Nope, did that setup upon running the mod and i do verify and replace the mesh weekly when revising everything and cleaning up
I have an update to my experience with the FlashForge AD5M printer.
The only other printer I had ever used was a Makerbot we had at school. It had just the most basic parameter settings for printing. I was shocked and a little overwhelmed by all the settings that are available in Orca. So when I started having trouble with my prints I was unsure of the cause. I’m very thankful to everyone who gave me input to try to figure out what was causing the bad prints.
When I finally decided to change filament spools and saw that my prints were coming out good, it made me think about the difference between the 2 filaments. I went to the FlashForge site and looks at the specs for both. They were identical. Then I remembered @DougJoseph saying that the clicking I heard could be from “the spool is tangled and bound up”.
That made me think that it might be the fiberboard spool having too much friction. So I designed an insert for the spool.
IT WORKED!
I was able to print all day yesterday without any issues!
3 Likes
Glad you came with with an easy solution. I was not a fan of the original stock spool holder, as I saw issues where spools would catch on it. Was much happier after switching to one of the printed replacement solutions that have strips of PTFE tube in them for the spool to ride on. This is a nice one:
1 Like
Man, this is incredibly stupid. Good I have a Prusa. 
(At 5x the price… 
.)
1 Like
excellent! enjoy.
just remember even with filaments of the same brand color/type you can have small differences-tolerance.
quality control isn’t there for a lot of them specially those El-cheapo brands out there
2 Likes
Can this spool holder be used without an enclosure? If not, which one would you recommend?
It would take some remix because it’s made for an enclosure. It’s compatible with three different flavors of enclosure: the original DIY enclosure touted by Flashforge, my Minimal Enclosure that’s a remix of the original, and my Retrofit that combines the top from the Minimal with the lowers of the original.
I’d highly recommend my Minimal remix. Easy, fast, less plastic, keeps the touchscreen on the metal frame.
PS: all three mentioned here are for a kit from Flashforge that has plexiglass panels etc
Is there just part of your Minimal I can print that the spool holder would fit? Unless I print more exotic materials, not sure that I’ll want to fully enclose it with plexiglass panels. I think it would annoy me more than benefit me.
The enclosure nneds: petg prints, the plexy glass and some pla parts. No fancy filament needed
I meant I wasn’t planning on printing an enclosure unless I wanted to use fancy filament.
I see. The minimal enclosure looks great i have the regular one and i dont think will change it
The enclosure can help with even PLA printing by keeping drafts away from the print, which helps prevent lift (part curling away from the bed).
The enclosure includes a lid that I leave off for PLA printing, but even for PLA I leave the doors and sides on. For PETG I add the lid.
Because of the lid, the enclosure process involves changing the path of the power cable and PTFE tube to the extruder, from an overhead arch to a sideways arch. It uses a drag chain, which either can be printed or comes in the kit.
Adding this spool holder depends on the change described above.
That’s an understatement! I went to get a spool of filament out of my box with desiccant and found this mess. This is the filament that was giving me grief at the beginning. All of the other spools in the desiccant box look normal and the humidity is at 10%. Has anyone else seen this before?
7 Likes
That looks like your puppy had a lot of fun with it!
1 Like
I kept her away from that mess.
1 Like
I had a box of inland filament that did something like that. It was brittle as hell, first sign of trouble was a half hour into the first print of that spool the filament broke. Ten minutes into the restarted print and it broke again. I pulled it and loaded a new spool. left the spool in the “suspect” pile.
I came back to it a few months later and it had cracked all over and was mostly still “intact”, but coming apart in little pieces.
Anecdotally, when I complained about that roll of filament one of the blue shirts at the local MicroCenter sheepishly hinted they had some material that had been “stuck in a truck” in a hot summer day, and “should probably have been scrapped.”
Edit to add: Like in your case, when examining the filament I had, the center was a different color than the outside. Can you post a picture of that. It looks eerily similar to what I saw in the filament I had (except that was blue not black)
3 Likes
Hi Doug,
I have my enclosure all done now. I was wondering if you had to adjust your extruder or bed temps after you added the enclosure? It is definitely a lot warmer inside now. I have left the door open and the lid turned to allow airflow.
Thanks
1 Like
I did not change my print profiles at all. Normally when I print PLA I’ll leave the lid off (or at least not fully in place) and I’ll leave the front door closed and both sides on. This can help prevent cold air drafts from cooling one side of the part faster than the other, which can help to ward off “lift” from the part curling away from the bed. If for a given print my concern is not lift, but rather sagging bridges or sagging steep overhangs, then I will pivot away from that plan and leave the front door open and the lid off. I only button it up with the lid if I need heat in the chamber for printing with PETG or something.
2 Likes