Mine has broken, though I haven’t taken a look to see why. It’s just hanging down, doesn’t close, flicker lever just wobbles back and forth with no resistance to speak of.
But. I’ve been doing filament switches with high purge volumes and the chute appears to work better in spite of the busted part. I’m inclined to leave it this way.
Also, because the mechanism is no longer connected, the loud knock the flicker lever used to generate is gone.
Anyone else had their break and if so, can you say anything about what broke, maybe save me the trouble of pulling the printer away from the wall and turning it around to look for myself (print is running now)?
Sounds interesting. If I understand you correctly, the trap door is still there? Is that right? How does it not accumulate filament during purge without getting backed up? Or does it release by shear weight after one or two purge filaments accumulate? Do you have a photo of what the damage looks like?
Some time ago I added a poop chute door top extension which in pictures I would have swore it wouldn’t have worked but it actually made purge-release more reliable. Who knows, maybe I’m going in the wrong direction.
This “Flicker lever” - Are you talking about the the #1. or #2 horizontal wiper? #1. Mine isnt “attached” to anything" either and wobbles freely left\right etc- thats normal and yes - its not “permanently” attached to anything except itself and the rear wall, it has a small boot on the bottom with 2 small prongs coming off it - which act as fingers to close separate trap door flap when needed (Flushing) It DOES however pivot forward\back to temporarly close the vertical flap, but yes, its very wobbly.
#2 Obviously is consumable and relaceable easily.
#3 - Typically hangs down and unless flushing “trap door” is always open, hung vertical, its pushed closed only when flushing (by #1 bar)
I think your looking at #1 when its not “pooping” - look when it poops\flushing - or “Home” the toolhead and then look down the chute and push the #1 black bar at the top - toward the back (which is what the toolhead does) - watch as the bottom of that level pivots and closes the poop chute trap door .
Typically, when flushing, the toolhead moves to the back location and engags the top of that flicker arm - that pushes bottom of that flicker arm #1, toward the trap door #3, lifing it up and closing off the front half of the chute in a “horizontal” position.
As the #3 trap door is pushed closed, it creates a temporary platfrom for the filament to actually “bundle” on… creating those neat little poop spirals…
When the nozzle is sufficently flushed, the trap door is releasd (by the tool had moving away from holding the flicker bar #1 in place, lifing up and closing the trap door #3) and in the same motion, the toolhead ‘wipes’ and cuts off the filament, which as the trap door is back in its verticle postion - the filament drops down once cut free.
Does that make sense, am I miss understanding? if so - picture straight down the chute might help?
That is likely where my problem lies. Obviously I will have to take a look to be sure. But as the printer appears to handle high volume purges better with the flap permanently open, I’m inclined to leave it the way it is. I had a Nylon multi-color job I ran a couple of months ago where there were a half dozen purge blobs that somehow got flung up on to the build plate.
Thanks for the feedback. I am an engineer, so I don’t expect to be confused by anything. Just wanted to know if anyone else had seen the same issue. Save me the time of figuring it out for myself. I’m lazy.
I thought as much, myself. But so far, that isn’t proving to be an issue. It still blobs up pretty good, my poops don’t look all that different. Maybe longer “tails” is all. 12 hour print with 300 filament changes and 800 for purge volume on switches to/from the support filament, not a single issue. However, the last time I ran this kind of print, my chute got plugged up and I had to clear it by hand to keep the print running.
With my experiments on a custom filament change G-code I encountered the situation of having that latch not closed during purging. → A long strand of filament was created and if it wasn’t too short, it ejected without a problem.
Since then, I am thinking of improving the mechanism - or at least the process by utilizing that latch a bit more…
