Constant Nozzle Jams

[felicitus 0]

Hi,

our Ultimaker experiences constant nozzle jams.

Things which I'd really like to have answered:

 

• 
  [*:3jlk2rj1]How are people able to extrude PLA at 190°C and even print with that? I am not able to extrude PLA unless it reaches 195°C. Is our temperature sensor off by 5-10°C?
  [*:3jlk2rj1]How much(less) force should be necessary in an optimal setup? Since the beginning of our Ultimaker experiences, PLA wasn't very easy to push through the extruder. How can we measure the force and how to determinate if too much pressure is needed or if it's "just right"?

 

Thanks

Felicitus

[Daid 306]

Recommended printing temperature is 210C. PLA starts to flow a tiny bit at 180C, but you need a higher temperature to really print at the speeds that the machine can achieve.

[billdempsey 0]

I bought my Ultimaker last November. Didn't get it working until January. Once it was working, I was having nozzle plugs constantly, too. I increased the print temperature to 225c for most of my PLA prints. That made the flow much smoother, but the high temperature creeps up past the aluminum heat sink and causes plugs up in the Peek and nylon area. So, I mounted a fan which only blows through the space between the aluminum heat sink and the bottom wood plate. That gave me about 6 weeks of constant printing with zero plugs until my Ultimaker stopped working completely a couple days ago. Sadly, it died 23 hours into a 25 hour print.

 

[ian 32]

oooh why did it die ?

 

[billdempsey 0]

oooh why did it die ?

 

Good question. When it stopped printing, it stopped talking to my computer. No matter how many different cables, USB ports, and computers I try, nothing sees the printer anymore. I'm guessing the main board finally went the same way as my Ulticontroller went. What irks me most is they knew they were shipping bad electronics and kept shipping them anyway with no offer to replace them when they go boom. They figure people will buy the electronics again. They figured wrong. I'm ordering a CubeX Trio from 3DSytems later this week. I'm sick of wasting time and money on a company who doesn't give a crap about their customers.