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Constant filament splices failing and Error 131

I’ve been trying to do some test prints with the Palette 3 Pro and every time the print fails due to the filament breaking at a splice with simple PLA filaments. It works fine most of the time but it only has to fail once for the entire print to fail, which is exactly what happens. I tried a lot of different settings with Splice Tuning but it seems even with settings that work for most of the print, sooner or later a splice ends up failing. Sometimes when this happens the Palette gives an Error 131 and stops the printer, while other times the printer just merrily keeps on going even though it’s no longer being supplied with any filament.

It also seems that sometimes the tube inside the Palette device comes loose off of where it’s attached near the outgoing drive. I’m not sure if this is related to the first issue, but I can’t imagine it’s a good thing.

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After a bit of testing, it seems like the quality of the splices is super inconsistent. In a length of test material I had the Palette make for me, I can easily pull apart some splices with my fingers while other splices using the same material seem to be as strong as the filament itself.

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Same problem after new settings:

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Hey Dennis, which splice tuning values are you using on your most recent attempt?

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@jonnyyeu I'm not at the device right now, but if I remember correctly my last used setting was 4/2/4 for heating/pressure/cooling.

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Hey Dennis, do you mind trying try splice using 4,2,2 and seeing if you are finding success? Having 4 for your heating value might be a bit too high.

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@hana I’ve tried your suggested splice settings and I still got a broken splice inside the machine in the middle of a print.

[image|4371]

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@dmariman Sorry the image didn't upload properly. Could you please send it to support@Mosaicmfg.com and we'll take a look

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Thanks, Dennis. Could you please take your Splice Core out and flip it so that the pogos are sticking up? Do you notice if any of the pogos are loose?

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I’ve started seeing this intermittently on my P3 - several prints failed when the filament necked down small enough that the extruder drive wheel couldn’t continue pulling the filament.

I’ve done a bunch of splice tuning, and generally end up with values around 1-2, but every so often, it seems like the two drives in the Palette get out of sync and the outgoing drive pulls forward just a fraction before the incoming drive pushes, resulting in the splice necking down to about 1/2 diameter (the necked filament section is about 2mm long)

On my most recent failed print, I noticed that this started to happen more often with one specific filament (still happens with the others, just happens more with this one) so will be doing some more testing. I’m wondering if somehow it’s not solidifying enough before getting advanced.

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Hey Zeno, do you notice if this is happening with specific drives? Also, could you please try and increase the cooling factor, as this could be due to the filament being molten when it is being moved along the filament path, causing it to neck.

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Thanks for the info!

Hmm I haven't directly noticed a pattern to which drive its on, but I will definitely do some testing!

I'll try the extra cooling, previously had it set to 1 but I'll try 2 or 3 and see how that goes.

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Glad and sad to see I'm not alone with this issue. Its the last hurdle to me getting to use my machine.

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Tried extra cooling. it sorta helped, but still seeing this (more intermittently with longer cooling) however, this has resulted in another issue.

Now, on certain prints where a given color is only used for a short period, I've had the printer trying to do it's purge between colors at the same time as the Palette is splicing the next splice, at the same time as the palette tried to do a Pong, which resulted in the printer pulling hard enough on the filament to make it slip in the Palette's outgoing drive, pulling apart the splice. I think this is probably a pretty extreme edge case, but definitely makes me worry about leaving prints running for long runs, since a pong like that could easily make the print fail. Would be better if the Palette sent a pause command if the printer was trying to purge during a splice, just to make sure it wouldn't run out of buffer.

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@zinventor Thanks for sharing, that does seem like a very rare edge case, but I'll forward this to our team. There is the option to slow down the print speed during a splice, and this would likely help to avoid this issue in the future.

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Hi, I am having similar necking issues as @zinventor, where 95% of the splices are perfect, but now and then, the filament will get so thin that it gets stuck on the extruder gears, and the print fails due to pings falling below 50% (error 134). The strange thing is that the necking is not happening at the splice but up before the splice (on the incoming side), while the splice is perfect, just like the rest of the 95% of splices. The necking, even though it’s not at the splice, still results in the same issue. I’m using Mater hacker PLA and splice setting of 2-1-4 (up from 2-1-2/2-1-3 to solve this issue). The issue happens randomly, and if I try to recreate it, it doesn’t happen but happens at some point in the middle/end of a long print. It’s almost as if the splice gets cooled perfectly. Still, as the outgoing filament after the splice pulls on the incoming filament after the splice, it passes through the core, which is still too hot and melts the incoming filament at a random spot away from the splice.

Please help with this issue as I can’t figure out what setting could solve this.


p.s. HW is Prusa Mini+ running on the latest alt firmware (Bontech extruder and SE Copperhead).

