Temperature Screwy...

[Brad Stansell]

Ok, I followed the recommend instructions (temperature table 1... whatever that means, setting temperature to 20deg higher than normal, etc), but something seems very wrong with my new pico.  It takes an abnormally long time to achieve 200deg... or at least what repeteier is reporting back as 200deg (this is without a fan, mind you) and when it does finally start printing, It spits out smoke and gases in spurts with the occasional bubbling or even charred black filament (it's supposed to be light grey).  Suffice to say, something seems a little off. 

I followed your setup instructions to the letter, and have searched all over your website for information on my 300deg thermistor and what my settings should be, only to find that everyone only seems to give a damn about the 500deg augmentation. 

I really want to like this product.  The one piece design sounded like a great idea when I bought it.  No tape, no screws as well.  However it seems to have more problems than my previous hot end, which leaked like a toilet.  But the top screw is too short to work with my MK8 extruder, the documentation for it is inadequate, your bowden kit is incomplete, and it doesn't contain all the pieces it needs to work out of the box (you'll give us a fan but we have to print out a mount????).

This is even more annoying than a broken or defective product because it's a product that has a good idea behind it but it's not quite there.  Why is the support section of your site a Google Groups page?  Why can't you post examples of what the configuration.h file should look like for someone who is using your product?  Why don't you include a smaller fan with an aptly sized mount instead of saying "here's a fan, figure out how to put it on there for yourself?"  Why can't you take 20 minutes and figure out settings for alternative firmwares?

It's obvious you took a lot of design cues from Apple, why not put in the extra effort and make your product just as easy to use?  Plug and play. 

I'm sorry if I'm ranting... I just really wanted to like my new Pico.  But it's turning out to be just as annoying as all the other hardware I've tried to configure. 

[B3]

Brad,

I understand where you are coming from. We should have more documentation than a support group. This will be something we will implement on our new website being designed and converted over as we speak, literally. I apologize for the much needed improvements. 

It seems your pico is operating way too hot and cooking the filament which can cause a lot of issues. What printer are you using? And if you know what brand electronics board you have, that can help. If not, no worries. 

Do you know what voltage Pico you ordered?

Lets start with those questions and take it from there.

Thanks

Mike

The B3 Team

B3 innovations, LLC 

[Brad Stansell]

Actually I think I may have figured out what my problem was.  I share it here so perhaps someone else will benefit or you might even be able to fit it into your website. 

I have a Pico 300C, 12V (I think) (whose packaging is deceptive as it claims to include 2 of the foam filters, a groove mount and advertises that it can handle temperatures up to 500C, but that's all incidental). 

My setup is such, a hodge-podge Prusa i3, MK8 extruder, and 5 stepper motors all being powered by a Ramps 1.4 board sitting atop an Arduino 2560 mega.  A couple of weeks ago, I had a wiring error that resulted in a large puff of smoke arising from my Ramps board.  I thought I had shorted out one of my Polulu drivers and promptly went to Microcenter to find another.   Replaced the driver, motors were running, thermistor was thermistating, and all was right with the world.  Except it wasn't. 

I kept experiencing various glitches but since I'm a relative noob, I just assumed I had set something up incorrectly.  After all I'm still learning what half the things in the firmware actually do (I have no clue why the FW setup is so damned complex).  Long story short (too late), after doing some research, I learned that the puff of smoke was actually the voltage regulator on my Arduino, basically exploding, making it unable to manage temperature regulation and temperature detection at the same time.  Any thermistor I would hook up to it was actually reporting about half of what the temperature actually was.  Fortunately, I had a spare Mega in the basement and after swapping it out, the Pico seems to be working acceptably well. 

I definitely still think there are some ways you could help to make this idiot-proof.  Like stop spouting "Thermistor table 1" all the time.  Show us precisely what setting(s) to change in the firmware, tell us what model of thermistor the pico is equivalent to.  Give us some starting PID values.  Create and include a decent fan mount.  I also think the Pico would be perfect for a multi-hotend setup if you could create a stable mount for it.  Just a few ideas.