No material feed all of a sudden towards end of reel

[adamp2006 2]

So i'm finally coming to the end of my complimentary reel of PLA, was nice to have so much to dial in the printer and learn loads in the process, but now i just about have enough for 1 more print.

Everything was fine yesterday but today i'm not getting any plastic flow at all , i usually us the controller to feed a little material out before i start the print so i find it stops any gaps appearing in the first layer , but nothing is coming out , thought maybe i had a plug so wound the heat up at ABS levels but still nothing , if i wind the extruder (Bertho's upgrade installed) back a little and then forward i get a little puff of smoke from the print head and maybe a small bubble of molten plastic but nothing more.

Anyone have any ideas ?

 

[gr5 2,070]

What happens if you pull the filament all the way out and put it back in again.

1) Is there a notch in the filament where the hobbed bolt ground it up? If so cut off one inch from the melted end of the filament before re-inserting.

2) If it doesn't come out liquid and hot at the end maybe it isn't even reaching the tip. In this case take off the bowden tube and look down into the print head (remove blue clip and push down before sliding out bowden.

3) Or maybe you have a block at the tip. I doubt it as you are getting smoke puffs. More likely a plug higher up or you ground up filament at the feeder.

 

[adamp2006 2]

Took the bowden tube off and looked in but couldn't see anything , heated the head up and fed the PLA in by hand , felt it stop , put a little pressure on it and felt it give then it started flowing again so definitely thinking it was a plug between the end of the tube and the head , thanks gr5 for the suggestions, will put it all back together and see if it still flows