Has anyone experienced issues with the quartz tube assembly on their Fuse 1 printer?
We are experiencing low output on both quartz tubes, but never at the same time. I can proceed in Preprint if i ignore the warning, but the printer does not exceed 140°C.
Has anyone else encountered this issue?
We switched to a new quartz tube assembly but the problem persists. So im guessing its deeper down the rabbithole.
P.S
I should note that these errors should NOT reflect badly on Formlabs as this machine has been taken out of commission as it has well over 10k hours on it and is no longer supported by Formlabs.
This is the first machine we bought and it has served us incredibly well over the last 3 years.
We will be scrapping it for parts, but a piece of me still wants to get it running.
Hey @SMute
Yeah im beginning to think it might be something related to that seeing that im getting errors on both tubes but never both at the same time.
If it were mine that’s where I would look, or at least in that direction. Since the bulbs presumably draw line power I wonder if it could be a relay somewhere in there going bad?
I’ve reached out through our support system, even if ther was some deal to let you keep an obsolete printer as spare parts, maybe I can give your logs a quick check and give you an idea in which direction to go when troubleshooting this printer.
In general this should be the way for most troubleshooting processes with issues like these. The first thing to check would be electrical as mentioned before, I’m thinking less of the quartz tubes themselves, but more of the RTDs checking the reported temperatures being affected by electrical noise.
If we can put a checkmark behind that, I’d personally check the quarts tubes themselves and replace them with each other/new ones (remember to wear gloves when handling quartz tubes).
Next on the list would be the RTDs in case we’re always getting the error on the same side and then troubleshooting would go for the quartz tube frame or power supply, according to what we’re seeing in the logs.
In any case, issues like these can be pretty complex, so checking what is going on with the various sensors involved and what they’re reading can narrow everything down pretty quickly.
For those interested in what the next step is i will be replacing the heater as it struggled to even reach 175 degrees celsius. thx to @Jakob_D for checking the logs. You are a legend my man.
So today i had the time to replace the airheater. While doing that i also checked all cables, connectors etc to see if i could spot anything out of the ordinary but everything looks good.
I included some pictures for those who might be interested and never opened up their Fuse 1 printers.
I managed to push past the warnings during priming and it managed to reach 144 degrees celsius before it timed out and started cooling down.. So back to square one. @Jakob_D I did upload logs once more if you wanted to see if anything has changed. The airheater should work properly now unless something else is affecting it. I just now thought about the RTD malfunctioning. I have a few in stock so might be the next step in this journey. But then again, i don´t think that would render the warnings about low output in the quartztubes.
Hi @Andreasemilsson
Thanks for getting back to us.
I’ve checked the newest logs and it looks like the air heater is heating up nicely again (it reached 180°C before the print was shut off due to the temperature timeout and likely would have gone all the way),
Now it looks like the bed heaters (aka the Quartz Tubes) are not playing ball.
Unfortunately the logs are very short due to the timeout happening during preprint and I can’t see the individual quartz tube voltages. I’d recommend either just replacing both for good measure or test them one by one if you have a known good one.
I did replace the quartz assembly per our service reps advice regarding this error. That did not fix it obviously.
The rep also said it could be a faulty quartz assembly from the factory. And im not sure we are willing to spend another huge was of cash just to try that again. So in essence, both quartz tube assemblys give the same error. Not really sure where to go from here besides trying your last suggestion replacing the quartz tubes even tho both of them are brand new.
With “quartz tube assembly” do you mean the whole frame?
If you didn’t just exchange that, the part that could be “not great” about that is the seating/contact for the quartz tubes themselves. Check the sockets and especially the metal contacts the qts attach to, if they’re charred, you could give that a cleaning to improve contact.
Yes indeed the whole frame wich has the connectors installed to it.
The new version of the QAS is quite badly designed as the old one had springtension only in the back. Now both front and back has springtension wich makes it a pain in the behind to change the quartztubes.
They are clean as a whistle and should not cause any issues. Im opening her up again today to see if i have missed something else.
Replaced quartz tube assembly.
Replaced 2 female connectors for the QAZ as they did look cracked and very brittle. (heat affected?)
Replaced Quartz tubes twice. (1 was sadly already springtorn when i opened them up.
And now she is primed and printing the calibration print. Woohooo.
Let´s keep our fingers crossed she makes it all the way.
I´ll update this with a final post once/if that happens.
Thx everyone for the encouragement in this endevaour. And thx @Jakob_D You legend.
Awesome cant wait to hear the result. If those connectors are heat damaged perhaps upgrading them to something that can take more current would improve reliability.
