I am currently printing a larger model (25h). I am using some left-over spools. This requires serveral spool changes. It printed until 59% when the problems started. The usual grinding happened. So the printer could not continue to print and paused the print and complained about it. Until this step everything was okay but then problems started.
1st BUG: The message on the display ALWAYS tried to contine to load material no matter which option I selected. This resulted into MORE grinding.
2nd BUG: After the problem message disappeared NOTHING worked anymore. I was no able to retract the material via the display nor is there any GCODE to enforce the retraction. This meant to me I had to MANUALLY unload the filament which took me about 1 hour and felt like an open-heart-operation.
3rd BUG: After I have removed the filament and tried to load the material again (different spool) nothing happened. I was not able to resume the print nor did the printer take any commands via display or console. I had to use “FIRMWARE_RESTART” to continue. After the firmware restarted the printer was able to execute commands.
4th BUG: After I have restarted the printer the CFS did not react in any ways. Only the detection if filament was inserted to the CFS worked (white LEDs). But if I commanded the printer to extrude ANY slot from the CFS it just moved to the unload position and instantly back to the PAUSE position.
After one more hour I tried to use the manually feed for the filament. This actually worked and I was able to continue the print, but of course with another bug.
5th BUG: After resuming the print the print temperature was taken from an unknown source (220°C) but the print file definitely said 200°C.
6th BUG: After resuming the print the printer may have continued at the wrong position. There is a HUGE elefant foot syndrome where it continued.
7th BUG: While resuming the printer NEARLY hit the print while moving to the unload position. Just some millimeters left between nozzle and print.
Lets see how this continues.
Edit #1: I am using the latest firmware and OrcaSlicer 2.3.0.
Edit #2: 8th BUG: Also the values from the initial calibration are lost. The PA and the FLOW values were random after resuming the print.
Sorry you’re having trouble. I can’t comment on most of the issues, but when encountering a motor-protection event (such as over-current, motor over-temperature, etc.) the whole unit actually goes into an emergency-stop (e-stop) state. This is not indicated to us in any way that I could see (and definitely should be.) When in estop, all the motors are de-energized and will not work until the unit is reset. This sounds like what happened here. That is a good way to protect us and the machine… if it were just indicated to us properly. Next time nothing responds, unit is in estop.
It sounds like something may have happened in the CFS - perhaps a jam caused from a shard of filament, a shard interfering with a sensor, or even a failed board or wire. Check here, lots of troubleshooting guides: K2 Plus Combo & K2 Plus Multi-color Printer | Creality Wiki
Try to tackle these issues one-by-one. Trying to fix them all at once is a definite path to frustration. Good luck and best wishes.
Do you mean with ESTOP the same emergency stop which you can press in OrcaSlicer? Because this stop also disables the motors which wasn’t the case for me.
This could be one explanation. But I still think it is software bug, because this only happens when the CFS is tangled.
I’ve found when I’ve had errors while actively printing, if there is no “retry” option on the printer touchscreen error message, the printer needs to be turned off and on again before being able to to anything. When the printer is ready to print again after a failure and is turned back on it sometimes has the option to resume a failed print - but I have never tried it so I don’t know if that works.
Do you mean with ESTOP the same emergency stop which you can press in OrcaSlicer?
I’m not sure if this “software” estop is exactly the same as the hardware estop, but the end result is the same - no motors will move until unit is reset. Having a separate hardware and software estop isn’t uncommon; LinuxCNC often does this. But LinuxCNC shows you, in very clear terms, that it is e-stopped, and allows you to un-estop and continue. It may be possible that the CFS also has it’s own estop; unsure. It would be really nice if Creality employees frequented these threads more often and could comment, but there is a language barrier working against us. They should definitely heed these experiences though (especially for any “flagship” product.)
Aside, I recently replaced the front extruder housing due to a failed bowden-tube retainer. When reassembled, I forgot to plug the filament buffer back into the CFS. That was interesting - unit would feed filament fine, even start extruding fine, but the buffer would over-fill and not signal the CFS, which would then grind filament and emit a cryptic fault code - thought I was having a CFS issue. The point is, don’t depend on the printer being able to tell you exactly why it is misbehaving.