Extruder gear slipping when printing but not when loading filament

Hi We have 5 x M200 Plus printers in our school makerspace and two are currently displaying the same issue when extruding filament. When we are loading the filament into the printer, everyting works fine. the extruder gear/stepper seems to be rotating smoothly and there is a free flow of material through the nozzle. However when printing an item directly after that it is a different story. No material is coming out of the nozzle and the gear on the stepper motor appears to be slipping. All the slicing settings are fine as the same zcodex prints fine on our other 3 printers. I am just not sure how to narrow down the problem here as the stepper/extruder gear appears to behaving differently depending on whether it is loading filament or printing

Any help you could give me would be great

Hi,

Could you provide any video of the issue? As far as I understand - there are no problems while loading the material into the printer, however, the issue occurs as soon as you start a print, right? If the gear is stuttering then - this could mean the nozzle is too close to the platform while printing first layers of a model. Calibrate the platform and if the issue persists - you may slightly change the platform offset (menu -> tools).

Best regards,
Karolina

Thankyou, that worked for me. Something I should have known but just never came across it before

Hi,

Thank you for the update. I am glad to hear the problem has been resolved. Also, please remember to carry out the platform maintenance regularly.

Best regards,
Karolina

Try to calibrate the platform maybe space between nozzle and platform is too small. Do you use Z’material or alternatives ?