I’ve owned an R1 since Feb 2015. Have yet to get it to complete a print successfully. Halfway through a whistle is as close as it’s gotten, and the verticals walls were rough and thin before it either broke free and became a jumbled mess or the verticals walls broke apart. Yes, I’ve tried a glue stick and hairspray on the base plate to increase adhesion.
Now I have plastic parts starting to break for no reason. The customer care’s response? “We can send you the print files to print replacements”
seriously?
1. Printers never completed a job
2. Printer is broken
and that was the reply??
My answer was, “did you even read the previous emails?”
since July I’ve had no response from them.
the sad part is I really want this printer to work, I’m willing to accept its user error but I can’t see how from my view.
Eric
4 Likes
Morning Eric,
First things first: Are you using their blue plastic they send with the printer? If so that’s garbage. Toss it in the trash and buy some off amazon. I’ve used hatchbox ($20 per spool) with absolutely no issues for about a year now. I had some adhesion issues in the beginning and blue painters tape (the brand with the frog from lowes) is what worked for me. But I turned back to not using anything after I built an enclosure to keep the heat in.
Second: Dont deal with their customer service. They are also garbage. Set up a 1 on 1 session with one of their techs. I recommend Brian as he is the one I have worked the most. They should help you out tremendously.
Lastly: Are you using matterslicer? Cause, you guessed it, also garbage. I had problems all the time with the slicer creating random code that would ruin print after print. Switched to repetier and all that went away immediately. I would recommend switching to repetier or cura. Both are excellent pieces of software but if I have to pick one I recommend repetier as it gives you a lot more options.
I hope this helps. Mainly set up a 1 on 1 meeting with a tech and they’ll get you squared away. You’re outside your 6 month warranty but if you bought it with a credit card your CC Company might extend the warranty automatically for you. Also if you have a paper trail of your communication with robo3d than this is an unresolved issue that started during your warranty and should be covered.
Geoff
1 Like
Hello Eric,
i had to do some tweaking before I got mine to print great. when I received my I was having size issues, for example,
if I printed an object with a height of 13mm it came out 10 or 11mm. After reding the forums I learned that the R1 has new metric
rods, I had to download the firmware for metric rods into the Robo and then it printed the correct size. You will need to see what version of firmware you have (matter control tells you the version) and then check your rods to see if they are metric or standard.
bob
1 Like
I don’t know that I can help you here but if you send me a message at Richardmonseesatgmail I would be willing to Give you my phone number and see if we can’t find your problem
Eric,
Where are you located? I use a Robo 3D in my Drafting and Design classroom (located in SW Michigan). I have had some minor issues out of the box, but all printers need to be tweaked to continually get quality prints. Any time I have had an issue, customer support was very helpful. Recently I’ve noticed they have switched to a 24 hour helpdesk. Maybe this has affected the quality of their help… not sure. I have noticed that the prints need to be run slower than most other printers to produce good quality. To get the prints to stick to the bed, I use a glue stick that has purple glue. This glue can be washed off with water. Others use blue painters tape or hairspray. If you are printing in ABS, the best thing to do is mix some scrap ABS and acetone into a solution and paint it on the heated bed and set the bed temp to around 80c - 90c. Also turn off the cooling fan because cooling the print to fast will cause warp.
I have had a lot of clogs… but I found it was from printing at too cool of a temp and from switching back and forth from ABS to PLA. I am currently printing PLA successfully at 215c with a bed temp of 50c. I have added z axis stablizers and a small disc to the bed to make it more stable.
If you would like to contact me with specific questions, or visit my classroom (and bring your printer) for help, you are more than welcome to.
Jeff W.
Vacrin
6
Geoff Makes some pretty good suggestions. The quality of the plastic you are printing with does matter quite a bit, also if you are printing with PLA, make sure to use a oiler with it. Another thing to look out for is cooling, with ABS don’t let it cool down while printing, turn off the cooling fan completely and have the bed as hot as you can make it go. While with PLA you want the cooling always on but a decent hotend temp and bed temp. I’ve found that Aquanet hairspray that comes in a purple can works amazingly. Just spray the bed when the printer is off, let it sit about a hour or an hour and half before printing. It even works for PLA, although I only heat the bed to about 55C with PLA and hairspray.
If you haven’t done it all ready, grease the Z axis rods with white lithium spray or another machine grease. This will reduce friction and will make sure that your printer is moving to the correct height.
One last thing, the little wires that run to the Z-axis stoppers. A red and black wire for each rod that have a plastic casing over there connection to the stoppers. They are badly designed and pop off super easy, I always double check that they are connected properly (red wire on the far left, black on the far right, nothing in the center). If they aren’t it will mess your print up every single time because it won’t know exactly where the bed is.
Good luck Eric!
