Increase extruder temperature

Diegoderosa

Hello. I am new in they forum. I have purchased an A5. I print big parts in PETG, and I would need to increase the temperature of the extruder over the 250 degrees limited by the manufacturer. I think 260 would be enough. Can anyone help me with this issue? Is there any simple way to overwrite the maxtemp threshold of the machine ?. I have never changed the firmware of the printer yet and since I use the machine for my job, I have no room for failures or wasted time... Thank you very much for your assistance!

Samuel Pinches

Welcome @Diegoderosa !

Unfortunately it is unsafe to use his printer over 255°C, due to the toxic fumes are produced when heating PTFE above that temperature. If you need to do that, you need to buy a printer with an all metal hot and that does not use a PTFE lined heat break. Alternatively you could do some major modifications to the A5 and fit something like an E3D all metal extruder system to the printer.

Samuel Pinches

If you upgrade to the custom community mainboard firmware for the A5, the temperature of the nozzle is better calibrated, so the actual maximum temperature usable is very slightly higher, and the indicated nozzle temperatures are also more accurately recorded.

Diegoderosa

Thank you Samuel. I have already upgraded to the custom community mainboard firmware. I will try it and comment later. Do you think the E3D extruder will fit the A5? Or the dimensions are different?.

The funny thing is that if I print from the computer (I use Simplify 3D), I can reach 265 centigrade degrees. If i print form the USD stick, it only let me 250 degrees. You said that 255 could be possible. Do you have any recommendations to change the maximum temperature at least to 255? Maybe the extra 5 degrees help me a little bit.

Thank you once again!. best regards,
Diego De Rosa

Samuel Pinches

Hi Diego,

The main board (which control the nozzle heater) will auto shut down if the measured temperature reaches the critical value of 265C. The custom LCD firmware is also currently configured to not allow any temperature above 265C. You can install the custom LCD firmware and then you will be able to set 255C on the LCD.

There is always some fluctuations of the temperature over time, so I would not recommend printing above 255C. 

Just be aware that extended printing at high temperatures will cause the PTFE to degrade over time - and the hotter above 250C you go, the more rapidly this material breaks down.

You may also have better results reducing the fan speed.

Regarding the modification, you could do something like this:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2884481

This will give you both a direct drive extruder (better for flexibles and less stringing) as well as an all metal hot end (if you use the genuine E3D all metal heat-break). The E3D system is not cheap, but well worth checking out.

Kind regards,
Sam

Diegoderosa

Hi Sam. Once again thanks for your valuable input. I have to say that the new firmware works great!. The quality is much better than in the original firmware. Congratulation to the people involved in this upgrade !
I am planning to upgrade the printer with a V6 hot end. Does anyone know if I should get a 12 votes or 24 volts unit?

Samuel Pinches

Thanks @Diegoderosa , glad to hear you're finding improvements!

24V is what you want, as the power supply in the A5 is also 24V.

Diegoderosa

Thank you very much. Once I make the conversion, I will share the pictures. 

Prokktor

Great that would be nice, I am currently trying to do the same thing.

I got a cheap set from china and tried to install it with the bowden but that failed, I need to install it like Samuels Thingiverse link demonstrated.

What prevented me from doing the conversion so far is that I have no scorpion cooler... will you buy one, or if not please share your solution^^

Diegoderosa

Hello. I am having receiving this error and the printer stops responding:
Thermal Runaway, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0
Does anyone have an idea of why can this happen?
Thank you!!

Der_Muck

Did you ajust the firmware correctly? If you come to the max. temp. the printer cuts off.

Diegoderosa

Yes. It is at 300 centigrade degrees. This happened to my printer with the original hot end, and now with the E3D Volcano. So, both heater and thermistor and new and different. I am printing at 250 degrees, and the maximum allowed for the Volcano is 285. I have set max temp to 300 degrees to be sure that the failure is not for that reason.

Samuel Pinches

You may need to tweak the sensitivity of the heating safety system in configuration_adv.h... thermal run away means the temperature kept increasing after power was stopped. If the thermistor and heater element are far away this is difficult to solve.

Der_Muck

Did you calibrate the PID with M303 before you first use the Volcano?

Prokktor

So far I used Stronghero, Hobbyking and Amazon Basics PETG and they all print great at 240C.

What PETG are you trying to print?

Der_Muck

I print my PETG at 235 without stringing. With the ptfe throat I had stiringing with PETG but it was not that realy bad.
Under 230 it seems that the layer doesnt melt together so well. Smal parts broke in one layer high at a breat test. At 230°C the problem was gone.

@Diegoderosa
Did you go to 300°C with a PTFE throat?  If yes, it is for sure broke, it melts away at 260 only cabricorn XS can hold about 270 max. but at this point its soften allready.      300°C is only for metall throats only!