Grinding / Not Feeding Problems

[wishbone 3]

Hi,

I having pretty chronic problems getting the UM2 to feed consistently. I recently bought it, the first couple of prints were fine but now its pretty much not feeding all the time, the feeder cog just ends up grinding the filament away.

I'm using the standard Cura settings of Medium or Fast, not tweaking any settings.

- It doesnt take much force to make the feed motor stop/start "tocking" noise. If I remove the feed tube from the nozzle head i can pretty much stop the filament with my finger - not sure if the motor has enough grunt? Can see in the video....

 

-I have tried altering the tensioner screw / white mark on the extruder but whatever I have it set at it doesnt seem to make a difference.

- The fit between the filament and the clear tube seems pretty close; the filament can pull through okay but it does require a fair bit of force. Seems like there is a lot unnecessary friction here - maybe something's up with my tube?

Any ideas?

Feed problem.mov

Feed problem.mov

[Labern 734]

Some tubes have been known to have tight spots. If you remove the tube at both ends, push some filament through and see if there is any friction. Try to use filament the has been through the feeder.

Also heat the nozzle and manually push some filament through the top of the hot end. It should start coming out the nozzle with only a small amount of force.

You may also need to pull you feeder apart and check it and give it a good clean.

[Labern 734]

The PTFE coupler is A main reason for this so if you find everything else is good the you will need to remove the coupler and check or replace it.

[wishbone 3]

Thanks Labern.

After playing about a bit more i think it was more do with the print i was trying to do.  See below, i think the retractions were making the feeder go nuts and grind the filament.  I turned off the retractions and it printed out fine (far right in the picture).

Thanks for the advice, i did take the apart the feeder and the print head to change the coupler  (looked a bit brown at one end, nothing major, but changed it anyway) so was a good learning experience.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Guest

[Labern 734]

Thanks Labern.

After playing about a bit more i think it was more do with the print i was trying to do.  See below, i think the retractions were making the feeder go nuts and grind the filament.  I turned off the retractions and it printed out fine (far right in the picture).

Thanks for the advice, i did take the apart the feeder and the print head to change the coupler  (looked a bit brown at one end, nothing major, but changed it anyway) so was a good learning experience.

 

Sounds great, yes that looks like a heap of retractions. for prints like that you can adjust the minimum extrude before retract settings. so you still get some retractions but not as often. this allows more filament to extrude before it retracts so the feeder wheel doesn't keep going over the same spot and grinding.

glad you sorted it though.