MakerGear Forum

Hey all,

My M2 has been awesome for over two years now. I've made very little changes to it and run both the V3 and V3B extruder (12V). I've been printing a ton for the past three months, and had to replace my extruder motor (1.5 years ago), motor mount (as it looked like it had fatigue cracks, 3 weeks ago) and the extruder mount (I melted it as I forgot to plug in the extruder fan, 1 week ago). This goes to show you the reliability of the system.

The main issues I'm having is that the filament gets a grove in it from the extruder gear. This can happen anytime during a print. Sometimes a few layers in and others when the print is nearly completed. The printer continues as if its printing, but the filament stops extruding.

I've tried a few things:
- V3 extruder at 230°C and 240°C
- V3B extruder at 240°C and 250°C
- Filament tension (I tighten it until the teeth are about 1/4 to 1/2 into the filament)
- Various printer settings such as retract and prime as well a wipe and retraction speeds.

Some things to note:
- I've had issues since I've put this new spool on (White Push-Plastic)
- I put this new spool on when the seasons are changing and it just rained for a week and half straight (NC)
- I recently changed the extruder mount

Some things I plan to try:
- Different filament I know have worked in the past (Pink Push-Plastic, I had another spool of white push-plastic I used it and it worked flawlessly)
- Drying out the filament in an oven (maybe the change in seasons and shift in temperature is cause a problem)
- Slowing down my prints (I use KISSlicer 100mm/s for sparse, 60mm/s for solid and 25mm/s for loops)
- Move my filament spool or add a feed tube (I currently do not use a feed tube, maybe I ought to)

Unfortunately I may have to try each one separately and see the impacts. I feel that some will interact with one another.

I'm fishing for other suggestions of things to try and add to my list.

Thanks,

ADam

the filament gets a grove in it from the extruder gear. This can happen anytime during a print. Sometimes a few layers in and others when the print is nearly completed. The printer continues as if its printing, but the filament stops extruding.

- Filament tension (I tighten it until the teeth are about 1/4 to 1/2 into the filament)

The tension is set too high on the Filament Drive Screw. Read through this and check your bite marks:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2694

Nice work on the diagrams within that post. I'll look into it tonight in more detail. I just had a successful 3 hour print by changing out my extruder cooling fan, but a success now doesn't mean the root cause of the issue is solved.

Thanks,

ADam

Thanks! (Love the Jonny Quest avatar!)

Woah, adjusting the tension did the trick. Completed two x four hour prints with no issues!

Again, the makergear forum comes through again.

Thanks,

Adam