Err:EXTR. FAN ERROR
Well, I just resolved one of those quick and not-so-bad but still worrying-while-they're-happening problems that happen every so often with 3D printing. My Prusa's Extruder Fan (the one on the side that blows air across the heat break) wasn't spinning. How'd that happen?
Well, I had decided to print one of those fun little optical illusion arrows, the ones that always point in the same direction no matter how you spin them. I figured it would be fun for the kids. I loaded it up in Slic3r and, since the shape is actually quite sophisticated, it didn't have a flat surface on the bottom.
No problem, I thought, as I turned on Slic3r's supports. Since this shape didn't have arms sticking out or anything crazy like that, I figured that Slic3r's supports would work great. In fact, the crossing pattern that it uses would probably work better than my usual Meshmixer tree supports, I thought.
So, I fired off the print, running it at .05 mm to try and get the curves as smooth and invisible as possible. All that I can think is that those supports must not be designed to run for such a long object with such a low layer height and a small nozzle. I watched it print for an hour or so and, since everything looked good, I went to bed (I think that's probably the setup for a lot of these 3D printing error stories...).
In the morning, I woke up to a big pile of mess on my printer bed. It wasn't the first time and it almost certainly won't be the last time. This one struck me as a bit odd though, because the support material had pulled off of the bed and strands of plastic were sticking up everywhere... including right into the extruder fan. That's actually what stopped the print, my Err:EXTR. FAN ERROR.
So, I turned off the printer and took off the printing sheet so that I could clean it up. I pulled the plastic out of the fan until I didn't see any more and could turn it by hand, then turned the printer back on. The fan spun right up, so I turned it off and went to work.
After I got home, I decided that I really didn't need that arrow and, even if I did, I was going to need to support it with trees anyway, and so that .gcode was useless to me. I kept working on my new Rending Drake model and the printer sat idle, waiting for its next task.
Today, I made that new task, and my new friend, Err:EXTR. FAN ERROR came back to visit. Even though the fan was spinning up at power on, it apparently wasn't spinning freely enough to cool the heat break properly during the heat-up process.
This time, I took off the whole fan (fortunately, I just had to remove 4 screws to do that, so no big deal) and took a closer look at it. I didn't see anything odd, so I hit up google to try and find some advice. I found a basic fan troubleshooting guide from Prusa, but it didn't really help me (I used my canned-air to no success and really didn't want to replace the whole fan). So, I eventually got out a flashlight and the tiniest, sharpest tweezers that I own, and went to work.
I angled the fan so that I could shine the flashlight right into the gap where the blades' "hat" spins over the motor, then I spun the blade slowly with my finger to try and see if anything looked amiss. I rotated the whole thing, looking all the way around that little crack, until I saw a little bit of grey that didn't quite match the rest of the fan's materials.
Reaching in with my tweezers, I pulled out a little wadded up ball of extruded filament, probably 2 mm in diameter. I then went back to my search and found another strand, this one wrapped all the way around the axle (and just barely visible through that gap)! I gently pulled at the loose end as I unwrapped it, eventually removing about 5 cm of extruded filament! I then did another pass, and this time didn't find anything odd.
Crossing my fingers, I reattached the fan and fired up my print once again. Success! As I'm typing this, the printer is happily churning away, once again making my imagination into reality =)
Well, I had decided to print one of those fun little optical illusion arrows, the ones that always point in the same direction no matter how you spin them. I figured it would be fun for the kids. I loaded it up in Slic3r and, since the shape is actually quite sophisticated, it didn't have a flat surface on the bottom.
No problem, I thought, as I turned on Slic3r's supports. Since this shape didn't have arms sticking out or anything crazy like that, I figured that Slic3r's supports would work great. In fact, the crossing pattern that it uses would probably work better than my usual Meshmixer tree supports, I thought.
So, I fired off the print, running it at .05 mm to try and get the curves as smooth and invisible as possible. All that I can think is that those supports must not be designed to run for such a long object with such a low layer height and a small nozzle. I watched it print for an hour or so and, since everything looked good, I went to bed (I think that's probably the setup for a lot of these 3D printing error stories...).
In the morning, I woke up to a big pile of mess on my printer bed. It wasn't the first time and it almost certainly won't be the last time. This one struck me as a bit odd though, because the support material had pulled off of the bed and strands of plastic were sticking up everywhere... including right into the extruder fan. That's actually what stopped the print, my Err:EXTR. FAN ERROR.
So, I turned off the printer and took off the printing sheet so that I could clean it up. I pulled the plastic out of the fan until I didn't see any more and could turn it by hand, then turned the printer back on. The fan spun right up, so I turned it off and went to work.
After I got home, I decided that I really didn't need that arrow and, even if I did, I was going to need to support it with trees anyway, and so that .gcode was useless to me. I kept working on my new Rending Drake model and the printer sat idle, waiting for its next task.
Today, I made that new task, and my new friend, Err:EXTR. FAN ERROR came back to visit. Even though the fan was spinning up at power on, it apparently wasn't spinning freely enough to cool the heat break properly during the heat-up process.
This time, I took off the whole fan (fortunately, I just had to remove 4 screws to do that, so no big deal) and took a closer look at it. I didn't see anything odd, so I hit up google to try and find some advice. I found a basic fan troubleshooting guide from Prusa, but it didn't really help me (I used my canned-air to no success and really didn't want to replace the whole fan). So, I eventually got out a flashlight and the tiniest, sharpest tweezers that I own, and went to work.
I angled the fan so that I could shine the flashlight right into the gap where the blades' "hat" spins over the motor, then I spun the blade slowly with my finger to try and see if anything looked amiss. I rotated the whole thing, looking all the way around that little crack, until I saw a little bit of grey that didn't quite match the rest of the fan's materials.
Reaching in with my tweezers, I pulled out a little wadded up ball of extruded filament, probably 2 mm in diameter. I then went back to my search and found another strand, this one wrapped all the way around the axle (and just barely visible through that gap)! I gently pulled at the loose end as I unwrapped it, eventually removing about 5 cm of extruded filament! I then did another pass, and this time didn't find anything odd.
Crossing my fingers, I reattached the fan and fired up my print once again. Success! As I'm typing this, the printer is happily churning away, once again making my imagination into reality =)
yup, same thing on my mk3s -- thanks!
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