Newbie questions on PH-40 printing head

Hello everybody,

After one week of ¨relaxing¨ work. my brain rested a while and this weekend I tried new things that eventually worked:

1. As I tried the nuclear option by removing the filament when cold, some filament got stuck inside, and both the extruder and the nozzle got clogged. So after brainstorming, I unclogged my extruder nozzle by heating up until 750 degrees in a kiln three times for 5 minutes each (quenching in water each time) It was pretty nice to see that at my third try, the the whole nozzle was clean like new and could see through. That way I solved the nozzle unclogged by the graphite rests.
2. I tried to disassembly the extruder to remove the filament inside, but no luck, so I heated up the extruder and with an Allen key of 1.5 mm I went through both sides until I manage to remove the filament inside. Then I pushed when hot with my fingers the filament from the top and I managed to get it through without issues.
3, After the extruder and the nozzle were perfectly clean, I tested the A axis in UCCNC with very loose filament, and it was working with no issues. It seems the dry box I am using got the filament too tight, so extruder could not push through. Another problem solved.

4. For the fan, i still don't know how to activate, but well, eventually I will discover someway. At the moment its not that important.

So, finally today after all the previous solved, I run a model I prepared and started to print. Everything was going nice until my axis Y and X stopped working my missing steps. I had detected that the motors works, but the hooking of axis X is gone, so I am using glue to stick the axis attached to the hooking brass piece, and to the motor. The Y thing, looks like its a misalignment of axis, as I use the upgraded Y axis system, so it seems one side is ahead of the other. I am checking my axis now and will try again today or tomorrow.

Thank you!, and hope this will help others as the info on this topic is usually confusing for newbies.

Cheers-

Hello Morglum007,

I am also quite a newbie with the PH-40 - and looking for help here I found your questions and try to answer as far as I can.

Regarding the filament transport: In order to insert the filament into the gear you have to release the quick release screw (5) (see attachment) which opens the gear a little bit. After pushing the filament down into the nozzle you have to close the quick release of course, so that the gear engages the filament and can transport it. Are you sure you did that?
I do not think you need to adjust the adjusting screw (2) when the PH-40 is just delivered. In my case the factory adjustment worked right away.

3. I had got the cooling fan for the piece, and UCCNC asks me at the very beginning to home the Z to work, having also additionally the setup of the fan at the 255 pin, but selecting on or off doesn't activate anything...which pin is the correct one?

It is not quite clear to me what you men here. In my case, I can turn on the fan manually in the UCCNC printer plugin window and can control the speed with PWM values between 0 and 255 as long as no program is running. But as soon as I run G-code generated by Cura the fan turns off. While the program is running I cannot use the plugin window.

Does anyone know how to control the fan out of the G-code?

4. I am using, as in the tutorial video, the cura + UCCNC. Cura seems to work and the G-code parameters seems right... but as in the tutorial, the guy changes some startup and ending parameters from E to A... I am wondering if this is also applicable to the rest of the G-code. Anyone has got a hint?

Yes, this is clearly a bug in the Stepcraft manual. The extruder axis address is A, not E like in many other 3D printers. But this is error is only in the end code. In the main part of the G-code that I get from Cura, the extruder axis is always correctly addressed with A.

The corrected end code with A instead of E:

;End Code for CURA
G91 ;relative positioning
G1 A-1 F300 ;retract filament
G1 Z+0.5 A-5 X-20 Y-20 F300 ;move nozzle, retract more
G90 ;absolute positioning
M30 ;program end

I hope this helps you further.

Hello everybody again,

Another day trying and found out the issue with the Y axis. For whatever reason, the locking nuts of one of the shaft got loose, so I had to use Superglue again on that axis to stick the nut. All axis now moves okay... and I will continue with my piece. I know the superglue option is not that good, but before using Loctite 242 I will try this.

I will keep you posted.

Morg

Finally, it is done!

After dealing with all kind of mechanical and software issues, here we are my first piece!

The results are quite acceptable for my first piece, considering its going to be the mold for a casted piece.

I have to fine tune now the parameters on Cura...

Time to extract the piece from the hot bed and prepare for casting!

Cheers!!