Trouble with jams using Makergeeks PLA
Has anyone had success printing with Makergeeks PLA? I have several rolls from them and they all consistently give me trouble with jams in the hotend. I have not had this problem with any other PLA. They recommend printing at 235C, and I’ve tried temps between 195 and 240, still jams. Usually, the first few layers print fine, or even a large chunk of the model prints fine, and then at some point (sometimes at a significant geometry change, sometimes not) the nozzle clogs and no more filament comes out.
I have had great success with other brands of PLA, ABS, PETG, and also with Makergeeks PETG. Just their PLA is giving me fits.
For reference, I have two printers. A prusa style with an E3D v6, 0.4mm nozzle, and a coreXY (D-Bot) with an E3D v6 Volcano, 0.8mm nozzle. Both printers have problems with the filament.
can you increase the pressure on the extruder wheel? or decrease it if it is too high…
first one is in case the extruder doesnt put enough force on pushing the PLA out, however if the tension is already quite high then it may be that this PLA is a bit easier for the extruder wheel to chew into so it starts turning it into powder rather than push it. you can check if that is the case by looking at the extruder wheel and check for any pla powder.
One printer has an mk9 extruder, which does not have an adjustable tension on the idler. The other does have an adjustment. It seems to be sufficiently tight, but I had not thought of it being TOO tight and crushing the filament. I’ll look into that, thanks.
I was struggling with MakerGeeks pla a few weeks ago as well. I found that it printed best around 225°. I also had to print it with a ptfe lined hot end and keep it printing around 40 mm per second. After those changes I had beautiful prints for the remainder of two rolls.
I have been having issues with their pla as well. When it jams, it jams tight. I am thinking of increasing the size of the heatsink fan on my e3d v6 to minimize the expansion from heat creep.
@michael_hillpot That was going to be my next step. I have a bigger fan for cooling, need to print an adapter to attach it to the E3D heatsink.
So far no problems with the 2kg I have used at 210 with an mk8 extruder
I thought it was heat creep as well, but upsizing to a 40 mm fan made no difference on either of my machines.
Unless maybe the filament swells up a little more than most and happens to also have some thicker areas… Could be just enough. I recently cleaned and rebuilt my hotend and it didn’t solve the problem, so I know it’s not a maintenance issue. When it jams it is sometimes extremely difficult to unjam, the last time I had to use pliers to pull the filament back out and it took some serious effort.
@michael_hillpot are you using an all metal throat for your hot end? How fast are you trying to print?
Also is it a real e3dv6 or knock off?
E3d v6, all metal. Standard print speeds that are middle of the road and have always worked. Usually gets a few mm-1cm up and starts jamming, sometimes it does it on the first or second layer with the same gcode. None of my other pla filaments have this issue, and I mostly print in PET anyway… But I would still like to use these ones
I typically use an all metal hot end for pla prints and have never had an issue until the makergeeks pla. My issues were exactly the same as yours. I rebuilt my hot end, entirely changed my hot end, and it’s mounting configuration, went from a geared extruder to a direct drive, bought a volcano heat block, and then I switched to the PTFE lined hot end and suddenly the problem was gone…
My experience is pretty much identical to what @michael_hillpot is describing. I just installed a high flow 40mm fan to see if that helps. When I pull out the jammed filament, the end has a slightly larger diameter than the rest, as if its getting soft higher than it should (heat creep). At least, that’s what I’m hoping is happening.
@Joe_Walters that’s really interesting about switching to the PTFE tube. Much less friction, could be on to something. Did you have any trouble with the PTFE printing at 235C like they recommend?
@Geoffrey_Forest I did not have any issues with printing at 235. However I found I got the best print quality at 225.
I was able to finish a print last night (no jams). It was only about 2 hrs long, but this print had previously failed every attempt. I swapped the 30mm fan for a high flow 40mm fan. It looks absurd, but it seemed to do the trick. More testing to follow.
I have been meaning to follow up on this. The high flow fan screwed with my PID settings and I kept getting false thermal runaway errors, so I switched back. I took @Joe_Walters advice and got an E3D Lite 6 heatsink, which uses has the bowden tube extend all the way down through to the nozzle, so no heatbreak (well, its built in to the heatsink). I have had much success since then. So it seems the trick is to use a hotend with a PTFE liner.
