Huxley's extruder not extruding like it used to.

The Bowden-style extruder for my RepRapPro Huxley with 0.3mm nozzle and PLA sadly isn't extruding as great as it used to. It was only recently that the hobbed bolt and stepper motor started skipping intermittently even at slow speeds.
I tried clearing out the nozzle, cleaning the hobbed bolt, even raising the temperature by a few degrees. Nothing seems to remedy the problem. Any suggestions?

Alright people, I ended up doing a full rebuild of the hot end. I started by oiling the PTFE tube with a little 3-in-One. Then, while heated and with the nozzle removed, I vacated any plastic left in the hot end. After burning/melting out most of the plastic, I also gave the brass nozzle several baths in different solvents. (i.e. Warm acetone, boiling water, and vinegar.).
After putting everything back together I changed a few of the new variables in Slic3r and am now printing just fine. For now...

Attached is a picture showing the difference after the rebuild.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2013 12:17AM by Physics_Dude.

I spoke too soon. The printer is back to it's normal struggle extruding filament . What should I do?

Have you checked your wiring, tighten up the connectors on the board, try using a different motor for the extruder,
Just ideas!

Try tightening the extruders entry hole so the hobbed gear presses with greater force on the filament. I saw that after a few prints these nuts came loose and it stopped extruding.

Myles Wrote:
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> Have you checked your wiring, tighten up the
> connectors on the board, try using a different
> motor for the extruder,
> Just ideas!

All the connections are nice and tight and the motor is fine. I upped its current earlier, but that only made the hobbed bolt skip more


adilmalik Wrote:
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> Try tightening the extruders entry hole so the
> hobbed gear presses with greater force on the
> filament. I saw that after a few prints these nuts
> came loose and it stopped extruding.

If anything my idler bearing on the extruder is too tight. Even pushing filament in by hand directly into the Bowden tube requires excessive force.


During the rebuild I noticed a tough soot in the brass nozzle and stainless barrel that I could not remove. This could be due to occasional switches between ABS and PLA.

Since the purchase of my Huxley, RepRapPro has upgraded their hot end. Now the once separate nozzle and staleness barrel are a single stainless piece with longer PTFE tube. I contacted RepRapPro to make sure it would fit my older hot end, and it does. So with that I think I'll just buy the new stainless nozzle with vitamins from RepRapPro tonight.