printer prints layers too thin

[3Dprint_everthing 0]

i just bought a tevo tornado printer , i set it up and it ran like a charm at first, But after the second print my extruder will only print the thinnest layers you can imagine and then prints in the air.


I checked my code, the layer hight did not change.

i checked the motor that feeds filament into the hot end. works fine.

I took the hot end apart and clean out the filament, i could almost breathe through it.
when i push the filament back in and push it in manually comes out just fine.

only when i print do i run into this issue.

[yellowshark 146]

Probably one of two problems given that it extrudes OK if you manually feed it.

 

Your filament is not good (i.e. too wide in places) and is sticking in the bowden tube. If you are pushing the filament through the tube yourself you should be able to feel this and if you have an appropriate tool measure the width of your filament at various points to see if it is OK, 2.85 +/- 0.05.

 

Maybe more likely is the knurled wheel that feeds the filament. This has an adjustment which modifies the pressure of the wheel on the filament - too loose and the filament feed will be inconsistent or not happen at all; too tight and you will eat into the filament. Pull out the filament and finger touch the filament at a point after it has been through the wheel. There should just be a very slight roughness; if smooth the wheel is loose and not engaging; if really rough then you are too tight.

 

Also if you have been printing too tight then small bits of filament will start to clog up the teeth in the knurled wheel and eventually you will have a smooth surface instead of teeth and the filament will slip and not be fed properly or not at all - you can clean the stuff out with a sewing needle.

[3Dprint_everthing 0]

Thank you so much for replying, my filament is 1.7 mi thick, I measured it with a tool I bought. that gear that feeds in the filament i think has the right amount of pressure, it does leave faint grooves where the gear touches it. i think the gear is either moving too slow.

[3Dprint_everthing 0]

 

ok think i fixed it, there is a way on my printer, to go through the setting and increase the flow, from 100% to anything i want. i watched a video talking about these printers not having their potentiometers set right. maybe i should check that.

 

[nwuntch 0]

I've recently had something similar happen on a printer that I own.  It turns out upon updating Cura to version 3.6 that my default filament size was set to 2.85 and not 1.75 in the machine settings for print.  After updating this I made sure to save the file as a new name prior to re-printing the object.  This ended up working for me as no matter how many times I changed the settings the layer sizes would not change.