Hi, I am having ussues with extrusion (see pictures).
Prints were going fine (I use PLA) until they weren’t. The filament started extruding like in the pictures, with little dents or bubbles I can’t explain, and the prints obviously are horrible quality.
The nozzle is not clogged (I put a new one and didn’t change anything). I tried cranking up the heat and push the filament but didn’t solve anything, tried a cold pull and couldn’t solve it like that either. I tried with a lot of filaments and it does it with them all so it’s not an issue of bad or ruined filament either.
Does anybody know what this could be and know how to fix it? I sent a support request to zortrax but didn’t get any answer.
It’s an M200 Plus, using various types of PLA of various brands. Now sometimes the printer also stops feeding, the gear is rotating but no filament coming out. Could there be an issue with the gear causing both issues? All screws are tight, all cables are plugged.
Hi, I did clean the nozzle, I even bought a new kit and went through it again. Could it be the gear? Because it seems it doesn’t grip the filament at times. Sometimes while it’s loading filament the gear keeps spinning but the filament isn’t going in. It’s a new printer bought in June it’s riddiculous how many issues it is having.
The gear isn’t working, I might need a new thermocoupler and I swear today it even started shutting down when I send files to print (not all of them, but with two random ones, after saying it can’t read the file, it rebooted.).
That happens when there is too big resistance for filament to be pushed through the hotend.
Thre resistance can be caused by clogged nozzle or by issues with heating - the hotend is not hot enough to melt the filament. Thats why thermocouple replacement was suggested.
It is enough that extrusion gear slips once on the filament and it won’t be able to push anymore as it doesn’t have any surface to “grab” it. You can just help it by pushing it in by hand but that may not solve the root cause.
Printing settings are varied as I have already tried modifying them to try see if that could fix the issue. However I do not believe the printing settings to be the issue, as with the same file it was working last month, then one day all of a sudden the same file stopped printing.
It stopped printing half print through, then started extruding weird (as in the picture) and leaving some holes. I cleaned, changed the nozzle, cleaned some more, did a cold pull. The thing that seems to be consistently an issue is the gear, and if the printing settings were the reason I should not have issues with loading filament.
I think it’s not the gear as it rotates. Gear is just a symptom of other issue - heating is not working well as you already mentioned that it takes long to warm up even up to 215 degrees.
Some element is malfunctioning and there are a few candidates:
The heater in hotend - most common
Thermocouple - unlikely, in my opinion, as it looks that temperature readings are in correct range
One thing I forgot to mention: when I use heating control and heat it like that, the heating time is normal. It only takes very long when I am starting a print.
Now, considering those are your theories, what am I to do? How do I problem shoot to find the cause?
Ah, ok, then it seems that heating is fine. It takes long at start of the print because heating the printbed takes time and it heats first. It is normal and expected.
What about your filament quality? Is it consistently ~1.75mm in diameter? If not then it too can be a problem in both - too thin and too thick cases. Too thin can be not properly grabbed by extruder gear, too thick can get stuck on the way.
Another reason can be that extruder gear is full of filament overlefts and it doesn’t properly grab filament because of that. In that case it needs to be cleaned.
I tried many different filaments, of many spools, of many brands. Filament is not the issue. The gear has been cleaned when I cleaned the nozzle and hot end!
To clarify - what is current situation? Are you able to load the filament and it fails during print or you aren’t able to load it at all?
In the end there is still option to send your printer to service and it will be diagnosed and fixed properly. If it’s new it still should be under warranty. Our support may answer with delay but should direct you in the right way.
heating time before prints has in the past weeks become all of a sudden much longer, but is still short when using heating controls. It’s also short when heating to change filament. It’s only before prints that it takes about 15 minutes. I understand that the plarform needs to heat too, but this is a new issue: a few weeks ago the time before prints was much shorter.
I am able to load filament, but at times the gear will keep turning without anything happening and I have to push the filament through manually, then it starts working again
The same happens during prints: filament coming out seems uneven, and it has happened that it stopped feeding leaving half print done and kept printing in the air with no filament coming out. Gear was moving, filament wasn’t extruding. That is what happened the first time I had issues, and the printer never went back to normal since.
I don’t know if this is relative to the same issue but my prints now are SUPER stringy. I tried to higher retraction speed, lower extruder ratio, lower temperature, but all it does is the print comes out horrible and still stringy
