all prints are failing suddenly

[imcody]

hi,


so ive had my printer for a few months now and for about the last month i can not get a single print to work unless i print it directly to the print and even then it gets little distorted waves in it if its tall. 

ive been printing the same stuff and now suddenly it cant seem to print them. the print fails at the supports even on heavy. when i started i could use medium and light, then only heavy, now the supports fail even after using heavy supports. any ideas? ive contacted elegoo multiple times saying i think my plate is moving(and it is to much for the supports to hold on) or my usb is going in and out making it read for half the print and then stop reading the usb.

point me in the right direction ive gone thru two things of elegoo abs with nothing to show for it.

[cliffyk]

What does "...unless i print it directly to the print..." mean?

You have had the machine long enough ("a few months") now that the LCD shutter my be failing, mine failed after about that time.

To test it, remove the resin vat and platen, and "print" one of your files that has been failing--the printer does not know that the platen and "goop" are not there, so it will happily go about it's business thinking it is printing the model. Place a sheet of white paper over the LCD and observe the image masks to see if they look OK, also observe and determine if the curing lamp is behaving as it should (brightness and exposure times)...

[imcody]

Sorry i meant to say “unless i print directly to the plate”. What I’m trying to say is if i print the rook it works because that’s directly to the plate, if i have a file that has a flat surface i can print it on the plate and it will work. If i use supports it will fail. An example is i use the ameralabs to test my different resins and how to dial them in. You have 3 choices directly to the plate, directly to the plate but with a raft, and one that’s supported. The supported one will break at the supports every time now but the other two work fine.

im getting super frustrated and I’m starting to feel like this was a bad purchase. Mostly because of elegoos lack of support. Ive had issues and they told me to take it apart and fix it myself(my fan sometimes makes a horrible grinding sound)..... which seems odd. Lol



What does "...unless i print it directly to the print..." mean?

You have had the machine long enough ("a few months") now that the LCD shutter my be failing, mine failed after about that time.

To test it, remove the resin vat and platen, and "print" one of your files that has been failing--the printer does not know that the platen and "goop" are not there, so it will happily go about it's business thinking it is printing the model. Place a sheet of white paper over the LCD and observe the image masks to see if they look OK, also observe and determine if the curing lamp is behaving as it should (brightness and exposure times)...

[cliffyk]

What exposure times are you using (bottom layers and regular layers)?

Also when you print using supports are you using a "raft"? 



I have found that to be almost essential...

[imcody]

i do use a raft. i also have found that is pretty essential. these are my settings now. I've upped my exposure, upped my bottom exposure, and lowered my speed. i cant seem to be able to take small enough file pictures with my phone to upload them to the forum or i would include them. sorry.

[cliffyk]

i do use a raft. i also have found that is pretty essential. these are my settings now. I've upped my exposure, upped my bottom exposure, and lowered my speed. i cant seem to be able to take small enough file pictures with my phone to upload them to the forum or i would include them. sorry.

Keep in touch, let me know how it goes...

[imcody]

still no luck. ive checked my lcd and it seems ok? i guess ill check my plate. starting to run out of ideas.

[imcody]

plate was good. still kinda at a loss.

[cliffyk]

The LCD is bad--almost guaranteed. I have been through this twice now--with both of my Mars' machines after three months or so the LCDs get sluggish and develop small (and sometimes not so small) opaque spots and an overall  "crazed" appearance. The LCD in my newest printer (I received on May 4, 2020) failed relatively suddenly over the last week, almost 3 months to thy day after going into service.

Here's a cruumy photo of what I found last evening when perfoming a LCD test by "printing" (vat and platen removed) a 68 mm x 120 mm x 2 mm block (I will see if I can get a better photo later today.):



Note the large cluster of bad pixels and the numerous other clusters and individual dark pixels. Amazon says a new LCD screen is coming today ($29.99 w/ overnight shipping with a Prime account). I will see if I can get a better photo later today.

Unfortunately the built-in "exposure test" cannot reveal this as all it projects is a frame of  "on" pixels surrounding a largish central box of "off" pixels that encompasses the bulk (and most used portion) of the display. Using the exposure test would not have revealed the flaws show above.

To truly test the LCD you need to print a 120 x 68 mm block as did I:



Here is a link to an .stl file containing that model...

[cliffyk]

Here are some sort of better photos:

The "exposure test" (the camera actually "sees" the imperfections in the dark area thart rge naked eye cannot):


With a piece of paper in place: