Hi Chris,

I have had my printer now for 5 years, it is a Wanhao D4S. I have had little trouble with it up to the last few months, when it started to extrude badly. (Apart from a motherboard failure two years ago).

I have always used ABS on a heated bed (glass with slurry) at 110C, with an extrusion temperature of 230C and not needed to change this.

So recently I have changed the extruder driver (as I had the ones from the old motherboard), the extruders for a new pair, complete plug and play from Wanhao and this did not cure the problem. In the course of fitting them I found the extruder carriage mount faces for the extruder bar were distorted and had to shim the left side by 0.40mm. I could have corrected this by adjusting the nozzle heights, but this would have meant dismantling the extruders.

My next 'fix' is to change the guide tubes for PTFE in case there is any ruboff of the ABS onto the inside that is causing dragging.

This recent print was done with filament from Rigid Ink and I find it will print OK if I go up to 240C.

Yes, I use solvent smoothing, but I use MEK not DMK as ABS has a slightly lower solubility and MEK evaporates quicker, so I can give it a quick wash spray from a trigger bottle and then hang it to dry for 10 mins.

I have the feeling my printer needs a professional service and so I am sending it off to the Wanhao agent in Dorset soon.

In the meantime, I am awaiting delivery of a printer kit https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Latest-Ve...53.m2749.l2649 which seems too cheap at £70 (you could not buy the bits for that). It will be fun assembling it and I will have to see if it was a waste of money.

Cheers,

Rob