MakerGear Forum

I've been having trouble extruding with my makergear M2. I think the problem is with the motor that extrudes because I've checked the extrusion path for blockages, and confirmed that the filament is not wound around the drive gear. Currently I'm trying to print in PLA, but ABS also wont work. If I push the filament as it extrudes I can get it started extruding, but it doesn't work for very long. I have adjusted the temperature from the recommended setting to well above it, but nothing changed (PLA printing at 240 still didn't extrude). Does anyone know where to go from here?

Here's a video of the problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTXSW6V ... e=youtu.be

Heat the hotend, retract the filament out, then twist the fans out of the way (counter-clockwise 1/4 turn). Make sure the hotend is seated firmly into the filament drive. Mine sometimes walks forward a fraction of an inch and that causes things to not line up anymore inside the drive assembly.

If it is seated firmly, then instead work it out with a pair of pliers (while its hot). While holding the hotend with pliers, being careful to not flex the wiring or burn yourself, see if you can poke filament straight into the hole on the hotend and have it extrude. It's expected it'll take a bit of force, but not enough to buckle the filament. If you can't push filament in, you have a clog. Read some of the other threads on clearing a clog, and do yourself a favor and run with a dust-wiper from now on

While the hotend is out of the filament drive, try extruding plastic through with the motor so it comes out the now void hotend area. Make sure that process works, if not you have a clog somewhere in that system as well.

Cajode wrote:I think the problem is with the motor that extrudes

With any luck, the problem will be somewhere other than the motor or gearbox, but here's how to isolate motor / filament drive problems.

Put a mark on the rear end of the motor shaft (on the back of the motor), which will tell you if the motor is turning.

Mark both the reduction gearbox shaft and the filament drive gear:
http://softsolder.com/2015/03/13/makerg ... entations/



Those marks tell you whether the gearbox is working and if the setscrew locking the drive gear to the output shaft has come loose. The two marks should never move relative to each other when the screw is tight.

If the motor shaft doesn't turn when the extruder should be extruding, then look for an unplugged connector or broken wire.

If the motor shaft rotates, but the gearbox shaft doesn't, then the gearbox has failed. Most likely, that will be due to a worn pinion gear:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1450#p4737



The pinion gear should look like this:
http://softsolder.com/2014/07/31/makerg ... tus-check/



If the motor and gearbox shaft both rotate, but the filament drive gear doesn't, then the setscrew is loose. Before it works completely loose, the drive gear will flop back and forth on the shaft during filament retraction, which ruins the print quality.

If the filament drive gear rotates smoothly when the extruder should be extruding, but the filament doesn't move, then the motor & its associated hardware aren't the problem. Perhaps the filament tension both is too loose (slipping) / too tight (gouging), plastic has filled the drive gear teeth, or the hot end has clogged.

Good hunting...

I had a similar problem where my new press would just stop feeding sometimes. I figured it might be a bad gear or shaft because I know MG had a bad batch of motors but It ended up being the pinion gear not being properly attached (glued) to the shaft and it would actually walk down the shaft and not make full contact with the planetary gears after a while. If you pop the gear box off the motor (4 little screws) to check the gears also make sure the pinion gear is at the end of the shaft such as in that last picture.

-Steve

My extruder failed as well. Made this strange eeking noise. Turns out one of the windings went bad, so the motor was cogging instead of turning.
You should see ~2.6 Ohms, but wiggle the wires while measuring the windings.