Ugh, now I’ve had it with my extruder. It’s burnt me twice now with slight deformation that’s lead to a wasted print (working on Halo drone). I have a direct drive that’s worked great for several months, but now it seems to be acting up.
Changed filament to see if it would follow it, but still had an issue. Yet, it printed all day yesterday another part with different PLA and didn’t act up… it’s so inconsistent.
I don’t have a lot of tension on it, and in the past when I’ve messed around with the springs it seemed like it’d be more likely to just gnaw at the filament and strip it. Printing PLA @ 205 @ 40mm/s. So it’s not like I’m winding it up, but it just seems to be erratic.
Looking at that Bondtech for a Prusa i3, any feedback on that or an alternative?..TIA
You just can’t go wrong with a Bondtech. I don’t have one, but I’ve never heard any negative other than difficulty changing filament (can’t just push a lever to release). If I had the funds to spare, I would definitely be running one or two.
@Ishaan_Gov , I’ve got an E3V6 with the fan installed. The PTFE is also seated all the way into the hotend. To your point though, I had already checked the filament when pulling it back out and it’s only slightly swollen at the very end. So I don’t think it’s getting jammed. I used to get a lot of heat creep with another printer and would see how the pre-melting would creep up to the point that you couldn’t even pull the filament back out. I’ll admit that my extruder is a bit of a mash-up that uses springs from Home Depot, and I’ve always been guessing at what the right amount of tension should be applied.
@Carlton_Dodd I love mine. Never jams, always feeds beautifully even at very high speeds. And with his new QR you can release the filament.
OK I take it back. I had a jam on the new Bondtech Mini Direct Drive… But the Sainsmart Flexible Filament I was running at 50mm/s had this big blob on it (http://i.imgur.com/vvywoKW.jpg), so I give it a pass. Not sure any extruder could have overcome that one.
@Tim_Sills I’ve got a mash up of parts in my extruder as well - E3dV6, stock motor mount, simple mount for E3dV6, custom tension arm, no motor cooling fan, and springs from the hardware store. I added a mk8 drive gear (really small diameter) and it made all the difference in the world - no more underextrusion, slipping, clicking, or anything. With these parts, the filament path between the gear and the hotend is really curved and out of alignment; but, other than the occasional difficulty loading filament (because of the curve) it has been rock solid. I don’t have the link right now; but, I could find it later if you’re interested.
