Extruder stopped working. Do I need new motor or electronics ???

[carmamir 0]

Like in topic.

Today I start printing on kapton tape, after some tests I noticed that there is no filament extruded from hot end, I thought that I did wrong calibration of the bed and hot end is too close to bed...

When I tried to remove ruined print I damaged tape so I had to remove everything (and I spent around 30 minutes to put it clearly on the bed)...

Again I put blue tape, 3 times calibration of the bed and....

I noticed that extruder motor is not working, it do not respond during prints, also when I tried to extrude/retract on 210 it didn't worked as well (cura/printerface)...

Now before I make warranty support (printer has less than a week) I want to make sure that problem is with motor not with electronics...

Did any one had that problem before ?

 

[mostlyatomicbob 34]

A couple of things to try here:

First preheat to 210 deg. then try turning the gear wheel on the extruder by hand. if you cannot then it might mean that your nozzle is blocked.

there are guides in the wiki to solve blocked nozzles.

also check the connection from the extruder motor to the electronics underneath the UM

 

[jonnybischof 59]

Did you check all the cables?

Maybe the motor connector was loose and lost it's connection. Also check that the cable sits on the connector properly (these are crimp connectors, they may pop out of the connector when you pull on them too hard or even when you plug in the connector)

Then, there's the stepper driver. Check if it's connected the right way. Try switching the stepper driver with another driver. If another motor stops working then - you got your problem.

Also check the motor cable carefully if there is no damage. This may be a little tricky if you don't have a multimeter. But often you can see if there's damage if you look carefully. If there is any visible damage (broken insulation or cable flattened), you should switch out the cable (if possible) or the whole motor (if you can't rework the cable yourself).

If you don't find the problem, check the extruder mechanics. Maybe they're blocked.

If everything fails (and no one else has any more suggestions) you'll have to switch out the motor with another one. No need to put them back in the machine, just connect the extruder motor to another port on the UM and see if it works. If not, you probably got a damaged motor.

 

[carmamir 0]

False alarm...

For some reason E steps were set to 6 instead of 800 or 500 (not sure I made failsafe restore)... I indeed played with settings steps for XYZ but even if I would made mistake on Z (typed E instead Z) it still should be much more then 6...

Well it is working.

 

[illuminarti 16]

With a recent, standard extruder the steps per E should be roughly 830.