Extruder Problem

[Bigdog]

Hello, I have recently been unable to print. I have done several successful prints and a few days ago I was a few layers into the print and the filament quit coming out. I tried another print and the first layer was extremely thin and by the second layer it was almost gone. I first thought maybe a clog. I tried a new roll of filament and ran it through. When I tested it in Repetier Host it was fine. I ran several 10 and 50 lengths through the manual control setting and it looked fine, went to print and I get the same whispy thin filament. Any thoughts on what is wrong.

Using PLA.

Thanks

[bolsoncerrado]

Every filament has its own temperature settings...
Did you try increasing temperature with the new roll and see what happens?

Other than that, you may have foreign residues on the hotend head preventing a good extrusion....so time for a replacement head?

[Bigdog]

Where would I find a compatible hotend head for the extruder.? Being very new to 3d printing this is what I was afraid when getting this printer. Its not like I can go onto the website and just find replacement parts and order them. A matter a fact, when I usually email them about problems I never get any replies. Are there any extruders from other companies that would work and have the same specifications or better and be easier to swap out parts with?

Thanks again

[Bigdog]

In addition to the thin hair like extrusion during prints, I noticed that it takes a long time for the head to warm up. It goes up and comes down a few degrees then goes up again, the fan also kicks on and off.

[bolsoncerrado]

Which fan kicks on and off? The extruder one or the power source one? if the later, thats fine, its normal. As for the degrees, its also normal, you cant have a thermal resistance "on" and "steady" for a certain degree on your own unless you turn it off and on, thats what MOFSET chips do...

As for replacement heads, amazon and ebay are full of them. These should work fine.

Or grab any other shape you like.

Dont forget to recalibrate your bed once you install it. Just be sure it's 1.75mm.

[BobenhamHotspur]

I'm worried you may have damaged wires leading to the extruder as this would cause intermittent heating/extruding, and just re-reading your other post maybe this confirms it.
As for nozzles I can recommend these http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Whole...054697091.html Different shape but work really well.

[jase3d]

I had the same issue at the very beginning. I took out the extruder head with the heat block and stuck it in the oven .. took a drill bit that fits exactly into the white plastic sleeve and took bits out. Then used a guitar string to floss it all out.

I also thought just pushing through other filament or cold pulling would get things out .. but I tried both of those before many times but it never gets rid of all of it.
When I do it like I do now ... I can still get traces of all different colours that I use still stuck inside! I'm quite surprised as it's a small space in there but it still gets stuck there.

I do it once in a while when the filament is just not coming out properly and it looks thin and dry ... after the clean it works really well.

[bolsoncerrado]

You may need to change your filament suplier jase3d But the guy is complaining of hardware issues i think

[hereforlols]

Not sure if you're still having this issue Bigdog,

Here is a sightly different chain of thought for you.
I encountered a very similar problem a couple of weeks back. I couldn't get consistent extrusion while printing or with manual feeding. No amount of adjustments to my tensioner wheel or the E-steps made a difference.

I found the issue after pulling my extruder apart twice.... Turns out the grub screw that secures the hobbed bolt to the stepper motor shaft had come lose. After tightening I had no issue and was able to dial my E-steps to perfection. Consistent flow rate ever since.

[bolsoncerrado]

Great tip, thanks for sharing!