benha
1
I’ve got a new-to-me Duplicator i3 v2 - my first 3D printer - and after a few prints I’ve got a couple of questions:
1. While it’s not a problem given I’m printing PLA right now, the extruder seems not to want to heat up past about 215 degrees. Is that normal? I feel like it should get hotter. If that’s true, is there a standard “issue” I should look at?
2. The wiring for the heated bed seems asinine. The wires from the hot plate and the temp sensor are bundled up and routed back so they rub over the Y-axis stepper in a way that seems really odd. Regardless of the rubbing on the stepper, it also flexes back and forth in a way that the ground wire broke during a long print, ruining the print when the plate cooled off and the print detached. I’ve got it soldered back up, but this just seems ridiculous. Do other people have issues with this?
Overall I’m really happy with this machine, but these are definitely glitches I need to address.
Thanks,
-Ben
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cobnut
2
Hi @benha the Duplicator has a stated hotend capability of 240C (long term) with a short term capability of 260C (as I’m sure you know) so it’s quite likely that getting past 215C is going to take a while (as opposed to, say, a hotend capable of reaching 300C, where 240C is much more within its range), especially if the machine is stone cold. How long have you left it? Can you reach 230C reliably? That’s probably all you’ll need for ABS…
Wiring seems to be a common issue with lower end printers. My FlashForge Creator Pro has some… interesting wiring arrangements and I’ve already had one broken wire and there are lots of reports of other breakages. As long as you’re able to repair (and it sounds like you are) I’d treat it as part of the “fun” of 3D printing 
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Does the hot end have insulation on it? Is there a fan blowing on it while it is heating? Just a couple simple things that could hinder it getting to higher temps.
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benha
4
There is insulation on the hot end, so that’s not the issue.
As you are likely aware, the unit has two fans. One is a cooling fan blowing on the hotend, the other cools the extruded material. The controller has a fan speed setting but that appears only to affect the material cooling fan. The hot end fan seems always to run when the machine is on. This clearly would affect temperature, but I can’t figure out how to shut it off short of unplugging it, which seems unwise.
Is there a control I’m missing?
-Ben
benha
5
I haven’t been able to get the printer to start printing when the target temp is set to anything over about 216 degrees. Once it starts moving material through the extruder it then drops down to about 207-210, which presumably means that’s as hot as it will go given that it shouldn’t be throttling the temp at all when it’s below the target. Per my reply to the post above there’s a cooling fan that’s always on which is likely affecting things, but I can’t figure out how to turn that off.
Yeah, I can rewire things. I’m just quite surprised that ANYONE would have thought this was a reasonable design no matter how stingy the cost target
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Ok, the one that stays one all the time, it should come on when the extruder gets over 50c, is to cool the extruder. What is does is cool the upper part or barrel section. It is either on or off. Don’t worry about that one unless it doesn’t run.
The other one, sometimes called the PLA fan since PLA likes fans is the one to look at. Normally this fan should be set to come on after the first layer has printed when using materials like PLA. If it is on earlier it can cause issues with heating.
Reason I asked about the insulation is I found one time when I removed damaged insulation I had a hard time with heating especially after the print started and the fan came on, it had a hard time maintaining a set temp.
benha
7
Ok. So with my newfound terminology: The PLA fan is off during the heatup process, so that’s not what’s causing this. I’ll take a look at the insulation when I get home, but it looked to be in good shape.
I’m in the middle of printing some things I just want to get finished, but after that I think the next step is probably to check the voltage to the extruder heater. I suppose if that’s out of range it could cause issues. I’m actually going to look over the wiring harness in general since the bed heater wiring needs to be redone, too. Perhaps I’ll increase the gauge on the wire to the extruder heater while I’m at it.
Good news the fans are going ok. Sounds like insulation is not an issue either. My next thought is the temp sensor or heater is going bad or there is bad wiring. If you can’t find an obvious problem then a new heater and temp sensor would be in line I think. It is not crazy expensive and put both in new is not a bad idea.
benha
9
Opened up the case this evening and found that the connector on the logic board where power enters from the power supply was charred and melted. There was still contact, but that’s likely to be limiting current a bit
It wasn’t salvageable so I ordered some new wire-to-board connectors from DigiKey. Hopefully that puts everything right…
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Check the rest for tightness. That has been an issue on new machines that connections are not snug.
