I did an “Unload Filament” operation, and the stepper successfully backed out the filament fully - the sprocket was spinning (not jammed) and the filament stopped coming out. At this point I had to pull rather hard to remove it fully, and apparently when I did that, the small “blob” that is usually present at the very tip of withdrawn filament stayed in the passage below the feeder - it’s broken off flush:
What should I disassemble / do to remove this?
I’ve noticed that often it takes a bit of force to pull “the blob” out of the feeder, but prior to this it had never broken off inside.
I have had the ‘blob’ break off inside once too and I just pushed it back through with something before feeding more filament. I’ve also noticed that if I pull the filament out as the motor is retracting it then it comes out easier. If I wait a while it can be pretty difficult to pull out however. I guess if it’s pulled right away when the end is still hot it squeezes a little more.
The problem is I don’t like to sit there waiting for the nozzle to heat up and usually am too late. It would be nice if there were some beeping sounds to let us know when it’s about to eject.
That’s the stepper side of the feeder housing, with the stepper removed. The pressure bearing is on the left, and the arrow is pointing to the flush broken end of yellow Z-ABS that’s stuck in there. Is that where you had stuck filament too?
Maybe I should remove the hot end and try to push up from underneath… let’s see if I have any 1/16" piano wire around…
I had the same problem, I just feed filament cut really plain just above the broken one and ordered the printer to load new filament, the new one pushed the old one and all worked just fine
Ohh, now I see it! I was looking at it wrong. No, mine was stuck between the stepper gear and the top feed hole so it was easier to get to. It looks as if the motor didn’t pull it out enough because the end of the filament is always above that gear.
Usually the filament gets stretched/thinned out as a result of being pulled from the hot end while it’s hot. The blob is at the end of that thinner section. When the thinned section gets to the feed gear, the feeder can’t get a grip on it, automatic unloading stops, and we have to pull manually from that point.
[quote name=Scentapio]I had the same problem, I just feed filament cut really plain just above the broken one and ordered the printer to load new filament, the new one pushed the old one and all worked just fine
[/quote]
Thanks, I followed your suggestion and pushed the plug down in using the long end of the 1.5mm hex key. Once it was below flush then the new filament could get into the tube and push it out. Very easy.
