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Extruder not pulling in the filament  

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Moe
 Moe
(@moe)
Active Member
Extruder not pulling in the filament

I have a Prusa mk3s for about a year. It was working pretty good with no error so far. I started a print l last night and this morning I saw that the printer thinks it has finished the job but has not printed half of the piece. The nozzle has been moving and printer has been functioning but seems like filament was not passing through the nozzle. I tried unloading and loading the filament but it does not pull in the filament when loading. I see - and hear - the pulley rotates inside the extruder but seems like something is blocking the filament from passing through. Before opening up the extruder, I wanted to ask experts here if they know the potential issue here? and what is the fix?

This topic was modified 3 years ago by Moe
Posted : 10/01/2021 6:50 pm
bobstro
(@bobstro)
Illustrious Member
RE: Extruder not pulling in the filament

Heat up your nozzle and unload the filament. Open up the extruder housing and examine the filament feed path. You should see a clear path for filament coming in from the top, going past the Bondtech extruder gears and into the PTFE tubing down to the hotend. If the filament is broken off in the PTFE tube, or you find shredded filament, it will not feed.

Clear out the extruder of any debris.

Examine the idler gear on the door. It should spin freely. If it is stuck or the axle has been dislodged, filament will jam when feeding.

If you do see filament stuck in the PTFE tubing, try to pull it out with tweezers or needle-nose pliers. You should be able to simply pull it out to clear the filament path.

If the filament is stuck too far down into the PTFE tubing to grab, you can use a 1.5mm rod or even a hex wrench to push it from above. If you have a long enough rod, you can push the filament down into the hotend where it should extrude out the hot nozzle.

Try reloading the filament after doing these steps.

 

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Posted : 10/01/2021 7:07 pm
Moe liked
Moe
 Moe
(@moe)
Active Member
Topic starter answered:
RE: Extruder not pulling in the filament

Thank you for the detailed response, really helpful. I opened up the little side door and saw a broken piece of filament sticking out of the white tube, but I could not pull it out just from the side door. Increasing the nozzle temprature could not resolve it either. I ended up opening the extruder partially and changed the white tube entirely. There is a very detailed instruction on the Prusa website that helped. After that, I tried loading a new filament and it worked fine.

Posted : 11/01/2021 2:22 pm
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