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Hey Zain, sorry to hear that this is occurring. Can you get good splices with a lower heat setting, (0,1,4)? If so, could you please run a print at those settings to see if the necking occurs?

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@jonnyyeu I have the splice problem on mixing old (it's less than a year old), and new filaments. The splice was inconsistent on the old and new filament. I have 2,2,4 on all new filaments. I will try the 0,1,4 configuration on the next print. However, the cooling sets at 4 do solve the problem of the necking issue.

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@goldensnake This could be due to the old filament as it may be more brittle due to exposure to the air. You could try and dehydrate the old filament before attempting another print as this should help with splice quality.

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For anyone else having issues with intermittent splice failure, I figured out the solution, after trying every conceivable mixture of heat and cooling factor with low compression, I finally decided to go counterintuitive and try high compression. For instance for the filament that I was using -1/0/2, instead I used -1/4/4, and similarly, for the filament for which I was used 2/0/5, I am now using 2/4/5. This has resulted in over a hundred hours of printing without a single splice failure so far (crossing my fingers that this issue is now solved!). It turns out that high compression (around 4/5) was the solution. Good luck to anyone else having the same issue and I hope this helps you.

p.s. I just received my order of Mosaic’s own PLA, I will see if the same intermittent splice issue happens with those and if it does, will the high compression solve it too. I will post the results here, if high compression is needed for Mosaic’s own filament to produce consistent splices, then I would have to assume that the instructions will need to be updated to a higher default compression until a firmware solution is released.

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@jonnyyeu: I couldn't print anything but the calibration piece after weeks from the day I’ve been using the P3P because of the random bad splices. I have spent some time monitoring it, and it seems the splice core doesn’t have enough heat on the filament. I had tried multiple splice configurations. I checked the splice core, and it looks no physical damage on the contact pins. Please help…

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PROBLEM SOLVED!!! My patient is paying off. Simply moving the P3P to the edge of a table, all filaments hang free between the filament holder and P3P. Previously, the filaments path was on the table and to the P3P, which randomly caused bad slices.

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All prints are slices by Slice3r. The prints are painted and use 5 and 7 filaments. Splice configuration is 0,0,2.

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Great to hear! Love the prints, especially the Futurama one. Thank you for the update.

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Seeing all the problems here (and I'm also one who has the same problems) one question comes to mind. Team Mosaic why haven't done anything about it yet with a recurring thing for many people and it's a problem that affects the whole job as it ruins the impression. I ask you to look at this topic with a different look and be consider of your customers.

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I have constantly bad splices with Canvas. I haven't had time to figure it out or don't want to waste more filament. P2PP is my solution and PrusaSlicer has all the features of the Canvas and better.

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Hi Marcelo, we've seen that 131 errors are usually due to splice settings. If you're getting this error constantly, could you please share your splice settings and pictures of recent splices? This will help us determine what adjustments need to be made.

Regarding P2PP vs. Canvas, the splice settings wouldn't make a difference as to how a splice is created with Palette, they would be applied the same between both slicers.

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@jonnyyeu It looks fine to me, and none of the pogos are loose.

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Thanks for sharing. Could you please try a splice with 4/1/2 and share a picture of the splice with us? Also, please update Palette's firmware to today's release before attempting another print/splice

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@jonnyyeu I’ve updated my firmware and used 4/1/2 for my splice settings and I’m still having issues. The only significant change seems to be that I’m now getting error code 134 instead of error code 131 when I try to print. I’m assuming that’s because of the new firmware.

The quality of the splices is inconsistent. Compare the spliced parts in the attached picture (excuse the less-than-ideal picture quality, I’m having to use my phone for this). The one one the right looks the way I’d expect it to look, but the one on the left has a very thin spot. Both of those pictures are using generic PLA with the same settings. This matches my previous experience of most splices being fine, but getting unexpected failures halfway through a print.

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Thank you for sharing. Would you mind sharing a picture of a splice at (0,0,0)?

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@jonnyyeu I have tried 0/0/0 but it gave the same issues as 4/1/2 before. I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture, but it would’ve looked similar to the one I posted earlier anyway.

As an experiment I tried to go completely the other way and try 1/6/6 which actually seems to be giving better and more consistent results so far.

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Thanks for sharing. I'd recommend keeping compression lower if possible, as overcompression can sometimes lead to deformed splice tubes, which can then cause further splicing issues.

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I have this exact problem. The P3 gives dozens of splices just fine and then, bam!, a bad slice and whole print is gone.

I am using the latest firmware 21.12.07. I have tried several splice settings and nothing seems to solve the problem.

