Creator Pro Update

So I got the Creator Pro on June 6th.
It is now January 23rd.  I don't have time to make a big post but I'll summarize how my personal experience has been.

Mods Done:

Spool Holders and Filament Guide:  definitely the first things to print off of Thingiverse so that you can use any size spools and get them fed properly.

Zebra Plate:  I was printing in ABS and it stuck too well to my build plate.  It was so hard to remove that it tore the build tak off with it.  I had to replace it but I thought it'd be good to get something removable and I found the Zebra plate stuff.  It worked ok but now I'm using it with build tak on it and glue stick with just PLA.  Haven't tried ABS yet.  Removing parts out of an enclosure really sucks and I miss my removable build plate from the Finder.

PTFE Tube Dead:  I should have known the PTFE tube was dead when I was changing filament from yellow to white and I kept getting yellow coloring in my prints for a while.  Too lazy to fix it, I just moved and focused on the right nozzle.

Double Extruders:  I wish I could say more positive things about it but I hardly ever use it.  I wanted to do more 2 material stuff but I haven't had much success with water soluble filament or HIPS.  It's on my to-do list but I definitely have not gotten value out of having 2 extruders.  I like the left extruder better because it has the fan blowing directly on the parts.

MicroSwiss All Hot End:  I got one to replace the left nozzle hot end.  Might as well since the PTFE tube is gone.  This is something I will do in the near future but I have bigger issues now.

Lubrication:  remember to lubricate your axles and drives.  I didn't do this for a long time which is probably I have the following issue:

X-axis Drive Issues:  Today on Jan 23rd my x-axis is messed up.  The machine just vibrates roughly for the x-axis.  Rebooting helped a little and then it went back to it's old ways.  Apparently this is a common problem that Makerbots had and it's one of my stepper motor wires that's screwed up.  I don't know which wire it is but I'm considering just swapping out the entire wire assembly for a quicker fix.  I wish I knew about this before I bought the Creator Pro.

Overall:
Given the cost and issues, I would have had better value buying another printer like a Prusa i3 MkII.  I just don't get good value from 2 nozzles and the issues I'm having now would have been better time and money invested into something that was better designed.  While the enclosure is a big plus, if I needed to have one then I'd look at doing just PLA on a Flashforge Guider or just getting something else that's enclosed and semi-portable.  But remember that my needs are different from others.  I have to bring my printers between locations and sometimes an enclosure helps people from not getting injured.  So I don't totally regret buying a Creator Pro, it has just been more annoying than all my other printers.

Busted Level Sensor!

So I've been printing a lot lately.  I like my Finders better than three other printers I have access to.  But today one of my Finders self destructed.

The leveling arm fell down on it's own while printing.  I don't know how it happened.  I don't know why it happened.  All I know is that it was dragging on top of prints until it bent itself useless:

Now most people don't like the leveling arm and I know how to level using paper.  But this is just annoying.  I could go get it fixed but since I don't know how it happened, the best thing for me to do is remove it for now.

Flashforge Finder PTFE Tube Replacement / MicroSwiss Upgrade

Greetings Everyone!

It has been a while since I posted here.  I've been reallly busy.
I still like my Finders a lot.  After 7 months with a lot of use, I really like:

• the removable build plate:  great for getting off those stubborn pieces that stuck too well.  Compared to my Flashforge Creator Pro where I had something stick so hard, I ruined the build tak, the Finder has always been good.
• internal filament:  this has been great for moving the printer around.  I transfer it between home and work so it helps.  I also use an external spool holder for bigger, cheaper rolls of filament which is fine too.  The internal one has the advantage of stopping your print if/when you run out of filament though.
• level assist: this thing works great for me.  I don't have to do the paper test and it's almost always pretty accurate.

But alas, I have hit a point where the Finder's biggest problem has popped up.

I've been printing PLA+ lately at 220C.  No problems there.  I tried some new colored filament and my prints were coming out weird.  Here were my symptoms:

• prints came out structurally weak.  As if there was not enough plastic coming out.
• I could hear a "ticking" kind of sound every now and then from the extruder.  It sounds like the filament is slipping as it is being fed in
• there were gaps in my printing, it wasn't smooth

I immediately told my vendor (Digitmakers) and he knew right away what the problem was.  Of course before I called him I wasted time by taking apart my extruder servo, cleaning the feed heads and trying it again, just to have the same problems.

