Extruder clicking and not feeding
I have a strange issue which crops up after a while during printing. The initial printing is working fine, then the extruder starts clicking and filament is no longer feeding correctly. I've not seen this before, and I've been printing with this machine for over a year.
I'm going to swap to a different roll of filament to give that a test.
Any other ideas / suggestions on how to isolate the issue?
RE: Extruder clicking and not feeding
If it is on the first layer it might be that the nozzle is too close to the print bed to allow the filament to come out of the nozzle. I have found that if it is on a higher layer that it might be that the nozzle is partially plugged. What I do then is pause the print, raise the extruder several cm. and heat the nozzle 50 degrees or so hotter than the recommended temperature for the filament you are using and then unload and load the filament 3 or 4 times to try and flush the impurity that caused the plug or partial plug out of the hot end. Sometimes I even run one of the accu-puncture needles up the nozzle. I then cool back down to the print temperature and resume printing. If it seems to be happening consistently I put the filament into an old food dehydrator that I got at a yard sale for $5 and dry it for 4 hours. Once things got stuck so bad I had to rebuild/change the whole hot end. You probably have figured out that the clicking noise is the feed gears slipping against the filament while trying to feed the filament when it isn't advancing due to some issue that is blocking it.
I hope this helps
RE: Extruder clicking and not feeding
I forgot the most obvious that has happened to me. The filament getting tangled on the spool and not allowing it to freely enter the extruder.
RE: Extruder clicking and not feeding
Thanks for the tips / ideas. I actually have some ESun 'cleaning' filament, I'll give that a try if the problem persists.