A couple of weeks ago my extruder motor started to make some clicking noises at the start of each print causing a poor quantity of abs plastic being laid at the base, at some point I had to manually push the filament in order for it to advance in a normal way.
First I adjusted the current on the stepper controller ( ramps 1.4 ) no matter the settings the condition continued the same.
The second thing that I did was checking that the hobbed gear of the extruder was ok. No change there.
Last thing was to replace the extruder motor, at that point with a higher torque nema 17, the condition remained the same, so what i did was trying to replicate the condition watching the behavior of the filament , what happened was that the motor was pushing filament faster than the capacity to move the melted plastic causing the filament started to curl inside de extruder prior to the hotend.
In the end adjusting the hotend temp from 250c to 260c solved the mistery
I hope that this can help someone with a similar issue, my setup is a reprap wallace with Mix G1 extruder. Using 1.75 mm filament and 0.3 mm nozzle
Was this a new filament when the problem started? At work, I use a replicator 2x and have had similar symptoms, but the problem is usually a clogged nozzle. The telltale signs are clicking extruder, and filament coming out in a spiral instead of a straight line.
I end up cleaning out the nozzle every couple of weeks
Clicking motor can be a handful of things: Clogged Extruder, Motor getting too hot, Stepper Driver getting too hot and going into thermal protection, Incorrect current limiting on stepper driver…
The clicking, is it rapid, or does it have a long pause inbetween? If it’s rapid, it’s probably stepper motor current being too low. If it’s with long pauses inbetween, check the driver for overheating.
Raising the temp may have just cleared a clog. Also 260 is pretty hot for ABS. May be worth checking your thermistor, if its giving false readings, then it might be your problem.
Yeah, that’s why I was curious as to whether this started happening on a new spool. If it’s an existing spoil with new behavior, increasing the extruder temp may just be a band aid
Ok I got it, it’s not a new spool, I’ll also check the thermistor, recalling when this issue started it was an accident where the spool fall over the printer in middle of a print the filament became tangled and the print abort itself, thats when all started
@Simon_Villalobos Definitely check the termistor then - if it’s been pulled out of the hole it sit’s in (in the extruder), even a little, it can be giving a false reading.