Oiling PLA to stop Jams?

[jasonk]

Filament jams just happen sometimes and I’ve been just living with it for 2 years. Today, I’ve been wrestling with a challenging 1 hour long dual extrusion print and my left extruder has been clogging (210C, 40mm/s) and just driving me crazy. It started well, but just jams halfway through. I double checked the level of the printer and it was fine. After searching the net, I found some mention of oiling the filament with canola or 3-in-one oil. There is some 3-in-one in my cabinet for lubing carriage so I lightly coated my fingers and applied it to the filament just above the inlet for the drive. Nothing excessive, just a light rub. It’s printing perfectly now. Who would have thunk. It seems the extra lubrication helps overcome the friction of the PTFE tube, so logically it makes sense. I don’t know the long term disadvantages to periodically oiling the filament when it begins to jam. Has anyone else had experience with this? Have you installed filament oilers seen on thingiverse? If so, which one?

Here is a picture of what I’m working on. I designed it from scratch on Tinkercad.

Thanks! Jason

[Fargo3D]

We have this happen occasionally on our LulzBot TAZ 4 upgraded to the all metal hot end. We just dip the tip of the PLA filament in some canola oil and then extrude a couple hundred millimeters to make sure that any excess oil clears the hotend. This has only needed to be done with PLA but it makes all the difference in the world with under or erratic extrusion. We seem to need to re-oil it every hundred hours or so of operation.

[flowalistik]

On the Ultimaker, which uses a bowden system, I always use a little bit of olive oil to reduce the friction in the tube and to prevent under-extrusion. I have a little filter done with a sponge to clean all the dust, and it has some drops of olive oil to keep the filament always a little bit slippy. I don’t know if olive oil will be the best, but I can tell that it works!

[thormj]

I used to use oil, but now I use a coat of WS2 or HBN dry-lube. This coat lasts for over 100 hours run time (usually something else has gone wrong, so I re-lube when I have to correct for model coming off bed and jamming fans. http://www.atl-3d.com/extruder-dry-lube/

[CWCrawlers]

I do the same thing although I use 3-1 oil… really any oil that won’t burn in the nozzle should work just fine honestly! I notice that things print better and also the risk of jams seems to go down not only due to the filament sliding better but any dust on the filament getting wiped off helps a lot.

[basbr]

when it is running, spray a little WD40 on the filament. it will smoke a little but it should help with the jaming.

just make sure it isnt on the first layer, the oil will make the adhesion worse.

[OfficineSanremo]

The filament change it’s property after The extrusion or sill remain The same? Is useful to use The oil Also with HIPS and ABS? And man, great job with the low-poly Pokémon, I given to my best friend at his birthday and he was really happy!

[johnlamerand]

(deleted earlier comment)

[meyo]

Which extruder do you use? diameter?

I DO NOT recommend to oil nothing that have to pass through the extruder…

If you have to oil your PLA, then is something wrong in your extruder.

First, check how tight are the (both)extruders feeder screws (It may be not jamming, just slipping), if that does not work try lowering a bit the extrusion temp (I extrude PLA at 195ºC ), check that the teeth of the extruder feeders are not filled with PLA bits, which dimnishes the pushing strength.

Does you extruder have a fan attached to the body (not layer fan)? maybe the heat from the extruder is climbing up trough your filament and is making it clog.

If the problem is related to the “heat climbing” you could try to increase speed instead of lowering temp.

Hope it helps

[flowalistik]

Nice Pokemon there!

I haven’t noticed any change in the material properties or printing temperatures while using some oil. I also haven’t noticed any burned oil or anything strange when using it. In my opinion, if you use bowden or have under-extrusion problems, some oil will make everything flow better (you can even lower the stepper motor current so it will stay cooler).

[basbr]

“I DO NOT recommend to oil nothing that have to pass through the extruder.”

so you do recommend to oil everything that go’s through the extruder?

you got a double negative there mate.

[meyo]

Yeah! oil everything that passes through! No, really, my bad, not an english native :S DO NOT NOT correct me next time, please, I’m interested in not to make this kind of mistakes hehehe

[thormj]

Oh… and I forgot. If you’re using an all-metal hotend, you need​ the fan to cool it (despite what CobbleBot says)… otherwise, heat will travel up the heatsink and you will have an inevitable clog in ~4-6 hours… and it’s a nasty clog – a cold pull won’t work (you can’t feed anything in); you have to remove the hotend and solvent/burn it out.

[Xasin]

I’ve so far never had a filament jam, and also never had to oil the PLA, despite me frequently using my Prusa i3 for about 1.5 years now!

I’ve had good success with the all-metal Mk8 hotend.

I do think that one of the reasons for this is the good cooling of the PTFE-lined tube thanks to the all-metal system and a constantly blowing fan, but I might be wrong there and instead I have just gotten awesome results with the filament I am using (which would be Velleman 1.75mm PLA).

In conclusion I wouldn’t necessarily oil the filament all the time, and also definitely check the temperature of the PTFE-lined tube, as well as maybe just go around and check some other filament producers!

[thormj]

Now that is also very true. I’m usually happy with the Microcenter filament EXCEPT:

1. Silver. Silver always jams after 2 hours

2. Gold. Not sure what the issue is, but their gold is brittle…

So I get those from Amazon, and the other colors (including GITD) from Microcenter.

Oh. Another thing I forgot – for a brief time, E3D didn’t have good QC on their nozzles (the “0.4mm area” was 3.5mm long)they’ve since stepped up their game)… and you *had* to lubricate them (dry lube or oil). And there are many counterfeits of E3D; I’m not sure if the counterfeits have their game in order.

[jasonk]

My extruder are .4mm SS. That’s a good call on the temp. I have been running my extruder a hotter (210) thinking that it would cause the filament to flow better. Also, I have decreased my speed to get better resolution on the prints. I was running 80mm/s, but the intricate wording was just not clearly printing. Maybe I need to revisit my temp for lower speed. 40mm/s seems to give the best results, even though it takes a little longer. I’ve been doing a lot of dual extrusion stuff where details are important. What settings are you other guys running?

[jasonk]

Cool! I’ll have to check that out.

[Xasin]

Huh, I’ve been running perimeters max 60mm/s, but I think I have settled myself for a nice speed:
40mm/s perimeters (20 for small), and only 50% speed for external perimeters.

Heh, even with infill I just go up to 60mm/s

And temperature-wise, I like to hang around 220/215 for my filament, but I think you have often heard that those temp values should be figured out manually

[3DGee]

Just a heads up… on the 3-in-one can, it says to keep away from sources of heat.

[Erikrl]

this is old… but…

youre running an all metal mk8 hotend… but youre attributing your good cooling to the PTFE lined tube thanks to the all metal system.

its one or the other. its either ptfe lined, or all metal.

some filaments require oiling.