Extruder motor failure....

[helifrek]

Hello all,
I finally finished printing a whopping 48 pieces for a personal project yesterday "yippie!" And the M2 trucked right along without a hiccup. Well, last night I got a HUGE order from a company I have been doing a lot of printing for lately and today I sliced the models and all the sudden the extruder motor starts skipping
I have not made any changes since yesterday, same filament and all! At first I thought it must be a jam but this nozzle is only about a month or two old. So I removed the nozzle and backed out the filament, measured it to make sure there wasn't a huge change in diameter (there wasn't) and then I tried to extrude some filament without the nozzle attached, the motor started skipping again on me. I loosened the bearing tension bolt some and that didn't really help much. I have removed the motor, it spins ok by hand and spins ok without a load.

I tested it by hooking it up to the X motors connection and sent a "home x" command and the grabbed the gear to put some resistance on the motor, it spins alright for about half a turn and then just looses all torque for a second, it sounds like the motor speeds up for that split second so I am wondering if it is skipping a gear or something..... last time I took the gearbox apart it did look like those teeth were wearing down some.

How long does the extruder motor usually last? how about the gearbox?

I have another extruder motor on the way with the gearbox already but this is really going to kill my delivery time! I really really really need a secondary printer!

to be fair, this is only the second issue I have had with this printer in over a year and probably about 1200 hours of printing!

[jimc]

the pinion gear is worn out. not sure the age of your printer. it used to be much more common of an issue than it is today. kysan seemed to fix the issue with hardened gears probably a year ago. there are still plenty of printers out there though that have the old soft pinion gear.

[helifrek]

You beat me to it! I took the gearbox off and seen the gear. It looks like I could have just ordered the pinion by itself too and saved some money, but spare parts are good to have around! The printer is a little over a year old.

[helifrek]

I know this won't last long but it will have to work until my new motor arrives! With the number of parts I have to finish over the next week I can't afford to be down a day!

Thank god I am a pack rat with my rc helicopter stuff. Exact pitch, # of teeth and diameter, fits the motor perfectly!

[wmgeorge]

Your like me, hate to throw anything away and it looks your stash paid off.

[helifrek]

Yeah, sure saved my butt! 10 hour print came out beautifully last night. I can't wait to get the new motor in and switch it out so I can take a look at the brass gear and see how worn out it is with a few days of use.

I should probably organize my junk now, took about an hour to find that pinion....... then another half hour to find the setscrew!