Hello, I installed and updated the astrobox firmware to 8.8, however since I first installed the astrobox I noticed the nozzle temperature just keeps dropping, it doesn’t keep the heat and finally the material just colds down and stucks, does anybody know what could it be?
This really sounds more like a set up issue or a printer problem.
Does the temp reading actually drop or does it cool with out realizing it? If it gets cool but thinks it is hot then you probably have a bad thermistor.
I have seen temp drops before in my printer.
Causes are printing too fast that the heater cant keep up. Printing with the fan on high and the fan cools the print head especially if near the bed surface as the air bounces off the bed abd cools the head. Finally a failing heater element.
Maintaining temp is the printers job not really the driving system in this case astroprint.
Try this if you pause the print does the heat come back up. Try turing off or down any cooling fan. Try printing slower. Try using gcode generated by whatever software ypu used before astrobox just upload that to the astrobox and see if it runs differently.
I found even with no printing going on if I put the head near the bed and set the fan for more than 60% the heater could not keep the head hot just not enough heat capacity with all that air. So domething lke this could appear to be an astrobox issue as it is comtrolled by the slicer. Likiting my fan speed in slicer settings fixed it.
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Hello Darren thanx for the reply, well the printer using makerware or replicatorg can keep the temperature, but when I hit print, it does heat up to the desire temperature and then slowly decreases like if there were no temperature set. I can see the temperature behavior in the UI and I see it drops.
Btw my printer is a duplicator dual, I have read some comments as well of temperature drops with double nozzles.
Greetings!
How long does it take for this cooling to happen? Is it the first layer or first few seconds or sometime mid print?
When using the other software things could be different (unless you are using the same g-code)
I would look at the cooling and speed settings and be sure the ones for whatever slicer you are using with astroprint are the same as in the other maker/replicator software…
If say the other software delays the cooling fan until the later or runs it slower that might account for why the head cools with astrobox. Another thing you could do, assuming you are using the cloud slicer on astrobox, is to download the g-code file generated and then run that locally without the astrobox…if it still cools then it is something to do with how the g-code is being generated by the slicer…like a cooling setting or speed issue. If it doesn’t cool then…I have no idea…
Since you mentioned that you have dual setup…I am not sure as I haven’t got my dual running with astrobox yet but I understand astrobox slicing is not really fully dual ready…maybe something is happening like the second extruder fan is running when it should not or the software is heating both extruders but monitoring the one that is not printing and keeping it hot but doesn’t realize the other one is cooling…just guesses at this point.
Any chance you have the printer setting on the astrobox itself set for the wrong firmware…there are two choices…I am so used to g-code I just forgot, but there is a setting for X3G which is what I think the makerbots use…
Hello, yeah it uses X3G, I was looking at the settings, because I used the cloud slicer and found this:
Minimum Layer Cooling Time 15 secs
Minimum Cooling Feedrate 5 mm/s
The temperature drops just after a couple of seconds after it starts printing, I believe the gcode disconnects the temperature, and I tried with the UI to reset it but it won’t keep it stable. The machine itself can understand X3G and gcode, is there any option to send the gcode directly from astrobox?
You can send gcode from the astrobox to the printer. via the console window on the astrobox dashboard.
Question when you are printing do you see the set temp drop on the astrobox control page? That page shows actual temp but also the requested temp. If it showed the requested temp has dropped well that explains what is happening. Not why but at least a place to start.
Ok, I am going to try the console, do you have a tutorial? (let me google it). And yes, the temperature in the control page shows the one I want (210 C) and in real time the dropping temperature
The console only works for GCODE based printers. The Makerbots use S3G commands for which there’s no console.
my bad, then I guess it is not working for me it seems it is a related issue for dual extruders
Is there a way to lie to the astrobox and just tell it you have a single extruder system and get it to ignore the other one…not ideal of course but it might let you get something to print…or maybe unplug the second extruder mechanically?
Can you use your maker software to generate the s3g code and then upload it to the astrobox directly…this would at least get you one good feature of the astrobox which is wireless printing without having a PC needed to drive the printer.
hey that last Idea is not bad at all, yeah, I will send the file wirelessly muahaha, let me try as soon as I hit my house
Ok, I can confirm the x3g file created from my computer actually works fine if I upload it directly to the astrobox. So I guess is the cloud slicer which is messing with the temperatures.
Greetings
It might be interesting to try generating a G-Code file using the cloud slicer and looking at it.
I am assuming the Gcode would have the same error as the x3g…but that might be something to test too if your printer can accept G-code…
I am not familiar with x3g…maybe you can look at that too…
You can download the file by going to the file manager then double clicking the design which then shows the slicer output file, if you click the icon to the right of the file you get a pull down menu where you can download the file to your PC.
Also you could try the other slicer…the cloud slice system offers both Slic3r and Cura
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