Extruder motor making loud step clicking nosies

Hello all
Let me first say I have the ramps ver1.4 board and all the jumpers under the driver modules are set and I adjusted all the stepper motors to run optimal with minimal power.
The printer runs great through all the Axis. No over heating motors or drivers. I've done a few dry runs with no filament and the printer job Start to End did great.
I have a direct drive extrude, the heater works fine and when manually pushing filament through "no motor" it pushes out plastic with minimal effort.
When I add the motor to drive the filament the motor makes a skipping noise when it see resistance to push plastic through the nozzel. I have gone back and tried to readjust the motor driver module to add tourqe. Although the skipping slightly improves it still skips and does not push out the full 5mm amount of filament. Also the motor and driver module heat up allot when I adjust much higher. You can actually see the the drive hub and motor skipping "like skipping over gear teeth" as the motor tries to push the plastic. The hub is tight, this is a internal motor type skipping.
So far I have not found an adjustment to correct this condition. I have moved the motor driver modules around to see if it wasen't a bad module with no change.
Has anyone else seen this problem? Is it possible I have a bad motor? The motor does not have internal gears or does it?
I'm not sure what else to try. Any suggestions are welcome
Thank you in advance.

You say it doesn't push out 5mm? The setting is for input not output.
What speed, type of filamet, and temp are you tring?
If I had a guess you are feeding too fast.

edit: just saw you said you have direct drive extruder. Nevermind... Good luck.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2014 09:35PM by Istale.

Are you trying to extrude too fast?

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Waitaki 3D Printer

Hello Guys
Thanks for responding! @ Istale, I saw what you wrote before edit, thanks for trying.......
I should have explained better. The 5mm I refrenced above is the "manual extrude lenght amount" you can set in Pronterface "5mm is the default setting"
I'm using 1.75mm filament, PLA. The default temp in Pronterface is 185c, I tried that Temp first. At 185c it extrudes at first "soaked in heat" but quickly starts the clicking noise.
I tried all the way to 250c which causes other set of problems that high. 230c seems to be the best.
At 230c it extrudes manually with a feed rate of 30 with very little to no clicking. If I turn up the manual feed rate beyond 30 the clicking starts and is more frequent as I turn it up.

As you can imagine, the first layer of a printed part seems fine, then the program moves faster in certian areas "like the fill times" and the clicking is terrible. During those feed rates the motor simply wont drive the plastic like it should and the part does not get filled correctly. Just a speratic fill.
I'm certian you guys are correct that the extrude speed has something to do with it but my biggest question then becomes, does everyone have this problem?
I'm figuring not like I'm having and this is something worse, like the motors bad or cant create enough torque.
One other question if I may. Is there a more prefered program than Pronterface? I like Pronterface but I'm have a difficult time figuring out where and how to make adjustments of exisiting files to manipulate for things like " extruder fill speed, layer height, cooling for fan, ect..."?
I know for sure I need to make adjustments to the machine but I can make a good part to know what yet.

Thanks again and any help would be great.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2014 09:35AM by Novo.

Hi Novo,

I believe I have the same problem as you, but it happens more often on the beginning of prints / slower moments.

To me, it looks like the gears are slipping because there's not enough torque coming from the motor. I've noticed a few reasons behind this:

- If there's too much tension from the filament (i.e. if it's tangled). Make sure your roll is easily pulled by your motor.

- If there's not enough power to your motor. My reprap kit from DIY Tech Shop came with a double sized NEMA motor (not sure the spec here... sorry) and that thing heats up my stepper driver in a second. It's too hot to keep my finger on the heat sink. Eventually, I might burn up my driver, but I haven't had problems with it so far on 4hr+ prints. Try turning your pots up on your extruder motor. If it doesn't help, you can always turn it back down (you *most likely* won't ruin anything by being overpowered for a 2 minute test).

- If you think it's a speed thing, make sure you have the correct Steps Per MM in your firmware. Below are a few lines from my Marlin Config...h file. Note that I did my extrude test and needed to raise my steps for my extruder to get the expected amount extruded. If you don't have a Vernier Caliper, go buy one today. I can't believe I didn't own one until a few months back.

// Gregstruder with a 43:10 gear ratio
//(200 * 16) * (43 / 10) / (7 * 3.14159) = 625.70681
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {80,80,4000,703.125} // GT2, 20 TOOTH PULLEY, Z-AXIS: M5 threaded rod .8mm PITCH
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE {500,500,3,25} // (mm/sec)
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION {100,100,100,10000} // X, Y, Z, E maximum start speed for accelerated moves. E default values are good for skeinforge 40+, for older versions raise them a lot.

#define DEFAULT_ACCELERATION 100 // X, Y, Z and E max acceleration in mm/s^2 for printing moves
#define DEFAULT_RETRACT_ACCELERATION 100 // X, Y, Z and E max acceleration in mm/s^2 for retracts


Good luck!

- Poly

Hello,

There is a design that works quite well for the extruder, with a bearing + spring in order to push the filament against the gear; random example: [www.thingiverse.com]
There are other designs that don't work that well and need a lot of torque in order to initiate movement. Could you upload a picture of your extruder please?