Problems With PLA

picka · Post by **picka** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 6:57 am

I bought a new spool of PLA plastic but I'm having some issues with it. During prints, the plastic stops being extruded and I'm not sure why. The gear eats away the filament and loses grip but I'm not sure why. The filament isn't being held back by anything. I did notice that the plastic was more brittle than the last spool. Is there anything that can be done to make this print reliably or did I just waste my money?

satoer · Post by **satoer** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 11:37 am

It's just a basic extruder jam. Dismantle and clean the nozzle and make sure the upper metal part (above the plastic peek) stay's cool, you can put the cooler on 12V. Check the diameter of the fillament, does it vary much?

hvdd · Post by **hvdd** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 12:22 pm

bought also several colors of PLA and printing stops after or 20 minutes with same settings as before....
the diameter of the filament is abt the same, vary between 1.76 to 1.65.
most of the time with contineous printing the problem does not appear but when printing stops and go to another place to continue
then the filament first retract. When i remove the filament i see a small bubble at the end.
my idea is - when retracting the filament cool down, and the will not go back into the bottom part of the extruder.
i reduce the retraction distance from 1.5 mm to 0.1 mm and it seems solved now it.
give it a try ...

rgds

aikx · Post by **aikx** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:48 pm

hvdd wrote:When i remove the filament i see a small bubble at the end.

What temperature?

picka · Post by **picka** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:12 pm

How exactly do I unclog the jam? This is the first time it's happened so I'm not sure what to do.

hvdd · Post by **hvdd** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:08 am

i am printing at temp. 195° for white , the colors at 199°. speed always at 100%

satoer · Post by **satoer** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 9:16 am

Most of the time, this is working for me: Disable the stepper motors. Heat up the extruder to 230 degrees. While it's heating up and the temp reaches 60 degrees, pull out the fillament. Break a new piece of fillament and wait until it reaches 230 degrees. Now press firmly the new fillament in the extruder and give it a good flow.

hvdd · Post by **hvdd** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:55 pm

work fine... for several long prints now.
i do exactly the same as Satoer but do'nt heat at 230 max 200°.
i changed de retract to 0.1 mm (was 1.5mm) from then on - all ok.

picka · Post by **picka** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 6:10 pm

I tried heating it up but no luck, the plastic was really stuck in there. Had to take apart the hot end and drill the plastic out. Its now extruding fine but I think I was too aggressive when I was taking the hot end apart cause now I'm getting error:

Extruder switched off. MINTEMP triggered !
Error: Printer stopped deu to errors. Fix the error and use M999 to restart!. (Temperature is reset. Set it before restarting)

This has something to do with the thermister. When I print, the temperature is all over the place, and sometimes the temperature hits 0 and the printer stops. Any ideas on how to fix this?

Lioric · Post by **Lioric** » Tue Jan 15, 2013 5:23 pm

Move the wires on the thermistor until you get good contact points, then put a good amount of high temp silicone to fix in place (or better use any high temp solid glue)

Or, replace the thermistor with the spare that comes with the machine

Problems With PLA

Problems With PLA

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