*FIX* extruder stops extruding

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boxcarmib
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2016 8:53 pm

*FIX* extruder stops extruding

Post by boxcarmib » Thu Feb 01, 2018 12:15 am

My up till a few days ago always reliable M2 became the machine from hell after a failed print caused by the filament jamming on the spool resulted in the M2 extruding unreliably. Because I didn't discover the filament jam immediately, I actually had two failed prints for the same reason. Once I untangled the filament I went for my third attempt. The M2 would do fine for about the first six ~ 10 layers and then it would simply stop extruding. I tried everything you could think of without success. Finally I removed printed "filament drive" part and gave it a good look... from what I could see (and perhaps due to the force of the motors trying to pull against the filament that wouldn't budge) I noticed that the hole at the top of the drive had become fairly elongated, and there was also a fair amount of distortion at the top of the part by the feed hole as well. I crossed my fingers and printed the part "Single Filament Drive r3" (my M2 came with the unrevised version). Fortunately it printed fine and after installation NO MORE extrusion malfunction. Subsequent testing revealed that the extrusion malfunction only occurred with parts that had a wide X dimension... and I'm confident that the problem was caused by the filament binding in the 'filament drive' part when the head moved too far to the right resulting in the filament being stripped by the hobb gear and then refusing to extrude any further.
I pass this on for anyone suffering from similar extrusion malfunction mysteries and also a suggestion that you all might want to consider printing a spare copy of the 'filament drive' part just in case a filament spool jam causes you to encounter the same problem but your printer is left in a state where it cannot print the replacement part.

jk42
Posts: 67
Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2017 5:19 pm

Re: *FIX* extruder stops extruding

Post by jk42 » Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:47 pm

Just wondering. Are you using the filament guide tube?
~Jason from MakerGear

mark_tec_wiz
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Feb 09, 2020 6:41 pm

Re: *FIX* extruder stops extruding

Post by mark_tec_wiz » Sat Dec 24, 2022 2:55 pm

I have 4 maker gear m2 and they run about 12 hours a day, I get this problem every year. I have a couple of PTEG parts and they seem to last longer. I find PTEG hard to print but for this part it is worth it.
Mark

Gwhite
Posts: 372
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2017 3:38 pm

Re: *FIX* extruder stops extruding

Post by Gwhite » Sun Dec 25, 2022 3:32 am

I never had excess wear at the top of my extruders (I use the filament guide tube), but I've had several that wore out at the bottom. One of my back burner projects is to redesign the filament drive so the lower filament path is lined with a small piece of brass tube. Some of the problem is probably related to how stiff and curved the filament is coming off the spool. I use 3D Fuel PLA Plus, which is much stronger than regular PLA, and I think it's also a good bit stiffer. When I don't have enough left on a spool to do anything with, it's got a pretty vicious curl to it. I suspect that contributes a lot to how fast it abrades the filament drive.

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