My v5 all metal hotend is constantly jamming during prints, my prints always start out great, but after a couple of layers it always stops extruding and leaves my extruder motor clicking, or just spinning up the filament tread. Every jam is easy to fix, I just force the filament into the hotend and it starts extruding again. I tried cleaning my nozzle with a butane torch, but the jams still always happen. Retraction helped a bit, but nothing major. Different temperatures doesn't seem to help either. Currently I am only printing with PLA, I printed ABS fine a while ago, so i'm not sure if this is only PLA. I followed every step in the tutorial, so I don't think it's the assembly that's the problem. edit: keep in mind that my printrbot simple wood 2013 prints perfect with the same PLA
Hi Qvims, Sorry to hear you're having trouble. Can you please fill in the info form here: https://docs.google.com/a/e3d-online.co ... =send_form This will give us a bunch of useful and necessary data so that we can pinpoint your issue.
filled it out, I tried the so called seasoning and it kinds worked, now it doesn't jam fully, it extrudes uneven over the whole print making it fragile and full of holes..
Sounds like the story of my LIFE! Been fighting this for FOUR MONTHS now, wasting LOTS of this PLA filament on failing prints. When my old UBIS started to fail, evidence pointing to WAY too much heat way HIGH in the hot end, and not enough down in the tip where it belonged, I jumped at what looked like a far superior design - more heat where it belonged, NONE up where it didn't: an E3D v5. Seemed odd that I've had to continue raising the extruding temp so far above what I USED to run, just to get ANYTHING out the nozzle (same size as my original: 0.4) Now, though, I can't figure out what causes it to start out looking fine but at random layer heights up the build process it simply backs up with so much resistance that the hobbed bolt strips out the filament in its grasp and everything grinds to a halt (well, actually the thing continues going through the motions, unaware that it's no longer extruding ANYTHING). Often this is what I experience upon a print job failing: I usually cannot even MOVE the stuck filament by hand, either way. I've learned to try wiggling it back and forth (in and out, of course) and SOMETIMES it will actually start to increase the wiggle until I can actually pull it out. Sometimes, though, it takes a pair of pliers to LEVER it up and out! FAR too brutal forces involved here - kinda scary!!! Back in the PrintRbot forums there is extensive discussion of dialing in JUST the right tension on the idler wheel of the extruder, but I cannot find any setting that will allow that tiny little motor to exert anywhere NEAR the force I am having to use to break the stuck strand loose - it's IMPOSSIBLE! What I suspect, assuming that my tension is actually reasonable (as it's pretty close to what I used fairly successfully throughout most of my 1st roll of PLA) is that the retraction I'm trying to dial in to deal with OOZE issues now that I'm BOWDEN (and PROUD OF IT - ha ha - if only it WORKED!!!) is actually causing the heated filament in the tip, now slightly larger in diameter from being pressed into the melt zone, to get stuck up in the COOL zone. Long, extended extrusions seem to go fine, but when it gets to a bunch of tiny little squooged points it manages to get itself thoroughly STUCK. My semi-edumacated guess.... Sure wish I could get some things done around here and get on with my LIFE!!!!! This has become such a trial and tribulation that I'm beginning to think I should have taken up WHITTLING. [deafening SCREAM/GROWL/ROAR] There - sitting back down now. More coffee, anyone?
By "this" do you mean throttle back on the retraction distance? Fact is, as that seemed suspect to me, I've eliminated ALL retraction, which (of course) makes for a MESS of a print, usually. Unfortunately, it didn't eliminate the lockup! Or are you suggesting lubricating things or changing filament??? Y'know, I'm beginning to wonder how long I should wait for a response to filling out the form reporting this problem.... No rush, I guess -- been unable to print for several months now - why not a few more DAYS? :?
Well, forgive me if I'm mistaken in assuming that filling out this form online might also apply to others of us with the same problem, but that seemed logical to me. Similarly, having done so, I was hoping there might be some rational follow-up response, and HOPEFULLY????? some good news in the form of a WORKING REMEDY!?!?!? Back in the realm of the PrintRbot users' forums there is much discussion about having the tensioner wheel on one's extruder correctly adjusted, as both too much and too little tension can cause the hobbed bolt to eat through the filament instead of gripping it and pushing it through. I've tried to GUESS what that should be by microscopic examination of the filament that's passed through that grip, and I've also tried to get a feel for that setting by trying to hold back the filament while I twist the extruder gear manually. It pulls it on through despite my trying VERY hard to hold it back, to the extent that I'm pretty sure it's in the ball park for tension -- which (once again) points back at SOMETHING NOT being right in the hotend!!! If I'm not doing ANY RETRACTION, how can it be causing the filament to stick solid in the melting chamber - so solid that it requires a HUGE tug to get it to move at all, in OR out! It simply should NOT require that sort of force from the tiny little extruder to push the plastic through there!!! Here I thought that moving up from a 30W heater to a 40W would give me a nearly proportional increase in through-put, but I can't get ANYTHING done lately, and it's getting most frusterpating!!!!! Somehow I don't believe I'm the Lone Stranger in this, either!
