Troubleshooting my 3D printer (M3D)

 

Model not sticking on raft:

In this gallery you can see the models which failed during printing on my M3D due to not sticking properly to the raft.

 

 

Problem: When printing larger items (larger than a stamp size) you may get the problem that the model is not sticking properly. Because of the missing heating bet this might be a problem with cooling during the print.

Solution: The solution for me was to use the blue painter's tape (ScotchBlue) from Amazon. This works just like charm. Very good to peel off and the model is sticking good on the tape. You can print several jobs on a fixed blue tape.

 

Printing air or leaving spaces in model:

I had the problem, that the printer just printed spaces into the model where there should not be some. Additionally I had the problem that later in a print, the printer was only printing air.

 

 

Problem: The feed of the Filament gets a little bid stuck and so the printer is not able to feed the filament the right way. If it's get's only a little stuck it prints spaces. When it get's more stuck the printer completely looses the filament and prints in the air.

Solution: For this problem are several solutions possible. The main thing you have to check is, that the filament spool is running smooth and the filament don't get stock in any position. For me the solution was to feed the filament from the top of the M3D.

 

Last layers are shifted during priniting:

I had the problem, that the whole job was printing successfull, but the last jew layers have been printed a little bid shifted.

 

 

Problem: Due to an old beta software I was using with my M3D this "bug" occured.

Solution: Changing to software version 2015-05-27-v01.2 was the solution for me. In this version the developers removed this bug.

 

Wavy lines during printing:

I had the problem since the beginning when I got my printer that it made wavy lines when the print head is getting closer to the front (where the M3D light is on)

 

 

Problem: The printer thinks that the print bed is much higher than it is. This is the reason for the wavy lines.

Solution: You can go into calibration and print a test border to see the current state. Then you can move the bed virtually a little bid down. You can enter a maximum of -0,5 for every position where you see wavy lines. But you should use -0,1 steps. After that I was able to get a perfect 0.4 border when I lowered the bottom left and right corner to -0,5.

 

Filament blocked in head:

If your printer is not exiting any filament and exiting and filling filament also gives no result, you have the remove the rest of the blocked or jamed filaments from the gears.

 

 

Problem: The filament is getting stuck in the gears and has melting there.

Solution: Open the pastic front case. (Two clips have to be pushed from the top of the head) After that untighten the screw with a screw driver and remove the inner coverage. Then you will see the gear/bear and propably a stucked filament. Remove the filament with a tweezer and close everything in reverse order.

 

3D object appears completely black in M3D software:

In some cases the object which you want to print appears completely black in the M3D software.

This is an indicator for a damaged STL file.

You can repair this STL with an online repair tool.

Juct click HERE, upload your STL file and after the conversion you can download the fixed STL file and you are ready to print.

You will need a Microsoft account for this repair function.