nozzle heating too much. Maybe the thermistor was damaged when the fan died and nozzle overheated? What settings did you use with the print?

ShadowedR

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Re: Repairing and Upgrading Cube Gen2
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2016, 01:33:29 am »
Trust me when I say the model wasn't suited for 3D printing.
I just didn't expect that blob of PLA out of the printer.

I've since added in a bulk filament spool, switched to using KISSlicer + Cubit + CodeX.

Works a lot better.
A lot.

See the attached printing job (spool stand).

I still want to know if cooling around the extruder tip would aid in the printing process.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 01:42:10 am by ShadowedR »

ShadowedR

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Re: Repairing and Upgrading Cube Gen2
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2016, 01:37:06 am »
The print job and setup at the moment.

Also, I'm running low on that expensive glue.
I've not had much success printing PLA on the bare plate, but I've seen Pritt Stick ( or w/e is avail in your country ) will work just fine?

Any other suggestions?

spegelius

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Re: Repairing and Upgrading Cube Gen2
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2016, 09:18:29 am »
Great. Moving away from Cube's default slicer is a good step at getting better quality from the printer ;). Personally i'm using Slic3r at the moment.

Cube's default glue is actually not very good in my opinion; it does work ok with both PLA and ABS, but i get better results with generic glue stick + Cube glue on top of it. With PLA, generic glue stick works better than Cube's glue. With ABS, generic glue stick does not work very well, maybe it's the temperature.
I've used to brands of glue stick, Staedler and some no-name from local store (Finland). Also as my original Cube glue is running out, i've tried another, liquid glue in addition to the glue stick and it seems to work quite well.
I also have blue painters tape and this spray: http://taerosol.com/en/202-plastic-spray/ but haven't tested them yet as the material's i'm currently printing adhere well enough to glue (PETG, Bamboofill)