Help! I hate my extruder!

I have a Mendel Prusa and on it is a extruder with 4 wing nuts. The problem I'm having is that in trying to load the filament I am having nothing but problems. When I try to extrude a 5 mm section nothing happens. If I force the filament down then the motor starts rumbling and again nothing happens. I am sure that I am not loading the filament correctly and have no idea how to do it the right way. I have searched the web but it appears that the process is so simple that no one has written out the steps for loading the filament.

I am at a loss as to what to do. I have tried feeping the wing nut loose, middle tight and full tight with no positive results.

Is there a extruder for my printer that loads like the Type A Series one printer? On that machine you flip a lever and load the filament. Simple and neat.

Any help or suggestions you can give this noob will be greatly appreciated.

Joseph

we'll probably need a little more information, eg which type of extruder you have, 1.75mm or 3mm filament, which hotend you are using? , a photo usaully helps a lot to,

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I will try to get a photo loaded tomorrow. The extruder uses 1.75 filament and the hot end is a Budaschnozzle v1.0.

Additional useful info: are you using PLA or ABS? In the first case, do you have a fan to cool the top of the hot end?

Are you aware that the default configuration for the Budaschnozzle is for 3mm filament? To use 1.75mm filament you need to change the PTFE inner tube with another provided with the hot end. Have a look at the AO-100 printer user manual page 51: [downloads.lulzbot.com]

Did you change the PTFE inner tube? If you didn't it may explain your troubles.

Edit: another question would be, do you know if your Budaschnozzle was made by Lulzbot, or by another vendor. For example the one sold by G3D is slightly different.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2013 12:50AM by NormandC.

Quote
Joseph
Is there a extruder for my printer that loads like the Type A Series one printer?

It looks like the Tye A uses a direct drive set up. Chances are your extruder is gear driven, but your pictures will confirm it. I don't know of any gear driven extruder with such a lever. The MendelMax 2 has a similar design but it is a direct drive as well.

But once you get your printer working again, you may find and print an extruder design that is a little easier to operate. The actual "standard" is the Jonas Kuehling Greg's Wade Reloaded extruder with a hinged idler. Lulzbot has added an extruder latch that makes it even easier to use.

First thing: have you tried feeding the filament by hand through your hotend? It it takes an incredible ammount of force something might be wrong with the hotend instead of the extruder.
I had this with my first hotend, never a single succesfull print with it. It might be clogged, slightly off centre in one of the parts or the temp is way lower than reported by the firmware.

also make sure to widen the hole feedstock used to go to hot end. if it is tight, then there is little play for when shape changed, or when angle changes slightly from byte on hobble bolt. also make sure hobble bolt is clean.

hot end may need to be rebuilt. if there is a gap inside where pla or abs formed outside of tubing, and between hot end region, then a plug may have formed. this is why before you take apart hot end you first see if you can push feedstock thru by hand. if so then hot end is ok.

I wish to thank the community for all their wonderful advice. The problem has been resolved. I know that, in the future, if I have issues with a printer I can turn to a wealth of knowledge.

Thank you!

Joseph

Would you care to share the resolution for future readers who may come across this thread with a similar problem?