Up! Temperature Adjustment

It can be useful to change liquefier and platform temperatures to adapt to different materials. It should be noted that changing the liquefier temperature is not the only parameter change necessary to make a material suitable for use.

Will this allow you to use MakerGear filament perfectly? No. You'll still have problems trying to separate support and thick layer settings over support may "implode"  as the MG filament has a different die swell and other properties that make it sub OEM standard. Temperature changes can't save you...

Want to know how I changed temperatures and how you can too?

Keep on reading to find out how.

The Up! printer uses a fairly straightforward resistor network and opamp to condition and calibrate the temperature sensor. What does that mean? The chunky square things can adjust the temperature.

Here's a close up back view of that same portion of the circuit. It seems the ground plane was somewhat isolated - perhaps to reduce noise induced by the steppers?

I found, quite easily, the "top" potentiometer calibrates the platform while the "bottom" pot calibrates the liquefier.

The first step, for you, is to find your factory set point. As most of us don't live in +/- 1C temperature controlled environments, we need a multimeter.

Before Continuing, disconnect from power!

With your instrument set to ohms, probe between ground and Ra21 for the platform and Ra3 for the liquefier. You'll want to probe the pad that's furthest from the OpAmp.

You can also probe the "bottom" of Ra19 for the platform and the "top" of Ra1 for the liquefier - these are at the same point in the circuit.

You should get a reading around 100ohms. Record this value to one or two decimal places (e.g. 99.4). Now that you know the factory setting, you can always go back.

The easiest way to ballpark adjust temperature is by using the software with the machine cold. If you want to go 10C hotter, take the software readout and subtract 10. Then, adjust the appropriate potentiometer until the software reads this temperature. The screenshot below should be reading about 11C.

Example: Increasing the platform temperature by 10C: If the Software is indicating a temperature of 15C, you need to adjust the rear potentiometer until the software indicates 5C.

The best way, however, is by actual measurement. Here's where I inserted my thermocouples:

Sparing you the details on how I came up with these values, here is a table of temperatures and the resistance needed to hit them.

I will update this table from time to time to make it more accurate - I am less confident with the values 230 and below as some heavy interpolation is happening.

I don't have a table as of yet... But a 122.6C platform temperature set point was achieved with the resistance dialed in to 102.2ohms

This is a huge post so far... Tomorrow, I'll publish print results.

Finally - I have no idea what this does for warranty. You probably paid around $1500 for this machine and you paid so much because it comes with support and a warranty. Replacement electronics are $1400. Be careful - only probe  with the power off and if you don't understand what is going on and feel $1400 is too expensive, don't mess with it.