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Hey Bill, when the splices fail, are they necked splices, or cold splices (where there is no color drag and it seems as if no heat has been applied)? Also, what are your splice settings?

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I had a similar issue on one of the cheap filament but the others. I believe the filament quality is important factor of the splice in my opinion, @mosaicsupport is it right?

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Yes, filament quality can definitely affect splice quality. We recommend using filaments that have tolerances of +/-0.03mm

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@jonnyyeu My two-month P3P keeps failing on an intermittent brittle splice after a few good prints earlier. Splice core produces several good splices and one brittle splice. I’m patiently shot every splice on P3P and spotted the brittle splice. The top splice was good, and the bottom splice was brittle; the splice settings are 1-1-3, 2-1-2, 4-2-4, respectively. The splice core looks normal, but it’s still questionable. I sent the distress to Mosaic support, but there are no solutions.

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Thanks for sharing. Which brand(s) of filament are you using? Have any of your filaments been in the open for long periods of time? When running splice tuning, have you tried filaments as both the ingoing and outgoing? Lastly, which version of Palette's firmware are you using?

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I used Amazon basic PLA. They are brand new filaments. I live in southern California, the humidity is low most of the time. Splice tunning is OK on both ways. The firmware of the two previous scans was 22.02.09.0, the third scan is 22.03.29.0.

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@goldensnake Could you please try and replace the splice tube?

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@jonnyyeu I use the splice setting from @zainshah, which raises the compression to 4/5, low heat to 2, and cool to 4, and it helps. However, the splice tunning does not allow me much until I print the old Mosaic keychain, then the bad splice presents. I have a question; my compression is 4, 2mm + the "default" compression is inward on the outgoing filament. Or it has 2mm compression.

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@jonnyyeu My experimental testing is felt short; the brittle splice is still there. Replacing with a new splice tube doesn't help with several splice settings. However, the PLA filament is new, a splice tube is new, and a different splice setting (3/4/3); the result is as same as before. I will ask for warranty repair on my P3P.

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I would suggest lowering the compression. In our testing, we used a max of 2 for compression as over-compression can lead to poor splices and can also degrade the splice tube much faster. Could you please share a picture of a splice at (0,0,0)? We've found that this default setting has worked for a wide range of PLA that we tested. From there, I'd be able to provide recommendations on what needs to be tuned.

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@jonnyyeu At my first calibration, I started with a 0-0-0 setting. Unfortunately, things are getting worse after a few successful prints. I run two different splice tunings with a 0-0-0 setting and swapping in-going and out-going.

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Thanks for sharing. Would you mind sharing a picture of a splice at 2,0,2?

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@jonnyyeu Splice at 2-0-2.

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That doesn't look to bad except for the necking. I know that you'd tried it in the past, but would you mind trying 1,1,3?

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@jonnyyeu I run a splice tunning with 1-1-3 and the splices are good. I decide on printing a Mosaic keychain 4 colors with 1-1-4 setting, but a brittle splice is happened during printing.

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Thanks for testing that. Could you please share a picture of your physical Palette/printer setup, along with how your filament feeds into your Palette?

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@jonnyyeu Here is my P3P/Prusa physical setup.

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Thanks for sharing, that setup should be fine, but the spools of filament could be causing some drag, leading to broken splices. There are some DIY solutions that you can print to help reduce any drag: mm3d.co/p3-resources

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@jonnyyeu I did add the PTFE tubes as suggested by you. The fist print of Mosaic keychain is passed but failed a Smurfette print with a brittle splice again. The splice setting is 1-1-4. Any other solution?

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@jonnyyeu I spent some time on the weekend to get the causes of the mystery 131 code on my P3P. I have to go back to splicing setting 4-4-5 and the mod to make it through the end of the print. Splice tunning result doesn't solve the issue. I used my FLIR camera to measure the temperature on the splice heater element. Please advise. I want my $700 toy works as its advertised.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UTw5fjp...

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@jonnyyeu I gave up. Even 4/4/5 splice setting still has 131 error. I spent over a month and has no good result and wasting filament and and to my frustration.

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@goldensnake Thanks for sharing all this information, I'm sorry that you continue to experience this issue. I will need to speak with the team about this case, we haven't seen random brittle splices since we released a fix a few FW updates ago, but will see if you can share any more information. If we're unable to find a solution, we can either bring your unit back here for repairs or send a replacement unit.

Also, can you share a video of your unit splicing? It would be helpful to see the entire unit with the top lid removed during splices.

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@jonnyyeu This is a brittle splice, which recorded on 3/29 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VUjkHt5...

It's a good splice (3/30) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s80O8m5...

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Thanks for sharing. And just to confirm, you recently replaced the splice tube?

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