printer overheating/freezing up stops working

[bringjustn]

Hello, I'm having a problem of on long prints the M2 will just stop printing. The computer isn't locking up, there isn't a power loss, the hot end stays hot, the heated bed stays hot, all the fans keep running, it just stops printing. Eventually the printbed will drop. this has happened on 6 prints now, sometimes after 3 hours sometimes after 14, and in between.

The first time it happened the printer was inside a box and the temp in the box was about 95 F, 3 other times the printer was in a heated room at about 80F, the last 2 times the air temp was about 65F.

Any ideas what is going on, or how to fix this problem?

[jimc]

Ate uou running it on usb or sd card? Does to freeze up on both? If not which one?

[bringjustn]

I am running it via USB, haven't tried the SD card (haven't looked into using it since my other printers run fine off computers and I have extra computers to tie up)

[jimc]

your always safer running off sd card. your computer could suddenly be doing something in the background and lose communication with the printer. switch to sd card for awhile to see if it still does it. then atleast you'll know where to start looking for the problem.

[bringjustn]

I'll give it a try when I get home from work. Any other ideas what might be going wrong if I get the same thing?

The computer isn't do much else aside from running repitier, I have just about anything non essential to running windows turned off.

[insta]

I'll give it a try when I get home from work. Any other ideas what might be going wrong if I get the same thing?

The computer isn't do much else aside from running repitier, I have just about anything non essential to running windows turned off.

How old is the machine (your M2)? Is it a dual power brick?

[bringjustn]

Got it last year, it was part of the FIRST Robotics sponsorship they did. it has a giant power supply (i think it is called a bench PSU) that is in line between the wall and printer

[thecadman99]

Any chance you are running Windows 8.1 and using usb 3.0? I've had problems with that scenario. 2.0 ports work fine.
You can get into control panel-device manager- usb ports, and turn off windows power saving permissions for usb ports.

[bringjustn]

I'm running 7, when I use my computer with 8 it seems to work which might mean the computer.

I was able to get 2 successful prints via the SD card method, then the fan over the RAMPS board died, giving me the same result. But I think that is explainable with overheating. So I replaced the fan, and now the stepper motor on the extruder is clicking and not feeding when I try to feed filament. This happens no matter how loose or tight I have the gear clamped on. Is there a fix for this without replacing the stepper or gearbox? Should I try printing another extruder hotend holder bracket? I have another printer so not a problem but I do need the printer back up and running asap.

[jsc]

How far into the extruder does the filament get when it stops feeding? You should be able to gauge the depth by where the tooth marks stop.

There are two common scenarios for failure to feed. If it makes it halfway through the filament drive, it is not making it into the lower hole below the gear. Try straightening the end of the filament, or inserting it with the bend at different angles, to see if you can get it snaked in. In the worst case, you can unmount the whole drive, feed the filament through, and mount it like that, bending the filament around the drive gear. rsilvers' filament drive and variants will have an larger cone on the lower hole to reduce the likelihood of this.

The other scenario is that it is making it all the way into the hot end and clogging. You can see this by the length of filament fed, and also the tip should be melted. Then you are in a declogging scenario, and there are several techniques for that, from fairly easy to a full teardown. Start off by poking thin guitar strings or other thin metal wire into the nozzle, then going to cold pulls, then dismount the extruder and tear it down and solvent bathe the nozzle.