Clogging Issues

[atomholc]

Hi Makergearheads,

I am having some frustrating issues with my Makergear m2 right now, after about 20-15 hours of successful print time with ABS plastic it gets clogged within 5-15 minutes.

I can get the clog to purge and flowing through the extruder afterwords … so I set it to print again and it clogs.
I thought maybe the plate wasn’t level because I am using a large portion of the printable area, so I recalibrate it. It still clogged.
I thought maybe I wasn’t printing at the right temp? But I am .. I have it set to 240. I even tried 245 and 235 ... Temps are good.
The fan works.
I tried tightening the idler bolt .. and not tightening ... and wondering if I even know what the idler bolt is? http://www.14113.net/3dprints/extruder.png ... it's the "?" right?
The printer came preassembled … so I don’t know if something got messed up in the assembly?
I’ve probably spent about 5-6 hours trying and retrying to print a file ...
I was able to get a 1x1 inch test file to print.. no problem … but that's not what I am really wanting to print.
My filament is from MakerGear ...

In summary:
It worked before and now it doesn’t ... what happened after 25 hours of printing that’s causing it to clog? The extruder works at first … it feeds perfect then it clogs ...

Anybody have any ideas on what to try or something I am missing?
Should I just get a new extruder?

Thanks in advance!

[insta]

First off, take the black extruder body thingy (the hotend mount) off the motor and clean all the shredded ABS from the teeth.

Then, slide the hotend out of the hotend mount, and start it heating to 230C. Once it's at temp, gently hold it with some pliers and push the next-smallest-size allen wrench into the filament hole. The idea is to use the ball-end of the allen wrench as a plunger and shove the crap out. DO NOT push in if the allen wrench does not loosely fit into the first 1/4" or so of the hotend! You will damage the inside of it and need to replace the hotend.

Now that you have the right allen wrench ... shove the crap out. It may take a good shove, but eventually you'll get plastic squirting out the nozzle. Once you feel it bottom out, stop pushing (otherwise you'll damage something else). At this point, shut off the hotend and let it cool fully to room temperature (20C), with the allen wrench still jammed into the hotend. After a good 30 minutes or more, command the hotend to heat again, and gently pull on the allen wrench as it heats up. Around 100-110C, the allen will pull out and carry a glob of plastic with it.

Now, you've got a relatively primed hotend. Do this same process, but instead of an allen wrench, use natural filament (natural ABS is slightly off-white, natural PLA is yellowish clear) and rinse-repeat. Heat until the filament pushes out the nozzle, then immediately cool it to room temperature, and re-heat while pulling. Eventually you'll stop getting clumps of old filament out of it, and you're ready to reinstall the hotend into the holder.

The tensioner screw should be barely finger tight (with no filament installed) for ABS. Good luck!

[atomholc]

Thanks, It sounds like you've had this clogging issue before?

[insta]

Thanks, It sounds like you've had this clogging issue before?

Once or twice

Good advice moving forward: don't use cheap filaments. Name-brand filaments will eventually clog (the Makergear stuff is name brand, from Village Plastics), but cheap filaments will do it MUCH faster. Also, run a dust-wiper from now on. I use a piece of paper towel folded around the filament and clamped with a binder clip ... it's a loose contact (occasionally it will slide down under its own weight), but more than sufficient to wipe dust off the outside of the plastic, which otherwise ends up in your hotend. I'm guessing the dust-wiper is the missing piece.