Brendan
You guys are quick…
Geoff, I never tried the thread that came with it. I went straight to hatch box pla right off the bat. I do have a session set up with one of their online techs this afternoon. I’m guessing they’re on pacific time so it’ll be a bit. And I’ve had better success with repetier but it still fails ultimately. And now the PLA won’t extrude and I’ve had to superglue the pully attachments underneath the base plate as both sides are now broken for some reason. Talk about a black cloud.
Richard, I haven’t ruled you out yet. But I am very hesitant with giving out emails & phone numbers online.
But the metric rod thing sounds promising. I’m running version 1.3.1 but can’t tell where it says metric rods with the firmware.
Vacrin
9
Hey Eric,
If its your Y-Axis latch that broke, i’ve had the same problem. I printed a few extras after it first happened just incase it happened again. Here is the link to the file from thingiverse Robo 3D Y Axis Cable Tensioner by Fichthorn - Thingiverse .
2 Likes
Sorry to hear your having so many issues. If your PLA is clogged there is the “atomic method” for unclogging it. Some light googling should tell you how. Alternatively you can buy some 1mm thick copper wire from lowes to thread down the hotend to push out the stuck plastic (my method).
The y axis is spot on, thank you for that link.
In my few emails that went through & back from robo3d they suggested using the allen wrench that came with the system to thread down the port while it’s hot, then let it cool off and remove it to pull out any clogs. This hasn’t worked yet so your method might be a better option.
As crazy as this sounds…
To clear a clog, bend a paper clip out, heat it until red hot with a lighter, stick it in the topside of the extruder, wait for it to cool, pull it out. This cleared my clog. The other thing to do would be to season the extruder by dipping 3" of the filament in cooking oil.
Vacrin
13
Actually I do this too, it works really well for removing clogs.
Defyus
14
One of the first things I did was purchase simplfy3d software. The stock software is great for beginners but support options suck support is close to impossible to remove. I also upgraded to e3d extruder and printed a boden direct drive to feed my filimant to extruder rather then use the stock feeder located on the extruder base. All the modifications helped with quality and taught me more about my 3d printer. Also try printing medium and high. Low quality never seems to print properly.
1 Like
It’s set on medium, and no need to buy software yet as it still just needs a successful print for me to have confidence in upgrading. Trying to clean the head atm via youtube
Yeah, my Robo that I bought in April of this year has been dead since July as well, I’ve slowly been replacing the electronic components as they have failed (because naturally the first thing that failed wasn’t covered by the “warranty” so I never bothered with followups–the glass bed was shedding slivers of glass when cooling after a print and I was told that it was due to the print material adhering too hard to the glass rather than flaws in the glass, which was BS). Every time I’d replace a component, another one would die (rotated through all of the stepper motors, then the previously mentioned bed, then the Arduino–not the RAMPS, the Arduino beneath it–now the power supply has died and I’m replacing it).
Overall, my experience with the Robo has been one of “Should have returned it at the very first problem in exchange for another one/a refund” because it seems like once things start to fail it’s like a lemon of a car. It never ends.
1 Like
Are you using matter control as the slicer? also i tried a variety of hairspary the best one is aqua net. Since they have the acidic substance in them. Make sure you clean your glass first then use the spray. Regards, David
Just got off of Skype with the tech at robo… Due to all the issues we’re shipping it back so they can replace parts, clean out the extruder, do some test runs with it to make sure it works. He did admit that they refurbish machines fyi. Not surprised but personally i’d rather have a new one, especially due to the plastic fatigue which is the only reason I can think of for all 3 areas of breakdown. Thanks for everyone’s help so far.
3 Likes
n23d
19
For clearing clogs I use a piece of fine music wire (a 0.010 inch guitar string ) Cut it 6 inches long and put some slight kinks spaced a few mms apart in one end of it. Using manual control raise the printhead up 3 inches or so to give yourself some room. Turn on the extruder heater. Open the clamp and when the temp gets to about 150 pull the filament out. This will remove most of the plastic from the extruder. Trim off the end of the filament back beyond the grooves left from the hobbed bolt and throw it away. Now when the extruder gets to temp 200+ use some needle nose pliers to feed the wire into the nozzle. It may take a bit to get the wire to go in that little hole. Once in use the pliers to push it up until you can grab the wire where it comes out by the hobbed bolt. Now use the pliers to pull the wire through the nozzle. The wire will push any clogs up out of the nozzle and the kinks will kind of sweep any bits of plastic left in the heater block and cold end out. Wait till the wire cools and clean off any plastic bits clinging to it set it aside to use next time. Reinsert the filament and attach the roller clamp with the screws and springs.
n23d
20
Eric,
What slicer program are you using and what are the slicer parameters you are using?
Extruder Temp?
Nozzle Diameter?
Bed temp?
Layer height?
Infill Percent?
Can you attach your G code for review?
Printer setup files?
Pictures of failed Prints?
There are many ways in which prints fail Pictures help.
