Lets see your ORD Bot prints!

[Turbo442]

Here are some photos to motivate those that are building / testing / troubleshooting their ORD Bot. I got my Hadron with the first ATI shipment.

[regressedEE]

Turbo, those look fantastic. What did you end up doing to get your QU-BD extruder working?

[Turbo442]

Turbo, those look fantastic. What did you end up doing to get your QU-BD extruder working?

I threw the QU-bd out the front window 18 times. I gave up on it completely 13 times.
For some crazy reason I kept on trying? The more I tried the more I realized we were battling multiple issues at the same time.
If you really want to use the 'parts' from a QU-bd this is what worked for me.

1. Replace the original filament drive gear with the newer Makerbot style drive gear. No matter what anyone tells you its just never going to work reliably with the QU-bd gear. Once it slips it chews a hole in the filament and your done.

2. Ditch the QU-bd filament extruder use something that will allow for slight variance in filament thickness as well as a bearing to reduce friction.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:15718

3. The original grub screw that presses the filament into the drive gear would start to loosen up over time. Did anyone ever think to test the extruder to make sure this did not happen? We tried polishing the end of the screw. We used the screw with a lock nut so it didn’t spin. It just puts way too much load on the stepper motor. In the end, you may get it to work for a little while but it will eventually cause either your stepper driver or your stepper motor to overheat, whichever comes first. Yes, I have a fan and heat sinks on my extruder driver board, yes I tried all different current settings, yes I tried every combination of set screw tension. You may get it to run for a period of time, it’s just not a ROBUST setup. When you are printing parts you can’t always be on the ragged edge of failure or you will fail at some point during a 4 hour print.

4. Keep the thermistor in contact with the block, during your weeks of troubleshooting your insulation will probably get destroyed that’s wrapped around your hot end. This will make the thermistor loose contact with the heater block.

5. Make sure you run the code to calibrate your thermistor to your Marlin settings. You should be able to hold + or - a few deg C, if not you’re going to have trouble.

6. Polish the inside of your hot end barrel, its very scratched up after they drilled the hole for the filament. It will allow plastic to stick and cause plugging.

7. Slow your extruder down, especially on the big solid fills, it overwhelms the hot end and the temp swings cause the hot end to plug up. I need to drill a hole for my thermistor to sit in closer to the hot end. Maybe I will solder a small short piece of brass tube onto the hot end to slip the thermistor into.

8. Use thermal compound to improve heat transfer between the heat sink and mounting block.

9. Make sure the mating surface between the barrel and the nozzle is true and not scratched. Take it all apart, figure out how it all works and tighten it up. Let it heat up and tighten it again while its hot. Don’t break anything.

10. DONT EVER LET YOUR THERMISITER FALL OUT OF YOUR EXTRUDER; THIS CAN BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN. Take extra time and make sure it is mounted so it cannot fall out. You have not lived until you have seen a nozzle glow orange. Yes the resisters and heater cartridges can both glow red hot. I have been in the hobby a few short months and have seen both happen.

10. To start out, reduce your filament retraction to .1mm; set your Z lift to .3mm your retraction speed to 30mm/s

11. Don’t let a fan blow on your hot end unless it is really well covered and you have good temperature control. The fan on the heat sink needs to run at 100% to keep the upper end of the barell cool.

12. Make sure you figure out the temperature your filament wants to run at. To start try PLA at 215C Hot bed at 65C, ABS 235, Hot bed at 110. Use Kapton tape on your hot bed glass so the first filament layer sticks.

So what about my Hadron? Gosh it just goes and goes, pretty smooth and quite. The z screws are holding up fine, belts are doing well. Nothing has needed any adjustment really pretty amazing. Once I got the bed height dialed in everything has been stable. I did have one maker slide pulley/wheel on the Y axis carriage that had a little wobble. It would make the bed pulse up and down a few thousandths. I think it’s still doing it a bit but it’s gotten better over time. I need to swap it out with one from a different part of the machine. I was thinking of making the carriage with 6 wheels instead of 4, it might run slightly flatter on the Makerslide.

[robotdad]

1. Replace the original filament drive gear with the newer Makerbot style drive gear.

OK, how? Every time I check Makerbot isn't selling those gears. In the store and out of stock. I question their commitment to parts given their direction. Where else can one be acquired?

[bdring]

Makerbot often makes it look like things are out of stock or long lead, then delivers sooner than you think.

Edit: It looks like you cannot even place an order, but I did find some clones on eBay. I going to try a dual extruder soon, so I know I cannot rely on the current drive. I looked into the Hyena gears they had on Indygogo, but it looks like they are sold out too.

[Turbo442]

1. Replace the original filament drive gear with the newer Makerbot style drive gear.

OK, how? Every time I check Makerbot isn't selling those gears. In the store and out of stock. I question their commitment to parts given their direction. Where else can one be acquired?

Currently using this.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0761295585

I also have one of these, didnt try it yet.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221148541188?ss ... 1439.l2649

Here is the MK7 on thingverse if anyone needs the drawings.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11734

[cozmicray]

Anybody out there using a Mk7 extruder?
I have mBot Mk 7
http://www.mbot3d.com/collections/toolh ... p-printers

The mBot Mk 7 is different than the makerbot design, it uses an idler wheel to keep filiment against gear instead of plunger.
My mBot Mk 7 seems to working well.

I have x, y, z calibration issues and getting parts to stick and not get knocked off.

The extruder was clicking alot before this break down and clean out, (Thats PLA grindings there)
but is behaving much better and gets regular clean outs

Mk 7 extruder

Mk7 extruder showing idler

[regressedEE]

I found this drive gear at a more reasonable price: filament gear. Long lead time coming from Denmark, though.

[Turbo442]

Anybody out there using a Mk7 extruder?
I have x, y, z calibration issues and getting parts to stick and not get knocked off.

copy this section out of your configuration.h file and post it here for me to look at. Here are my settings.

#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {79.6794,79.9847,2519.68,106.707}
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE {500, 500, 25, 45} // (mm/sec)
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION {8000,8000,50,8000}

[cozmicray]

From my config.h

#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {78.7402,78.7402,2519.68,106.707} // default steps per unit for ultimaker
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE {500, 500, 5, 45} // (mm/sec)
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION {9000,9000,100,10000} // X, Y, Z, E maximum start speed for accelerated moves. E default values are good for skeinforge 40+, for older versions raise them a lot.

Z-axis steps/unit may be set at 2570 or something else - trying to calibrate Z

Where did your settings come from?

are you using a mBot Mk7?

copy this section out of your configuration.h file and post it here for me to look at. Here are my settings.

#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {79.6794,79.9847,2519.68,106.707}
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE {500, 500, 25, 45} // (mm/sec)
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION {8000,8000,50,8000}