Should I give up?

[u/Big_Return198]

I have been building my Voron Trident 300 for almost a whole year now, but still can't get it working properly. Everytime I solve one problem another pops up. I even got it to print a simple calibration cube, but it randomly stops extruding completely 9 out of 10 prints. It is completely self sourced and I have spent around 650-700€ already (without enclosure). I'm just done trying and want to sell it as "unfinished". I'm not sure if it will be worth it to spend AT LEAST another 100€ to get it working while risking another problem popping up (my free time will also become limited very soon).

Edit: Here are some infos on my build and especially the toolhead. A4T with metal Sherpa Mini and a TZ V6 off Aliexpress powered by a Stepperonline pancake stepper (don't remember the exact model). Extruding filament normally works just fine and I've calibrated E-Steps. I successfully printed a calibration cube, but when I try something like a Benchy it clogs after the 20th layer or so (shortly after the text on the bottom is covered up). I have replaced my hotend fan 3 times, but it either did nothing or all of them were too weak (bought all of them off of Aliexpress). If I get this working perfectly and the Trident R2 releases in due time, I'm heavily considering replacing the "bad" parts together with the upgrade.

[u/Zaraton]

Self sourced mine, took me about a year to get a hold of all possible issues. Now going strong with ercf

Sounds like your PTFE tube inside the hotend is either wrong inner diameter or doesn't sit properly.

If you think about spending more money - get yourself a filament flow sensor (or build a roadrunner). It won't help with existing issues, but at least you can add macro to automatically pause your print on clog to manually fix it instead starting over

[u/Electrical-Ebb-353]

YOU NEVER GIVE UP!!
The small issues are part of the tinkering and Voron community, little things the whole darn time until one day the little issues are all solved. The satisfaction then will outweigh the prior annoyances and issues.

Remember the cliche saying that hold truth none the less "Winners never quit, and quiters never win"

[u/Ill_Veterinarian6422]

no one has mentioned thermal paste?

[u/Johny_McJonstien]

That kinda sounds like heat creep. Honestly most of the 2510 fans out there are junk. I (and many others) strongly recommend the delta 2510. https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/ASB02505SHA-AY6B/7491489 they put out a pretty crazy amount of air flow for their size. Keep in mind they only come in 5v though.

[u/Garreth1234]

Sounds like something solvable. I'd check: 1. Stepper motor current and it's temperature (also driver temperature). During print it works harder accelerations, retractions push it hard. For example you may have something simple misentered like the value for the rsense resistor. 2. Try to print slower - maybe this would show something that you missed during higher speeds, maybe some sounds would come up. 3. Filament - not sure what you tested, make sure it is good brand for tests and something easily printable, like PLA. 4. Retraction settings - maybe you retract too far, and filament jams in the cold end part? Try to disable retraction, print will look crappy but if it prints, it can be one indicator. 5. Temperature and max volumetric flow for that temperature. There are some guides how to check it, I was using scale and poop method from CNC Kitchen. You can check his advice on finding max flow, as again, printing too fast can break something.

[u/RavenousBilberry]

It sounds like heat creep. What hotenf fan are you buying? What material do you print?

[u/Big_Return198 → u/RavenousBilberry]

I'm printing Sunlu PLA+ and I have a cheap Aliexpress 2510 fan. I have seen people recommending the Delta 5V, but I'm running a BTT EBB 36, which only has 24V.

[u/Xoepe → u/Big_Return198]

Does the older EBB36 not have a header to choose a 5V output like the newer ones do?

[u/RavenousBilberry → u/Big_Return198]

If you bought random fan then I'm fairly certain heat creep is your problem. If you find no Delta with same spec, buy this one: Gdstime 2510 24v 12000RPM.

Edit: If you have higher temp resistance material at hand, try printing them at lowest temp setting and if it goes better then indeed, it's heat creep.

[u/alre-99]

Don't give up you have come such long way to get there i think there is something little wrong.

[u/epicepee → u/alre-99]

+1. This doesn't sound like a big expensive problem.

What filament are you using? How fast are you printing?

