Going to add this to regular checks/maintenance on my MK3S
 
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[Solved] Going to add this to regular checks/maintenance on my MK3S  

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kennd
(@kennd)
Reputable Member
Going to add this to regular checks/maintenance on my MK3S

This not a request for help.

SYMPTOM

Suddenly after two+ years of reliable operation my filament sensor appeared to stop working in the middle of a print job. After ten 7 colour print jobs out of an eleven print job project things went sideways.

recently changed nozzle

no MMU, manually doing changes

two colours were not unloading cleanly (long stringy tips)

during some colour changes, I had to try inserting filament a couple of time before I got a beep and filament loaded.

Then no beeps and filament wasn't loading

first thought was that I probably had a tip (blob) break off in the PTFE tube, so I cancelled job and went through process of clearing tube.

no change

RESET and review what info I had on hand before going further down the rabbit hole.

FS had always worked reliably since day one. I had used these rolls of PLA filament before and were stored in a dry environment. The answer was there in front of me, but I couldn't see it. Time to put 40+ years of problem solving to work, but first a cup of coffee...

...there was no blobs of filament in FTFE tube and the extruder motor was turning as were the gears. Then I remembered something that I have never needed to do since my FS worked and I had auto-load on - press the knob to load the filament. Now I had a work around to finish my last part of the project, and verification the filament path was working properly.

I took the top cover off and removed the filament sensor. I took a picture of under the sensor and in the attached pic, you can see what the problem was and what colours were giving me some grief. A convergence of three events: recent replacement of nozzle; long stringy tips on unload; apparent intermittent failure of FS, complicated coming to final resolution. A stray piece of filament string in the wrong place.

To me, disabling the FS is like disabling the exterior lights on a vehicle. It will still work, but one night...

 

Quality is the Journey, not the Destination. My limited prints->

Posted : 23/10/2021 8:41 am
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