Filament stuck, seems to be above idler?
Hi, I just completed a successful print, and told my printer to unload the filament. When it said to pull it out, basically it didn't move. I have tried loading and unloading and the filament itself is jammed in there, but it all seems to be above the idler and the nozzle, as far as I can tell.
I am a total newb at this. I found the instructions here ( https://help.prusa3d.com/en/article/removing-filament-from-extruder-manually_121491/) and opened the idler door. I don't see any filament in there at all. It doesn't help that the filament is grey, and that I have never looked in there so I don't know what "normal" would be. But I don't see anything.
I have a full strand of filament (still attached to the spool, but of course I can cut that at any point) and it just doesn't budge when I pull on it with reasonable force. I didn't want to risk breaking it off.
I got the printer fully assembled and it is only a week old. Was working fine until this.
Also I was using a .8mm nozzle, if that matters at all, but I had done a lot of prints successfully with the nozzle before this happened.
Any suggestions what to do next? The troubleshooting seems to jump to changing the PTFE tube, but I am not sure it is anywhere near the tube at this point (I assume that is below the idler door).
RE: Filament stuck, seems to be above idler?
Some pics:
RE: Filament stuck, seems to be above idler?
Update: I was able to pull the filament out the top with a pair of pliers and managed not to break it. The bottom of it looked perfectly normal (small, nozzle shape).
I stuck a small allen wrench in to see that the path was clear to the top of the PTFE tube.
I disabled the auto-filament loading and hand loaded a piece of filament down into the nozzle, where it extruded.
At this point the auto-loading doesn't seem to be working, but it's possible I didn't have the idler screw tension correct. I need to experiment a little. I did start a print and it seemed okay.
I still have no explanation for what went wrong in the first place -- basically the filament not unloading and being really hard to pull out. So I don't know if something is actually wrong at this point or not.
I'd appreciate any tips or obvious things to try.
Thanks