Hi All,
This will be difficult to pin down, but getting pointed in the right direction would be helpful.
Purchased a FlashForge AD5X ~5 weeks ago. Worked great, one button calibration out of the box, I proceeded to do what everyone does when learning: print a bunch of stuff, mix success and stumble over the usual stuff. Ie: Learned why you clean the bed, learned how supports work, deal with filament breaks etc etc.
About a week ago I had a print fail, it looked like there was a broken filament that wasn’t being pushed. I do a cold pull on the nozzle, and was able to print successfully for a time (although there were some small features on some prints that seemed sloppy compared to previous prints).
After that though ALL my prints started to fail. Even after cleaning the bed, double checking bed/nozzle temp, I’d get bad adhesion. I’d also get the nozzle dragging through layers, as if the Z was off (even after running calibration repeatedly and before each print). There was some popping and oozing, which I put up to not storing my PLA dry (although ambient was only ~40%). However the problem persisted even with a freshly opened vac-sealed (confirmed seal was good) roll of PLA.
I ordered a replacement nozzle that arrives today, but can anyone give me some insight? I only ran ~2kg of PLA through, that seems like really premature wear; I must have done something wrong.
Thanks for anything putting me in the right direction.
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Thanks to everyone for the input, after drying a ~100g spool of PLA for 8 hours and having failed prints on the original nozzle and new nozzle I have initiated a refund.
Sounds like there could be something clogged in the nozzle, I would try pushing through some filament or nozzle cleaner at high temps (300c ish) to try and burn things out. General advice is never use different materials on the same nozzle, but that doesn’t stop most of us.
This likely won’t solve your z axis shift but it may help things. I have no experience with your printer or even brand though, so I cannot comment about whether the software or hardware may be to blame for some issues, but it sounds like there’s more going on that a partially clogged nozzle.
I highly doubt your nozzle is worn out unless you’ve been printing with any special tough filament (e.g. carbon fibre core). It’s completely different machine, but I have over 300 hours on mine and I haven’t had to replace the original brass nozzle yet.
Edit: Perhaps try printing a solid section of only the first layer (no need for the whole bed, but make is fairly large). See if the lines mostly all join up, then reprint without changing anything to check if it is consistent.
No special filament, other than <10g TPU. Interesting I’ll try the test. I think I’ll get the dragging though, as I was trying to do some business card type prints that were basically what you’re suggesting and got issues. Sometimes the first layer would be ok, sometimes not. It would wind up dragging it around and as it was warm, it would roll the layer into a “snake”
Was it plain PLA? Some of the fancier types cause increased wear. I’ve seen photos of glow-in-the-dark filament having worn through someone’s heat block (not just the nozzle). Wood- or metal-filled PLA can also be somewhat abrasive.
Vacuum-sealed PLA can still be soaked with moisture—it depends entirely on how it was handled at the factory. To be absolutely certain, you have to dry it yourself.
The nozzle dragging, though . . . if the print isn’t visibly warped, that sounds more like faulty hardware or incorrect software settings—the printer no longer accurately knows where the nozzle is in space. Maybe your printer had a marginal part installed at the factory, and it’s now failed. If so, that’s no fault of yours and you should contact the manufacturer.
It was just normal PLA. The only special filament was some TPU, but that was <10g total.
This is helpful, I think it’s one of 3 things based on your input:
- Wet filament. That’s causing oozing/build up on the nozzle and causing dragging. Fix: Try drying like you mentioned.
- The hardware had a failure somewhere. Fix/Verify: ???
- The firmware is bugging and not setting the Z properly after calibration. Fix/Verify ???
Edit: I think the fix/verify for scenario 2/3 above might just be trying the new nozzle after drying the filament. IE: If the filament is confirmed dry and still causing issues, then I try the new nozzle (after calibrating) with the confirmed dry filament. If that works fine then it was nozzle that was screwy (although the cause could have still been wet filament and me screwing it up unclogging?)
It depends on the filament you use but if you are using brass nozzles, best to get use to replacing them periodicly. Just look at thingaverse or the prusa site for nozzle assessories and look at how people make cases for multiples sizes and numbers of nozzles. IDK what kind of quality that FlashForge has but its pretty typical to wear out the nozzle (just maybe not as fast as you are experiencing)
but you might be having problems with the preloading or the tension on the filament feeding gear. IDK the method that your printer uses but I had similar problems with my PRUSA until I replaced the Hotend PTFE tube. Those will also wear out so get a few if your printer uses that feeding system
yeah I anticipated wear, but with <2kg of material that seems excessive no? I did have some feed issues, but even with those resolved and it feeding nicely, I still have problems. A friend of mine did suggest that maybe with the feed issues I managed to do something that brought the nozzle out of spec and that’s why I’m getting issues.
you might want to check how tight the filament is before it goes into the system, like it was a popular trend to find a way to get your spools on bearings instead of free spinning, as that extra tension goes a long way to create problems.
Good luck, hope you can fix it without having to tear down the whole print head