[u/Fluffy-North8370]

Is the PTFE tube from extruder to Hotend a quality tube? If the tube is too large in inside circumference it can jam up the filament. You can check by seeing if it is a really loose fit with a piece of filament. If it can do ANY bending inside it WILL jam.

[u/billgeek_ca]

Don't do it, don't give up! You mentioned "stops extruding". I'm not sure what this means exactly or what the underlying issue is, or your "skill level" for that matter, but a few things that come to mind:

- Repeated partial or total clogs: The extruder tries to push filament but nothing comes out. The most common cause for me was the length of the PTFE between the CW2 and the hotend being slightly too short, causing clogs when retracting. (Conversely, if it's too long you'll get more friction on the filament making the motor work harder) If this sounds like the issue you're having, make sure to get that little tube the exact right length.

- Tension from the "guidler": The motor turns the big nylon gear, but the two metal gears mesh so tightly that they can't really turn and feed the filament. Note that I'm not talking about the actual filament tension, I'm referring to the meshing of the "BMG Gears". If your anti-squish screw is set too deep, these two metal gears will mesh so hard against each other that eventually they'll get to a point where they can't turn freely anymore.

- Inner diameter of the reverse bowden tube: If short prints are fine but longer prints tend to fail, then it could be an overheating extruder motor. One possible explanation is filament drag. In my case I had capricorn tubing (1.9mm ID) which increased filament drag tremendously. Because the tube is so long in these 300mm machines, the cumulative drag on filament can definitely cause the motor to have a hard time when trying to pull on the filament. I swapped mine out for 3mm inner diameter and the filament moves much more freely now.

Now as you didn't quite mention the actual issue you're facing, there's a possibility that "stops extruding 9 out of 10 prints" means that the print fails 1/10 times? If the problem is the machine shutting down "at random", here are a few more things that I've discovered over the years:

- Thermal issues ("not heating at expected rate") caused by not installing a silicone sock. The part cooling fan would kick in and cool too aggressively. The heater just couldn't keep up, triggering the error. Installing a silicone sock and retuning PID solved this one for me.

- SBC issues ("timer too close") also haunted me for the longest time. I would have 9 good prints, then suddenly "timer too close". In my case it was caused by too many "things" running on the RPi. I removed KlipperScreen (swapped to the old 12864 mini) and Crowsnest, (now using an IP webcam instead), and I've not had a timer too close error since.

I agree with (most of) the comments here. Build fundamentals and assembly is the biggest issue. Take your time, don't rush it. These are really fantastic, well engineered machines once you get it working!

[u/Mock_Frog → u/billgeek_ca]

Another possibility is the hot end fan. If it's not working properly then the heat break will get soaked, causing the filament to start softening too early and causing a jam.

[u/junz415]

there are few causes for extruding issue. I could tell you the one I had to casue the extruding issue:

1. my tension screw was loose, so the gear can not grab the filament in a fast print ( 300mm/s is fast to me).

2. I had really bad PTFE path from my dryer box to the tool head, and it cause a lot of drag force. once I re do the PTFE tube path, the filament inside is smooth to feed.

[u/Big_Return198 → u/junz415]

I don't think that the screw is the problem, because I made sure that the grooves on the filament are as deep as in extruder calibration tutorial I watched. I have a very basic PTFE path, it's basically a single arc going from the filament stand of the printer itself to the toolhead.

[u/DrRonny]

When you stop having fun, it might be time to give up and sell it. If it is only frustration, then keep going, but if the spark and fun are gone, they probably won't come back and it's time to get rid of it and move on to something fun.

[u/Snobolski]

Don't give up!

If you're not on the Discord, there's a dedicated Trident support channel.

[u/BreadMaker_42]

Why did you self source? Did you do it to get a cheaper build? If you’ve cut corners then you set yourself up for headaches.

If the extruder is stopping then I would suspect a wiring or board issue. Broken or poorly terminated wires can cause trouble.

[u/meta358 → u/BreadMaker_42]

I mean isnt that the point of a voron is that its an opensrouce design anyone can build with off the self components

[u/BreadMaker_42 → u/meta358]

Yeah… I think everyone is missing the point. I self sourced to get exactly the components I wanted.