So Digitmakers told me it was the PTFE tube that had to be changed.  This is the plastic tube that goes down the heat break and basically feeds the filament from the extruder servo to the hot end.  It can get messed up over time and that results in difficulty feeding the hot end.

Disassembly:

Flashforge made a pretty good video of this which I followed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyEpvwhDKis

The one thing I didn't do was disconnect the "heating part" listed here:

https://youtu.be/qyEpvwhDKis?t=2m23s

This is where I get really paranoid because you can burn down your house if you screw this up.

This "heating part" includes the part that measures the temperature of your hot end known as the thermocouple.  A fire once happened in a 3d printer because the person forgot to secure this and it basically fell out while printing.  The 3d printer didn't know what the actual temperature was so it kept increasing the temperature.

http://hackaday.com/2016/03/21/ask-hackaday-mrrf-edition-3d-printers-can-catch-fire/

So I didn't remove this at all.  I kept all the electronics plugged in.

THIS IS WHERE I MADE A MISTAKE

It didn't cost me but I should have done it properly.

I removed the nozzle and the heat radiating tube or nozzle holder (the thing with the fins) with two wrenches.  Make sure the wrenches you have are adjustable and fit properly.  Don't use a needle nose plyer or something that will scratch things up.  Make sure they fit snug on the heater block and the part you are twisting!  Remember left-loosey, righty-tighty for directions to turn.

I removed both the heat radiating tube and the brass nozzle without problems but I was lucky.  I should have heated it up before removing it.  Although dangerous and scary, what could have happened is that the brass nozzle could have snapped inside the heat block and cause some serious problems!  It didn't but it happened to someone before.

So I dodged a bullet and got good results.  

Here is a photo of the original Finder nozzle and the PTFE tube.  As you can see, the tube isn't looking so great.  It's burned a bit and clogged up.  This explains why extrusion was so difficult.  Keep in mind this is not a problem with the Finder, this is something that will happen with all printers using similar set ups!

New Nozzle:

Since I needed a new nozzle, I could have gone for the same brass one, but Digitmakers had Micro Swiss nozzles.  I had read that these were good so I went for the Mk10 plated nozzle the was wear resistant and a regular PTFE tube.  Maybe next time I'll go for the all-metal one but that's more than twice the cost.

https://digitmakers.ca/product/micro-swiss-mk10-plated-wear-resistant-nozzle-ptfe-lined-hotend-different-sizes/

Before putting the nozzle and everything back together, I took the opportunity to clean out one of the drive gears of the extruder.  Since it had been fighting to push filament through, it also had been shaving little bits off and reducing the effectiveness of itself.  So I took a wire brush to it to clean out the pockets of the gear teeth.

Attaching the Nozzle:

This time I got instructions on how to do this right.

1.  Hand tighten the nozzle on

2.  Heat the machine up to PLA temp (220C is what I do PLA+ at so I went for that)

3.  While it is hot, the metal expands a bit and you can tighten it more with wrenches

Putting everything back is not fun.  There's a small set screw that is keeping the entire hot end assembly in place.  This thing is easy to have fall out and hard to put back into its hole.  After much fussing I got it back in.  Make sure that the hot end is put all the way up so that you don't mess up your heights when you are levelling your build plate.

Then test it to make sure that your temperature sensor is working (and not falling out) so your house doesn't go on fire.  I set it to pre-heat to 220C.

Finally feed some filament through!

It came out well and things look promising.

I ran a 20mm cube to see how well things thing worked.  

And it worked well!  Actually as I write this I just finished a 4 hour print and it seems like my printing quality went up a lot!  I checked again to make sure the temperature sensor is not falling out and everything is ok and I'm going to print another 4hr job overnight.

What makes me feel better is that the Finder has a baffle on the underside which is surrounding the hotend.  So it's unlikely that the thermistor can fall out from vibration.  That makes me feel a bit better keeping it unattended.  Of course I have a few fire prevention things in place in the washroom which I'll detail later.