RoboDLC wrote:I will soon have an IR heat reader to see about those temperatures.
if you are not getting something very expensive and you are not very proficient with it IR contactless thermometer is going to give very inprecise results. you have to deal with both emmissivity (not easy with alu heat block, brass nozzle, abs oil and other dirt on the nozzle and heatblock) and size of the measuring spot (they tend to be rather large on the ir thermometers) .... ir camera helps but these cheap ones (like seek thermal or the flir adapter for ios phone) while showing great the distribution of heat, they are even less precise then properly placed ntc (dunno about those $20k flir cameras never used those, if you have access to those they probbly work better
)
RoboDLC wrote:
Unfortunately, I have a cheesy J-head knockoff from the kit manufacturer and cannot print those temperatures.
check position of the ntc, check if your ntc is properly typed in the firmware. often ppl change ntc in the extruder with some ebay ones with same 25C resistance and while the temp "looks close enough" it can be 50+C error there
...
good thing to do, if you have time, will, energy, money (not much needed
) is to get a thermocouple and thermocouple reader .. you can get cheap PRC made DMM with thermocouple for under 10$ in PRC shops, even cheaper online (then you just have to wait too long for them to arrive)... get the TC that is just a "dot" on the tip, small ball, not the one with large metal 3-5mm probe.. so "the cheapest one"
.. you attach that to outside of the nozzle and then wrap it with kapton tape, or better, if you have, silicone tape.. it will hold the TC in place and will insulate it from surrounding ... then heat your nozzle and monitor temperature from TC and temp your firmware is reading from NTC .. this way you can easily get idea what is the "real" nozzle temp for every readout in your firmware
.. when you do few heating/cooling sessions you can remove the tape and TC and use hotend as you did before.. TC, even cheap PRC one, is pretty accurate (inside the 2C in combo with cheap PRC reader) so it's easiest way to get the data you need.
RoboDLC wrote:
I plan on getting an E3D and making a new end effector and hot end clamp to use it - THEN I can play with the big dog filaments. But not quite yet.
you might want to check flex3drive, they have effector + extruder (remote torque, so direct extruder but motor is remote so it does not way on your head making delta work waaaaaaaaaaaaay more precise) that is super light and very performant!
as for your issues with abs, I think you got the answers ...
- curling / warping - enclosure, abs tends to warp, likes to warp.. enclosure helps... also, reducing speed helps, 30mm/sec is imo safe speed for ABS (50% outside perimeter, 30% first layer, 80% solid layers) without heated chamber, everything over that creates risk of warpage
- delamination, week parts - up the temp, your interlayer adhesion is too low, up the temp to get layers to properly bond
- calibration - looking at your pictures you need to calibrate your extrusion (attm you are underextruding)
- clean your nozzle - I don't see that you have clogs in your nozzle but when you print for a while "too cold" it's common that pieces of plastic stay in the nozzle and after being "cooked" for a while they harden and create partial (or full) blockages. to be on the safe side, since you obviously printed that abs too cold for a while, I'd get that nozzle cleaned (I don't like heat, I clean nozzles with acetone, since I only print ABS, acetone is ideal, it cleans the nozzle completely without having to use any other tools ... in case of "hard clog" I use guitar wire to declog and then just soak the nozzle 24h in acetone, rinse with water, then rinse with alcohol and return back to the hotend)
