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My printer is a homemade from circa 2011-2013 that I got from a friend. After just a couple successful test prints, it started having a problem where the extruder would at a random point in the print (it seems to usually be about 5-10 layers in) instead of extruding the proper thickness of filament, it would extrude a tiny strand about 1/4 (it’s so small, I can’t tell, but it’s definitely there) of normal size. The steppers (at least in XYZ) are fine, as I forced the filament into the extruder for the half-hour it took for a print, which worked fine. I am using .2mm filament thickness and 40% infill. I am using pronterface, which comes with sl1c3r. I’m really new to this, please excuse any noobishness.

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Is the extruder direct drive(motor shaft is pushing the filament without gearing) and is the motor hot at the time of this problem? You need to figure out if something is changing with the hardware when the problem starts like something getting loose, stuck, slipping, etc. (most likely from heat) or it’s something software related. Trying different software/slicer would be an easy way to test that.
-Jesse

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“I am using .2mm filament thickness” What exactly do you mean by this? If this is the extrusion width then it’s most likely way too small(unless your nozzle is .2mm diameter). You don’t really want an extrusion width smaller than the nozzle diameter(.4mm is most common and .5mm was most common when your printer was build).

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Sounds like the nozzle is getting clogged which would also mean the extruder stepper motor is skipping or grinding filament. For PLA cooling of the ‘cold end’ is very important. PLA jamming issues sometimes don’t show up until a few layers away from the heated bed.

If the extruder is actually turning slower than something odd is going on from the slicing software.

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I can’t definitively tell if the motor starts going slower after a while, but sometimes after a bit of coaxing I can get it to print normally for a couple of layers while it’s halfway into the print. So I think you might be right. Thank you!

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.2mm resolution is what I was trying to say. the nozzle is .4mm wide.

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If your retraction is set to high it can cause clogs 5-6 layers in.

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do you have fans on your hotend i found that if the fans stop after a wile the plastic will block in the tube where the cooling fins are if you pull the plastic back you should find it hard to do just make sour that your fan is working