Re: Filament Drive Tension Slipping?
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2018 3:42 am
Well, it may not be that simple... After a successful couple prints, the eSun filament stopped feeding a quarter of the way through another 6 hour job. The filament had a nice round chunk taken out of it where the drive gear had just spun for a half an hour or more. My immediate guess was that my extruder was clogged.
The extruder was plenty hot, but for some reason the drive couldn't push the filament through it. As a test, I ran some cleaning filament through it at 210C, and I had to push the filament down into the drive to get it to feed and extrude. Once I had most of the PLA out, I cranked the temperature up to 250 to try to flush out any residual stuff with the cleaning filament. I still had to push to get anything to come out. The cleaning filament is generally nasty stuff anyway, and I've had feeding issues in the past with it, but never like this.
I removed the cleaning stuff, and shut things down. I removed the hot end, and took the nozzle off. The inside of the extruder is full of melted filament, but the nozzle looks like it's clear. I have a spare extruder, and I'll install that while I figure out what to do with the old one. I have to pack tomorrow for a trip, and probably won't get a chance to dig into it in detail or get the printer back up & running again until late next week.
The extruder was plenty hot, but for some reason the drive couldn't push the filament through it. As a test, I ran some cleaning filament through it at 210C, and I had to push the filament down into the drive to get it to feed and extrude. Once I had most of the PLA out, I cranked the temperature up to 250 to try to flush out any residual stuff with the cleaning filament. I still had to push to get anything to come out. The cleaning filament is generally nasty stuff anyway, and I've had feeding issues in the past with it, but never like this.
I removed the cleaning stuff, and shut things down. I removed the hot end, and took the nozzle off. The inside of the extruder is full of melted filament, but the nozzle looks like it's clear. I have a spare extruder, and I'll install that while I figure out what to do with the old one. I have to pack tomorrow for a trip, and probably won't get a chance to dig into it in detail or get the printer back up & running again until late next week.