flashphilm

Thanks Torgeir! What a thoughtful and complete reply - I will give your suggestions a try and let you know how it goes. Thanks again!

Hi all - I've been using my Ultimaker 2 for years (since ~2014). I never upgraded it - this is the OG Ultimaker 2 design. I use it periodically, so I've never bothered to resolve many of my lingering frustrations. So here is my biggest frustration - hope you can help! Since I adopted this printer, I have been consistently plagued by the dreaded feed stepper motor "click" sound. When the "click" noise occurs, I observe that the stepper motor does a ~1/8 rotation in the counter clockwise direction - opposite of the feed direction. The impact on the print is always the same - the nozzle under-extrudes for a few seconds, causing a less than perfect material deposition. This usually results in spaces between walls, crappy infill, see-through top skins, etc. It is especially prevalent during the first layers, but very often occurs throughout the print. Over the years, I've done some research to try and resolve this issue. Reading through the forums has lead me to believe that it may be tied to excessive resistance in the feeder system, causing the motor to go through some fail-safe force relief operation - leading to the under-extrusion. I've come to understand that this may be related to some of my misguided print configuration settings like temperature, print head speed, material flow rate, layer height, etc. I have tried many combinations of these settings, but the "click" is always there. Can anyone help - or point me to a relevant article? Thanks!