Extruder Keeps jamming

I am fairly new to 3D printing, I just got my first printer back in December. I have been trying to print a part for school and the first time I tried printing it, my printer would not extrude the filament evenly. It would extrude, then not extrude and so on, leaving a very poorly printed raft layer with very weak prints. The whole time the filament made this popping noise as it was extruding. I'm not sure if I have the extruder temperature too high or what. I am printing with PLA at 215 degrees C. I switched filaments to see if that was the problem and it started off printing fine, but once it got done with the raft layers my extruder jammed and wouldn't extrude anymore. I,m not really sure what the problem is, but it is very frustrating not being able to print anything. Any help or suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2016 12:40AM by WClampitt1.

popping noise = almost always moisture in the filament. Try drying it.
jamming = filament out of spec and/or too much retracting and/or fan to cool hotend not running and/or wrong assembly of the hotend etc...You get much beter replies when posting a bit more about the hotend etc

A nice guide to help you with those first prints [www.simplify3d.com]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2016 07:13AM by [email protected]

Popping noises indicate moisture in the filament, PLA absorbs a LOT of moisture from the air. You have to keep it stored in a sealed enclosure/bag with desiccant or you will have the popping noises and associated poor print surface quality.

Jamming when printing PLA is often due to heat creeping up the hot end. It will start printing fine but after a little while, as the heat gets closer to the motor in the extruder, the plastic swells and jams in the hot-end. Hot-end designs that have cooling fans and heat breaks are best to avoid this type of problem. In your case, I'd say try lower ing the temperature - 215 is pretty hot for PLA.

Intermittent printing is often caused by the previous problem of jamming. When the filament jams, the drive gear in the extruder chews a divot into the filament then loses grip and can't push the filament any more. You pull out the filament to start over, but the dust from the last piece that the gear chewed into is still in the gear teeth. When you put fresh filament into the extruder, that dusty area doesn't grip the filament very well. This problem is solved by 1) cleaning the drive gear, 2) increasing the pinch wheel pressure on the filament so the drive gear teeth bite more deeply into the filament. If the hot end jams, the extruder motor should skip steps instead of chewing a divot into the filament.

It is best to post photos when you're asking for help with a problem. 3D prints often tell you exactly what is wrong by the way they look. You can save photos to google drive or any of the web photo sharing sites than post links here.

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Son of MegaMax 3D printer: [www.instructables.com]
Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

About what temperature would you suggest? Because I think that could very well be the problem because I observed it after you suggested that and I noticed that my extruder assembly was pretty warm even with the cooling fan running at full speed.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2016 04:44PM by WClampitt1.

Try 185 - 200C. You always have to experiment because the temperature reading from the hot-end (and bed) may not be very accurate. Use whatever setting gets the plastic flowing but doesn't produce too much stringing. Once you have found good temperature settings to use for PLA, you can usually use those settings for any PLA you put into the machine.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2016 05:58PM by the_digital_dentist.

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Son of MegaMax 3D printer: [www.instructables.com]
Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Alright. I'll do some experimenting to see what works after I dry my filament out. I really appreciate the help!