Oh brother! Not alone by ANY stretch!!! What I don't get is why this didn't get pointed here: /viewtopic.php?f=7&t=115&start=40 as that's FAR more active! And, who knows -- there may be even more and bigger out there? Is anyone moderating this, or are we all just wingin it?
Jay, Sorry support has been a while coming. It's just mad here at E3D at the moment, we are moving premises across the country and have the TCT Tradeshow next week also. Sorry to hear about your issues and frustrations, I've also read the email chain between yourself and Tim Elmore from filastruder. I understand that you've been offered a few replacement bits, and I would hope that those fix your issues. Most of the info in the form seems totally fine, the one thing that sticks out a bit is the single spool of black PLA that it's been tested with. Black in particular has a track record of being tricky due to colorants, additives, and easily hidden filler. If you can beg/borrow/steal some other filament that might be a useful bit of data. QVims, It seems like you have a really huge retraction at a really high speed - 100mm/s and 5mm. I would pull that back down to 1mm for a direct extruder and perhaps consider going a little slower, around 30-50 might be more suitable. Faster is better when it comes to retraction, but you need to be within the limits of your extruders ability.
changing the retraction and speed dosent seem to make any difference, also the jamming only happen with PLA it seems. ABS dosen't jam, but extrudes plastic unevenly trough the print making it impossible to calibrate the extrder... this is getting annoying
Have you checked the nozzle bore length? Nozzle bores in excess of 0.8mm can result in PLA jams. This is rectified in v6 nozzles, might want to give one a try.
Ok, so I disassembled my hotend to inspect and to try fix the damn thing, but broke the termistor in the process. back to no printing again...Sigh
I don't have much experience with success, but I can talk to a number of futile attempts. Happily I DO finally have a few consecutive successes, to the point where I'm beginning to believe that I'm out of the woods. Not only have I been able to print PLA with reasonable consistency, I've also managed one (albeit small) success with my Taulman Bridge. AAMOF, I've returned to trying some retraction, and (though I'm still seeing a fair amount of stringing) so far I've NOT had it STICK and clog up!!!!! KOW! To push my luck even further, I've gone back to trying the highly suspect roll of black PLA with which I've been struggling for four months now. And it, too, printed a couple jobs that have been backlogged for ALL THAT TIME - so - TA DAAAAAAAA! Now for credit where credit's due: in the tome entitled: E3D Jamming with both ABS and PLA at /viewtopic.php?f=7&t=115&start=40 I came across mhackney's tip to drill my nozzle in order to reduce the length of the 0.4 mm bore. Skeptical though I was, being at the proverbial end of my rope, I tried it. Now, before risking ruining the only nozzle I had at my disposal, I measured carefully and determined that if I drilled clear down to 0.5 mm as he suggests, I'd be so bloomin close to punching clear through the conical surface that I thought best to stop at about 0.8 mm. That seems to be sufficient, I'm pleased to report!!! Had I been pushed to place my bet about the outcome before I drilled, I'd certainly have lost that wager, but - as I said - I was ready to try ANYTHING! I guess the only thing I couldn't make sense of was the notion that, due to the risk of punching clear through and ruining the nozzle, one should just twist the bit with one's dainty little fingers. Alas, that didn't produce any brass in my case, so I did, in fact, resort to the cordless drill (lacking a drill press). Big deal - I measured carefully, drew it up in SketchemUp, determined exactly how far I had to go, inserted the bit, placed a piece of masking tape on the bit to mark when to cease pushing, and VERY CAREFULLY did what I needed to do. On a total side-bar, it's probably a good thing I didn't stumble across RichRap's tale of woe with some BIZARRE PLA from some source in China. It happened to be clear, so he could actually SEE more in the unused filament once he discovered the first !!!! TINY BALL BEARING !!! plugging the orifice of his nozzle. At one point I would have bet the BANK that I was experiencing that very problem, so ridiculous had been my tail-chasing! ...and here I've been pondering how ?fun? it might be to try printing that WOOD-looking stuff? HA! Someday when I'm bored OUT OF MY SKULL, perhaps! ...and have a larger tip to play with? Well, I just had to check back in, like the only leper grateful enough to return... my two cents. Fare thee well, oozers jm
Hello all! I've been pulling my hair out all week trying to figure out why the E3D v5 kept jamming after few minutes of operation. Even the string of material wasn't coming out smoothly when manually pushing the filament. I tried seasoning, connected the fan to a dedicated power supply, nothing helped. Well, the seasoning might have helped a little as I was able to print a Yoda head in full, although with some voids. The solution was dead simple! It was the nozzle! The E3D's stock nozzle is tiny and doesn't seem to have enough heat capacity to melt the 3mm filament fast enough. I replaced the nozzle with the Ultimaker's nozzle, and voila! The problem went away, the material comes out nice and smoothly, no bubbling either. Another explanation could be that the stock E3D nozzle wasn't really 0.4mm, but I haven't measured it yet.
