RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I've just had a very frustrating few days with the CR Touch intermittently not working and I tried all sorts of attempted remedies. In the end it turns out the when I cable clipped the cr touch cable near the hot end it was so tight that with the mnovement of the head the connection was being disturbed and the cr touch would just stop and not work, and sometimes the head would crash down onto the print surface because the cr touch had 'lost touch' with the processor board. DOHHHH! Homer Simpson moment.

Unclipped the cables and allowed the cr touch cable to float free and problem solved. Moral of the story, don't get too obsessed with tidying the cables.

Alwyn

AlwynTurner wrote:I've just had a very frustrating few days with the CR Touch intermittently not working and I tried all sorts of attempted remedies. In the end it turns out the when I cable clipped the cr touch cable near the hot end it was so tight that with the mnovement of the head the connection was being disturbed and the cr touch would just stop and not work, and sometimes the head would crash down onto the print surface because the cr touch had 'lost touch' with the processor board. DOHHHH! Homer Simpson moment.

Unclipped the cables and allowed the cr touch cable to float free and problem solved. Moral of the story, don't get too obsessed with tidying the cables.

Alwyn

well at least you know it is nothing serious

Unfortunately I spoke too soon. The cr touch is failing, sometimes it works, sometimes not. It fails at different points which is really frustrating. It seems to be something to do with the connection at the top of the cr touch. I wiggle it, take it out put it back., it works. Try it again and it fails but at different points in the bed level. I can only put it down to either a faulty unit or or a faulty wire but in either case it's useless. I think I might try the BL Touch and see if that works.
Alwyn

Hi guys this could be the way to print more scale models, free 3d scanning. If you have a scale model you can upscale to 1/16 . take a look at youtube video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s8dZAk6dy8

see what you think

regards pete

Well have I got a red face! I watched the instruction video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8ouBPnRV4s
and realised I had set the cr touch too low, it was almost at the same klevel as the nozzle. It did not like this. I moved the cr-touch sensor up about 3mm and lo and behold it worked perfectly on autohome and bed level which previously it failed on.

SO... all I had to do then was find and set the z probe offset which eventually I did with some trial and error (mostly error) but eventually it all came together.

Elon Musk named his recovery ship 'Just read the instructions' ...... so I guess it is rocket science DUH...

Alwyn

well, for the people who want to begin with designing your own tank (like me), I think this is a nice guy who is explaining in detail how to design a tank in Fusion360: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C0C8ldOehs (at least the parts I watched so far are interesting)

After a week of using the ender 3 I can say with satisfaction and relief that the cr touch unit is brilliant (once you get it properly installed ). Since setting it up and installing it properly (eventually) I haven't had to touch the bed level at all, just switch the printer on, select the print job, wait for it to level itself, and away it goes, every time a coconut! The worst thing with the install was finding the correct firmware, which is not the one under the ender 3 max heading but hidden away under accessories, see the link to the instruction video above. prior to installing the cr touch I was constantly having to tweak the z-level adjustment screws under the bed, the printer seems to be very susceptible to temperature change when the bed heats up, but the cr touch senses it and adjusts. What a win.

Alwyn

Good to know


I had a few rather annoying days printing.
The all metal extruder was cooking on our E3 v2.
Surface temp of the extruder motor was silly high. All filaments were giving up going thru and it would stop feeding
Workshop air temp 40°C
Even the bed temp on the other printers were sitting at mid 30s when they weren't even running heated beds.
OK it's unusual rare occurrence in the UK, but damn it was hot in there lol. Its well insulated, but a week of blistering sun and it was taking a toll.
Maybe have to think about some heatsinks and fans for the extruder to help keep it cool in future.
Yes extruder and hot end all checked qnd fresh and working ad they should, just the excess heat and lack of airflow meaning a cooking set of motors
The plastic extruders all ran fine, so a negative to a all metal extruder.

Will, I have exactly the same issue E3 V2. Prints fine up to 35-40deg ambient temperature, anything more like that and it's clogging and extruder motor grinding filament. I tried many things - cooling fans, dual extruder, direct drive - nothing seems to work, 35-40 deg seems to be its top temperature. I could still do small prints but anything bigger usually fails after 1-2h. What I was thinking to try is enclosure for the printer and hook up portable cooling unit. I just can't justify the spend for several days of heatwave per year.

ankh wrote:Will, I have exactly the same issue E3 V2. Prints fine up to 35-40deg ambient temperature, anything more like that and it's clogging and extruder motor grinding filament. I tried many things - cooling fans, dual extruder, direct drive - nothing seems to work, 35-40 deg seems to be its top temperature. I could still do small prints but anything bigger usually fails after 1-2h. What I was thinking to try is enclosure for the printer and hook up portable cooling unit. I just can't justify the spend for several days of heatwave per year.

Cooling fan and heatsinks and maybe going to reduce bed temp qnd raise hot end temp and see what can do. Yeah a dedicated cooling tunnel for the extruder may work well.
The heatsinks need to be blonde rather than stuck on with tape as that doesn't transfer heat to sink correctly.
It's just high 30s and it starts becoming an arse. Shame cause otherwise it works really well
The older e3s do work even when hot and so does the e3 pro, so there is something weird with the v2, maybe it's pulling more current for se reason?
Might try fitting plastic extruder