Ok so I’m back with some pictures and I’m hoping someone here can tell me for sure what’s going on. I printed a hollow calibration cube and this is how it came out. The skirt seems a little thin like the extruder is just a tad too close to the bed. Also the gap in the middle seems like it happened because the filament had stopped coming out for some reason. If anyone could confirm or correct me on this I would really appreciate it along with any suggestions on how to make it better.
Cheap PLA that came with the printer.
200 on the nozzel
70 on the bed
30mm/s
Also notice that the brim has some skip or gap in it as well. Maybe the hotend getting blocked by filament expanding in the wrong place inside it, or it could be the extruder skipping due to under current, pull on the filament as it feeds in or other mechanical blockage.
looks like underextrusion, maybe something clogged the nozzel. Or Filament jam / transport issue. If you print it again - did it happens at the same layer, could be also a bad gcode.
I would go for clogged nozzle or impurities in the filament. Could you try with a different brand?
Given that it recovered I would guess under extrusion from a blocked nozzle or bad/out of spec filament. That brim looks messed up. How tight is your bed leveling?
I’ve had similar results when the slicer was mistakenly set for a 3mm filament and I was using 1.75mm filament…
@Peter_Bell only for a few Layer? Normaly such error should mess up the whole Object.
@Ulrich_Baer Yes, the first two pictures make it look like that could be a possibility, but now that I look at the last ones, it looks more like an intermittent blockage, or extruder skipping.
Clean the extruder, or remove the nozzle, thats a partial blockade
Deffo a clog. I’ve used 3 different makes of a grey PLA and 1 make blocked 3 nozzles at random parts of the print. In the bin it went. Try a different filament see what you find.
@Ulrich_Baer I printed it again and it did something similar but in a different spot. The filament “pops” and it fails to push out plastic every time it does.
@lightshadown I will try that. I’m hoping it’s just something simple.
Popping is a sign of high humidity.
@Ernesto_Martinez the filament itself doesn’t pop, it’s like the motor/gear that pulls the filament.
Aha, that is normal with obstructed nozzles
@Ernesto_Martinez so what’s the issue when the nozzel ISN’T blocked? Because I just took everything apart and it’s still doing it. I cleaned out every spec I could find and it’s still not working properly.
@Kevin_Danger_Powers , I had a similar issue just last week. It was a partial block in my case. Even after fully disassembling the E3Dv6 I kept having issues. I solved it by thoroughly cleaning every component after soaking them in acetone. In my case it was the nozzle. Since I am using tungsten nozzles it was relatively simple to mechanically scrape the plastic with an acetone->dry thoroughly->hot air gun->scrape process. Brass nozzles might not be so forgiving though, so you have to be more careful. Tom Sanladerer has an excellent YouTube tutorial to clean nozzles using a cold pull process. Look it up in Google.
Also, if you are using PTFE anywhere on your extruder, make sure none of the ends have been damaged by heat. Test by passing some filament through the entire assembled unit minus the nozzle to ensure it flows effortlessly.
@Kevin_Danger_Powers Another possible cause of the popping sound the drive gear makes is out of spec filament. There might be a small bulge that get semi-stuck causing the gear to pop trying to push it through. As pressure build and heat creeps up it will soften enough to start going through again and the print continues. In the mean time you get under extrusion and lacing.
@Jeff_Parish @Kevin_Danger_Powers I have had that bad filament issue as well. Inspect filament for.small bulges