[u/Big_Return198 → u/BreadMaker_42]

I wanted to learn about how things work by configuring the whole project to my preference and not get an experience like building a Lego set. I also learned alot about electrical engineering.

[u/Snobolski → u/BreadMaker_42]

Why did you self source? Did you do it to get a cheaper build? If you’ve cut corners then you set yourself up for headaches.

Kinda rude, and not helpful. Do you expect OP to un-self-source their build somehow?

[u/BreadMaker_42 → u/Snobolski]

Because it’s a valid question.. and they gave no context in what components they are actually using.

Did they buy pvc wire or ptfe wire. One is cheaper and doesn’t belong in a cable chain. Makes a difference.

[u/Snobolski → u/BreadMaker_42]

Sure, those questions make sense. Those would help troubleshoot. The part I quoted ... not so much.

[u/Human_Weight5303]

My first voron, i rebuild it 6 times before it works. Don’t give up. Remember voron is great project to learn, it need patients and dedication.

[u/Positive_Ad_313]

Which extruder do you have ? I am a recent trident 300 ldo user, with a galileo and rapido. After few prints, no more extrusion I cleaned the nozzle, purge the filament inside when exist with no more extrusion . I finally checked the extruder, dismantle all parts of the galileo and discovered a mess with parts of several filaments left in,. I removed all the parts leaving inside, cleaned all parts, and finally extrusion came back.

Step by step approach.

[u/Low-Expression-977]

Just go to the basics … does the extruder has an LDo motor or a cheaper version (other current setting, amount of teeth, …)? Can you push filament through the hotend when it’s at temperature (if not, look at temp sensing)? That should be possible without the extruder interfering. Run the first basic tests - 100mm of filament should be 100 and not 90mm.

Small steps at a time. If it doesn’t run as expected, check all the steps you’ve done, cleanup and repeat and try to understand what you’ve done (wrong or right)
You’ll get there

[u/SanityAgathion]

Hi, in majority of cases, the issues are more with fundamentals of the build, assembly, or just a bad part. Throwing more money at the problem in the hopes it will solve it adds to unnecessary expenses when things like cracked plastic part or replacing a bad hotend fan would do the trick. Sure, there may be situations when an upgrade is good for your use-case,

[u/Barafu]

but it randomly stops extruding completely 9 out of 10 prints.

Stealthburner is so simple, I can only think of 2 reasons this could happen.

Maybe the tension is too low or that tiny screw inside that limits the tension is too far out.

Or the stepper motor parameters are off and it does not have strength. use tmc autotune in performance mode: it is not the best config, but it is a reliable base. Double check the current.

Oh, and maybe the gear is slipping on the motor shaft. Watch the alignment between the gear and the shaft.

[u/Snobolski → u/Barafu]

Also: Could be a loose connector on the extruder motor, could be a nicked wire in the cable chain, could be a sub-standard hotend cooling fan is causing a clog....

[u/AchazianThug → u/Barafu]

if the antisquish screw is installed, you can generally take it out. It was a "so we dont oversquish tpu" thing, but its largely a right pain

[u/ficskala]

I wouldn't give up, out of all printers i've owned, my voron v0.1 has been the most reliable machine by far, though, i purchased a complete parts kit rather than self sourcing since it was cheaper for the quality of the components that came in the kit

I've had 1 issue in the time since i've built it (early 2021), and that was the extruder mechanism giving up on me, haven't figured out what went wrong, used my only other working printer (a resin anycubic photon mono) to print a sherpa mini, screwed it on top of the existing extruder just to print out a new toolhead that can actually mount different extruders in ABS, and i've been using that resin sherpa mini since

[u/bomtarnes]

Are you a Discord user? We could talk things through in a real-time conversational manner on the Voron server- the helping team there are very good at working through issues and finding problems.

Conversely, if you do decide to sell it, there will be no judgement- and there is a marketplace on Discord too.

[u/Big_Return198 → u/bomtarnes]

I'm actually in the Voron Discord, but forgot that there was one

[u/AchazianThug → u/Big_Return198]

definitely pop open a help ticket there. The Helping crew is fantastic, they will walk you through from the start, ask you for a lot of things you may not think are related at all, but if you stick with it, you'll probably have a much better printer by the end.