Newbie question.

[OldSparks]

Hi, new member here, new to 3d printing as well.

I have a Balco 3d Touch printer from Aldi.
Set it up according to instructions yesterday. Levelled table, going around several times until it was level using the supplied card for the gap.

Tried to print from one of the files on the supplied SD card.
A mess.

Tried two or three of the files with no success. More or less random lines of extruded filament. Last attempt actually printed one layer of a small star before the head moved across the X axis and started to print a line very slowly, before suddenly running up the Z axis and artistically extruding into the air. Then the filament broke at the head.
All the stuff that was on the plate was stuck very hard!

Tried looking at the files on the PC. Windows 10 latest version. PC doesn't like the card or transferring the files. No problem with cards normally. I'm a photographer so I use the slot all the time.

Tried looking at one of the files that would transfer in Cura. That reports that the gcode file is an "invalid file"

Downloaded files from the Balco site open fine in Cura.

So it looks like corrupt files / card to me. Does it sound like that to anyone else?

If not, any ideas what it is?

I realise the answer is to run a known "good" file from a different card. Just looking for thoughts, before I have another scraping session though.

Just to add that I'm a reasonable mechanic, and as my name suggests, I was an industrial maintenance electrician once upon a time. That included work on automatic machinery.

Thanks for any thoughts in advance.

ETA. Had time for a better look at this today. Downloaded a file from Balco (cocoon robot), put it onto another card and it printed successfully.
So either the files on the card, or (I suspect) the card itself is faulty.

[daveincaol]

Hello
Another Newbie here with an observation. I personally don't like SD cards as a method of data transfer, but it seems like I am stuck with them at least until I can justify converting to Octoprint.
Watch out for cheap Cards from China. The one I got would not format and running a check with Chkflsh found 30 errors.

[OldSparks]

No I'm not that keen on using SD cards myself. This machine does have a USB port, but it's the square one found on the back of printers. Not handy for the PC really, although I could set it up with the laptop, it puts yet another stage into the process.
At least the SD card is tucked out of harms way when in use.
I won't use the card supplied again for anything. I normally buy cards from a decent source, and then run a test on them to verify that the size is as it should be.
I'm a photographer, so I don't take chances with cards.

Quiet on here isn't it?

[Jack]

New to it all to I'm going to use sd cards as I don't want to have Moore cables going to my pc and it is pretty much the only way I can have the printer in a different room to my pc

Yes it is a bit quite isn't it

[harmchar]

I also bought the Aldi Balco a while back. Did same as you and attempted to print a sample file. Just made a stringy mess. Went to Fusion 360, designed a simple box and lid and it transferred to Cura and printed near perfect with PLA.
I can only assume that the sample prints on the free SD card are crap. Not good for Balco to supply free files that print junk as a newbie might get put off really quickly.

[Jack]

Try a new card and putting a the file for the build you want to make on it but before you print it if the has an auto hung option press that to home the printer and then print the file