Hi guys,
so since the last 3 days i’m having this issue with my replicator 2, when i either load filament or print, the first minute the filament will extrude pretty thin strands, and at some point it stops, now i don’t think it’s an actual jam, since you can feel the filament being tugged in yet after a little while it will stop pulling, so first i thought that;
-drive gear was worn, but it looks fine
-stepper motor problem but it sounds fine
-OR there’s an issue with the heating ( wrong temp readings )
at 260° it will extrude and and print, but the quality is poor as hell.
anyone that might know what the problem is ?
Zapaer
March 12, 2017, 5:10am
2
@Sagetrack it sounds to me like your nozzle is clogged. What you can do is something called a cold tip pull.
Basically you heat it up to 260 with the filament loaded. Then you cool to like 180 and then pull out the filament.
Then you look at the tip. It should have a nice semi-spherical tip kind of like a mushroom tip. There should also be no dirt on the tip.
If there is, repeat the procedure until it’s clean.
Another way to clean the nozzle would be using a wire brass brush (clean the outside) and then use a sowing needle and carefully poke the nozzle outlet.
This may relieve any accumulated plastic/dirt/dust that has formed at the tip and is preventing a good extrusion flow.
Finally, if you have a E3D full metal hotend you can heat your hotend to 315C and simply let whatever is inside melt out.
This is all assuming the problem is with the nozzle, if you are not sure, it might worth disassembling the hotend and checking out the filament path from entry to exit. Maybe there is something wrong in the hotend (teflon tube) or the in the heat break or heatsink.
I guess an easy way to check if it’s an issue with the nozzle is that you can replace it with a new nozzle. If it works you know that it was the nozzle, if it doesn’t it means you have to take apart the hotend.
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I had this happen to my rep 2 and after changing nozzles, changing settings and it turned out to be the cooling fan on the extruder was put in backwards. What was happening is that the heat from the extruder was heating up past the heat break and the filament was getting soft. At that point the filament gear can not pull the filament in and it stops. To check this, take a look at the fan, if you see the label on the fan, it is installed backwards. The other thing to check is to go to the menu and do a filament unload, once it starts, push the lever and pull the filament out, if there is a spot that looks like a mouse bite, the gear was going but the filament was not moving.
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Hey guys, thanks for the replies, So i’ve already tried the cold tip pull multiple times before but that didnt work out, dissasem led the whole extruder parts and cleaned everything, but still no luck, i find it weird that it prints for a moment and then stops abruptly. Also i just checked and if i hold the filament while printing, i can feel it trying to tug, and pulling back in a somewhat constant sequence
Is the fan installed correctly? You should NOT see the label in the center of the fan.
Yeah the fan is installed correctly
