by jammer » Mon Feb 03, 2014 5:56 am
Hi Guys,
Haven't been able to spend much time in the past month on the ord bot due to some family illness. I was able to spend a few hours this past week and I am having some issues calibrating the extruder. My prints were becoming increasingly sparse. I thought the hotend might be clogged and that might have been part of it but not the main issue. I removed and cleaned the nozzle. While it was off I decided to recalibrate the extruder. I have a 47/9 Wade's Reloaded with a standard 1.8 degree motor. I have the micro steps set to 16. My calculated steps per mm come out to around 711. The first time I calibrated it a couple of months ago it came out to be 935. This past week I tried to calibrate it and I went all the way up to 1135 and it still wasn't high enough. I have the tension set high on the idler screws. The hobbled bolt is not chewing on the filament as the hotend has been removed.
I am starting to suspect that the small gear is slipping on the motor shaft. Not sure how to check this to confirm it but I am out of ideas on further calibration. I could understand it the new number was anything close to what the calculated value of 711 steps per mm but 1135 is more than a 50% increase. Something is wrong.
Any ideas on how to check for a slipping gear or what else might be going on?