Very difficult to extrude even by hand

[heidtn 0]

I recently assembled my Ultimaker and am very exciting to get it working; however, I've been having some issues with it lately. It seems to be fairly common as well, it takes a good amount of force to extrude the PLA through the extruder head. I though at first it may have been an issue with clogging or a PLA plug forming, but after taking apart the extruder I found no obvious problems. I was wondering if anyone solved a similar issue and what they did to fix it...

[owen 19]

Hi

What temperature are you printing at ?

[heidtn 0]

I've tried a variety of different temperatures all with similar results. Typically I try around 230, but I've tried 250 and 190 as well to no avail. This is really troubling me as I've such a wonderful machine and no way to print much of anything... Also in terms of actual printing, whenever I do print the first few layers manage to come out all right, but then they get thinner and stop altogether after about 4 or 5 layers for a small print.

[owen 19]

Ok things to try

Start at 230 and see if you can push through by hand

Check the hobbed bolt is clean and not clogged up with filament

Make sure the hobbed part of the bolt is in the middle where it will grip the filament. This bolt should actually be loose and floating around a bit.

Check the tension on the tightening screw, should be firm so that you can't pull the filament backward by hand but not too tight as this can be harder for the Extruder motor to push and also the filament will get squeezed into an oval shape which can get stuck, particularly at the heater end.

Report back here with how you went and if still unsuccessful give some more detail about the firmware, software and any other details that may help.

Good Luck

[Daid 306]

I've tried a variety of different temperatures all with similar results. Typically I try around 230, but I've tried 250 and 190 as well to no avail. This is really troubling me as I've such a wonderful machine and no way to print much of anything... Also in terms of actual printing, whenever I do print the first few layers manage to come out all right, but then they get thinner and stop altogether after about 4 or 5 layers for a small print.

Are you using skeinforge? Is the temperature plugin enabled? Because this will change your temperature during printing, removing any effect of preheating you have done.

[antbrams 0]

hi there,

same thing here.... had some issues with assembling and make all work... especially software.... use a mac osx 10.6.8 and also have a windows7, work computer....

now i'm trying slic3r and pronter on my mac... i manage to extrude and make the extruder work when testing... manually i manage to extrude at various temperatures, mostly over 220 or even going as high as 280 for ABS... but when i have preheated extruder head and use the motor in testmode it works ok until it gets to extruder head... no extrusion...

i tried to print a small ring, and the x and y motors perform beautifully but the extruder motor works in slow motion (like super slow or not at all) and doesn't extrude anything at all...

really frustrated as i really would like to start printing a few needed pieces..... need HELP.... today i checked if extruder clogged up, nope...

been reading as much as i can on this forum and elsewhere.... great forum and feels a bit of comfort to know i'm not alone... but would very much appreciate some advice how to proceed.. i notice people really try to help... CUDO to all who answers...

[destroyer2012 0]

Unscrew the print head screws and remove the hot end from the bowden tube (while hot). Is there a plug of plastic between the bowden tube and the hole in the PEEK insulator? If there is you may need to take out that C-clip holding the bowden tube and slide it forward some, to make sure there wont be a space for the plastic to make a plug. You may need to cut off the tip of the bowden tube to make an orthogonal hole (to prevent leaks).

Otherwise, how hard is it to push the plastic through the bowden tube before it gets to the heater? Maybe this friction is causing a problem.

If these aren't issues then maybe there is a problem with your temperature reading, which seems like it would be much harder to diagnose.

[joergen 2]

really frustrated as i really would like to start printing a few needed pieces..... need HELP.... today i checked if extruder clogged up, nope...

been reading as much as i can on this forum and elsewhere.... great forum and feels a bit of comfort to know i'm not alone... but would very much appreciate some advice how to proceed.. i notice people really try to help... CUDO to all who answers...

have you checked if the filament can actually go through all the way? see

http://db.tt/FVAU7hiH

 

[antbrams 0]

hi there,

fast replies... awesome.. i didn't manage to get any sense of video on my mac... now downloading on windows... big file so haven't watched yet...

nope, that i checked today, no plug... the plastic flows quite easily through the tube and the motor manages, both in pronter and regG to move the plastic through the tube at reasonable speeds... until it gets to the extruder, or really a bit before...

noticed that if i placed the extruder engine higher up the plastic got a straighter path and it worked better... but not to the extent of making it pass extruder head....

just watched the movie... could possibly be the problem... there seems to be some tension there.... will try tomorrow morning to adjust the screws....

will report back if it helped... i really really hope so.... cheerio... barcelona milan semifinal champions league.. just been watching 10 mintues and seen 2 goals

[antbrams 0]

as promised, report....

i did take the whole extruder apart, well as good as... it seems the brass pipe was clogged, but the biggest issue i think was that even when the pipe was cleaned the plast filaments didn't want to passs through....

so i did some serious rasping and made the entire hole much bigger.... that helped... now i manage to make the filament extrude all the way and so i managed to make my first print....

came out lousy but still... quite thin and missed a lot of material but i'm still happy... a small step towards some useful stuff....

cheerio and to all other out there with problems... just work a bit every day and eventually, with the help of others here, i'm sure u can make it work.... yihaaaa