Ultimaker Extended 3 Feeder problems

[MV98 0]

Hello Ultimaker community,

 

I have a problem with the feeder 1 of one of my Ultimaker 3 Extended. At about 70% of the print job, the feeder always starts grinding into the filament. 
This only happens with the feeder 1 and the error changes with the part. I have changed the feeder with the one of another Ultimaker 3 EX and the problem is always at the printer with the faulty feeder.
Do you have any suggestions as to what this could be? Do I need to get a new feeder? 

I have already checked and cleaned the feeder and could not find a problem.

 

Thank you.

 

 

[Smithy 1,146]

Hi

 

So we can exclude the print core and other things, because after your change of the feeder you have the problem on the other printer with a different print core, right?

 

I mean the feeder gear could be worn out and if you already have cleaned to feeder there are not much more possibilities left. What about the tension of the feeder, is the marker in the middle position?

 

Which materials are you printing? Do you print also abrasive materials with the printer?

[MV98 0]

14 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

So we can exclude the print core and other things, because after your change of the feeder you have the problem on the other printer with a different print core, right?

 

 

Hi,

yes this is excatly what is happening.

Differentkind of materials, PLA,PP, PPCF, PA6CF, PA6, ABS

So yes also abrasive Materials.

The Problem is that the feeder is working for 70% of the printjob and than it starts to grind the filament. If I recognize it early enought and help the feeder to get over the spot he ground into, the printer will keep on printing normally.

[MV98 0]

Oh and yes the marker is in the middle, but I also have tried some other positions with not improvements

[IRobertI 521]

Does the arm of the feeder look to be in good condition and not splitting apart? Especially at the end where the ball bearing is.

 

If you grab the part that moves the filament forward and pull/push on it, does it have a lot of movement? On old feeders the gear on the back of the feeder sometimes moves out of position so that there's a lot of movement back and forth which can sometimes cause issues. On newer feeders the gear is riveted in place and can't be removed, on the initial feeders you can just pull the gear off.

[MV98 0]

Hi,

I have tried to print to print this astronaut and the feeder had the same problem again and i helped him by pushing the filament as he struggled. Therefore the print continued to print, but a the last 10minutes of the print, grinded the filament 3 times. 

I have attached some pictures of the filament and of the test print.

 

I have also attached a picture of the arm of the feeder and I think it does´t look good.

In addition I have tried to pull on the gear on the feeder, on the picture you can see the range of movement.

[IRobertI 521]

Yeah, I'd say the feeder arm is the culprit here. What you can try to do is take it apart (gently, the little tabs are easy to break, so go slow and careful) and glue it back together again with some epoxy or super glue. That's a cheap way to test if you need to buy new parts or not. Or just keep using it if the glued together arm works fine.

[MV98 0]

Oh ok, thank you very much I will give this a try.

 

If it does´t help I guess I would need a new feeder right?

[IRobertI 521]

Yes, I think that would be a good next step. But I would try gluing it first, if that works for a print that usually fails we can pretty much conclude that the arm was the problem. If the glue is good, it will probably keep working just fine like that and you wont need to buy a new feeder.

[Enigma_M4 125]

Hi,

according to the lever, you also could just print a new one, for example this improvement:

https://www.youmagine.com/designs/ultimaker-3-extruder-lever-mod

I used it on both feeders and loved it, until I upgraded the feeders.

If you exchange your feeder with a new one (and are not afraid of very little tinkering), you also could upgrade to the S5-Feeder(s):

The costs for the S5-feeders are about the same as for the UM3 feeders, and the upgrade also contains abrasive-resistance and the filament flow sensor.

Regards

 

[MV98 0]

Hi, 

Thank you all for the fast responses. 

I have currently interchanged the feeder levers of the two ultimakers and I am testing the faulty feeder right now.

Currently the results are looking good, but I will continue to test.

I think the solution will be either a new feder lever or a new feeder.

 

Thank you