We are trying to fix our printer

It has been almost two months since we had a successful print. We have been suffering from different problems since then. Almost all of our problems were connected to the filamentThis is the plastic which is used as a source for the printRead more pusher. Just before the problems started we started to use a new type of filament, but the problems doesn't seem to be connected to the filament.

The first problem was that the hobbed bar slipped on the filamentThis is the plastic which is used as a source for the printRead more easyly. The new filamentThis is the plastic which is used as a source for the printRead more is a lot harder than the previous one and the hobbed bar was very much demaged already, so a new hobbed bar was in order. After some fine tuning that solved the initial problem.

The second problem we faced was that the filamentThis is the plastic which is used as a source for the printRead more motor sometimes went backwards. After a long research on the Internet it turned out the most probable culprit is the overheated motor driver. We replaced the driver, but the problem remained. The next step was a new, bigger fan over the whole electronic board. After we realized we used a wrong driver for the extruderThe soul of the printer - this pushes the filament and heating it. - the extruderThe soul of the printer - this pushes the filament and heating it. driver is different that the others on our spare board - this problem was solved too.

The third problem was the hardest to figure out: the filamentThis is the plastic which is used as a source for the printRead more simply stuck into the barrel. First we thought there is an issue with the new filament holder mechanism. We fine tuned that, but the problem remained. After that we tried to clean the barrel - just to be sure there are no problems there. It turned out the barrel was seriously filled with molden plastic. So we had to do a big cleaning there. Unfortunately we broke the heater resistor during this process, so we had to replace that as well.

Then we had a completely new issue - the gear on the pusher motor started to slip. We had to replace that as well, fortunately we had a few spare ones.

And finally we were facing an issue which we simply couldn't figure out. The filamentThis is the plastic which is used as a source for the printRead more stuck randomly during the print. We checked the gear, but that's okay. We even replaced the body of the pusher to a newer design - which we used previously, but decided the old one was better. We cleaned the barrel and the hotendThis is where the plastic actually melted. It is part of the extruder which contains the pusher and the barrel as well. again, but there was nothing there this time. And we even broke the barrel during this, but we have spare one of that too, so we simply replaced that.

So here we are, we don't have the slightest idea what went wrong - so finally we decided to order a different filament, because there is a slight possibility that is the problem.

And while we were there, we ordered a new printer as well. It is a kit of a newer version of our current printer, where the whole X axis is redesigned including the pusher. So we hope we can learn and use several things from the new printer. We hope we'll have two working printers at the end. Fingers crossed...