Printing PVA support with UM3 PROBLEMS! Chewing! Please help.

[13Lo 0]

Hi guys,

My company has had the UM3 for a few months now and we love it for the most part. The one MAJOR issue we have had from day one is printing support with PVA. The filament seems to get chewed up in the feeder no matter how tight or loose we set it and eventually stops feeding and starts filling the feeder with dust. We have done multiple deep cleanings of the extruder with no luck.

This week we even built a dry box system that is airtight from the spool to the extruder, added dessicant, and dried out our spool. This morning we tested out a simple box that required support and we achieved better results than we were previously getting but we are still getting a major amount of chewing from the feeder. It is hard to see in the attached photo but there is a point close to the feeder opening where you can see the chewed up filament.

We are printing with all of the standard Cura profiles. If anyone has any possible solutions PLEASE let me know. Thank you!!!

- Brandon

[kmanstudios 817]

Have you adjusted the feeder tension screw?

Here is a link to what I am referring to. I found that if I just tighten the feeder screw, it works as I am using a variety of manufacturers and they are not all equal and in some cases, different makes of the same materials (PVA, PLA, etc) will have differences in texture, slickness, etc.....

https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/36111-material-is-ground-down-by-the-feeder