Folger Tech Prusa i3 - jamming

Good afternoon everyone. First off, let me say I am very happy to have found this forum. Second I am very much a 3d printer newb. I ordered my prusa i3 kit from folger tech a couple weeks ago and it took me quite some time to get it to even be at the point of trying to print. I got things working finally but having a bit of trouble with the filament jamming in my extruder.

I have tried to adjust the temps in steps of 5 degrees going up and down. I have had 1 print so far, a very small one that actually finished without me having to stop the print and remove the fan, heatsink and take apart the extruder.

Wondering if anyone has had this problem and better yet if anyone has any ideas on how to correct it. Thanks!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2015 03:05PM by jbrunk.

i just finished a build recently, it jamms when the bed is too close to the extruder nozzle. do you hear it going click click click when it jams?

How is it jamming? I'd be interested in seeing how the extruder assembly is all hooked up. Is the hotend maintaining temp?

I am also a 3d print noob so you can take this or leave it.
I also just some what finished a build and was to having jams. Mine was jamming just where the hotend and cold end meet. I found that it was from excessive heat traveling up to the cold end melting the filiment to far up.
once cooled it would not remelt. Solution was better fan and fan shroud on the hot end.

Some info that my help others diagnose your problem.

What hotend are you using.
what size nozzle.
what filiment pla abs etc.
what are the settings in your control software for speed,temp,etc.
also a better description of when and where it is clogging.

Hope you solve your issue. Try to give a better explanation and some of the things I mentioned above and I'm shore someone more knowledgable will be along to help.

no loud clicking no. I can't even hear the clicking when its jammed, but if i hold on to the filament i can feel it clicking once jammed.

Quote
milkypostman
How is it jamming? I'd be interested in seeing how the extruder assembly is all hooked up. Is the hotend maintaining temp?

hot end is maintaining constant temp. Do you see the image on my original post? You can see its jammed up near the gear. thanks!

Quote
lokiwizz
I am also a 3d print noob so you can take this or leave it.
I also just some what finished a build and was to having jams. Mine was jamming just where the hotend and cold end meet. I found that it was from excessive heat traveling up to the cold end melting the filiment to far up.
once cooled it would not remelt. Solution was better fan and fan shroud on the hot end.

Some info that my help others diagnose your problem.

What hotend are you using.
what size nozzle.
what filiment pla abs etc.
what are the settings in your control software for speed,temp,etc.
also a better description of when and where it is clogging.

Hope you solve your issue. Try to give a better explanation and some of the things I mentioned above and I'm shore someone more knowledgable will be along to help.

thanks lokiwizz. here are some of the details

Hotend: MK7 (came with the kit)
Nozzle: 0.4mm
Filament: PLA 1.75
Speed: Perimeter 50mm/s Infill 30mm/s
Temp: 180 first layer, 180 remaining layers
Bed Temp: 75 and 75

I haven't really noticed a specific time when it jams. But I know its usually after a few layers and a couple of those being honeycomb layers

attached is a pic that will hopefully show better the setup.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2015 03:04PM by jbrunk.

Like I said before I'm no expert but from the looks of your jam it looks like the filiment is getting hot and melting up were the gears push it in the hot end. Again no expert but I think you need a fan pointing at the upper portion of the hot end.
My be someone with more experience will chime in.

Are you powering up the fan 100 % before turning on the hotend and maintaining it at 100% during the print?

You need to be sure that fan is blowing at all times

I know in slic3r there is a section where i can specify to have the fan on 100% full time instead of the auto cooling. I will give that a shot.

any recommendations on a fan shroud for the upper section that may help? I have a TON of computer fans laying around here so i could put a bigger fan/heatsink in

I print fine with the Factory setup

I know the fan had been working originally because i remember playing with the settings for it and using the gcode to turn it on and off. But at some point it appears that fan has completely seized up. Never even noticed since I figured it was off due to the auto cooling. I set a small desk fan up to see if that made any difference and printed 2 prints off last night perfectly!!

Thank you very much for the help!!

Now to replace the fan, and most likely put a bigger one in.

Again, thank you guys for the help!!

Quote
jbrunk
I know the fan had been working originally because i remember playing with the settings for it and using the gcode to turn it on and off. But at some point it appears that fan has completely seized up. Never even noticed since I figured it was off due to the auto cooling. I set a small desk fan up to see if that made any difference and printed 2 prints off last night perfectly!!

Thank you very much for the help!!

Now to replace the fan, and most likely put a bigger one in.

Again, thank you guys for the help!!

Enjoy!!!!!!

Good to hear you sorted it out now if I could just get mine to print more than one time without a repetitive clog think I'm in the same boat as you and need a bigger fan and better duct

I am looking at this

[www.thingiverse.com]

I am considering taking a shot and modifying it and making it big enough for a larger computer fan, maybe 80mm or so.

I have connected my hotend fan to the power input on the ramps board, it runs all the time, and I not yet had a jam (I have an all metal hotend of magma origin) This also means that it is still being cooled after the print, as long as the power is on, preventing the heat from travelling up the hotend and causing problems.

The fan control in marlin is usually about cooling the print when printing PLA and other materials that need some assistance cooling before another layer goes down. Nt something I have used as all my printing has been ABS.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2015 05:49AM by ICon.

ah ok. Thank you. I will have to look into that.

I replaced my seized up fan last night and printed out a couple more prints. Much better and didn't have to have the big desk fan on it. For the first night since i have been trying to print i did not have to take apart my extruder to fix a jam. However, i did notice this. You can see the attached 2 pictures of the 3d printed mario star xmas tree ornament. It looks like the pla is cooling so fast now that there are gaps between the layers. It made for a very sharp point edges but any suggestion on getting this a little more sured up?

to me it looks like you don't have the extruder nozzle size set correctly or your steps/mm setting for the extruder is too low. as if it's not outputting enough plastic. cause it looks like separation between neighboring edges.

you may want to look in cura for the "first layer width" or "first layer flow" and set it to 125% or something. That would help make sure that there is enough plastic down on the first layer. have you calibrated the steps/mm on extruder? Tom has a guide about this on youtube somewhere.

yep did the calibration. What you see there is the last layers, not the first unfortunately. I will have to redo my calibration i believe now that my heating issues are fixed

PS. It seems to only be on the solid infills. The perimeter layers when it printed those were all right up against each other, no separation.