Hobbyist PLA Filament - Known problems?

Hi Everyone,

Have recently completed my build of a Prusa I2 kit.

It was supplied with a small leength of test filament, which I successfully printed with.

After using all of this up, I switched to Hobbyist 3mm PLA, and am having non-sticking problems, jamming problems, my extruder is struggling to feed the filament correctly, and I'm at a loss of where to start and what to try.

Any advice to help me isolate the problem?

Cheers,
Luke

What colour?

I found out by accident that if you have the springs too tight,the extruder will jam or skip.
Also if they're too loose,of course.
Are you sure the printer is set up for 3mm?If you're using 3mm in a 1.75mm setup,i'm sure you would also get the problems you describe.
Agent X printed some bits out for me using the Hobbyist 1.75 white filament ,and he reported it was ok.

Hello, I just finished my i3 to ansembly and my biggest problem is that the PLA 1.75 filament sticks to the extruder body screw or something like this just jamms into the extruder. If I cleat out the extruder then if i feed manually the pla is ok after a while(2-5min) stucks in and doesent goes out.
My fist question what setting are for PLA 1.75 BLAK for marlin softweare(if we need to chnage from softweare becouse i didint changed anything), second question if you have some idea for the jam!
Thanks a lot!

The Filament I am using is Red.

How do i Know how tight to do the extruder adjuster tension screws up? That may well be my problem!

While the extruder is running,feel the filament as it's feeding in to the extruder.
If it stops and starts,or doesn't move at all,assuming the gear is turning,the filament is slipping,
meaning the screws need to be tightened.
Another thing,did you in fact calibrate your extruder?
If not,you can have problems of the extruder over feeding the nozzle,which could cause clogging.
I found to my cost calibration is vital .
I don't know the surface you're printing on,but my aluminium bed is covered with 3M blue painter's tape,50mm wide.
Some people recommend Kapton tape,but that's expensive,and I found it didn't work well with my PLA.
For Hobbyist PLA,I use 50degrees heat for the bed,and 185 for the hot end.
The print not sticking could also be an error in your bed height setting.
I'm a relative newbie myself,but try to offer any help I can.

Thank you for your reply!

after dismantling my hot end, clearing a major blockage, and then reassembling my hot end and properly aligning all of the holes right the way through, I'm printing again!!! It seems that the components of the hot end werent properly aligned, so the 3mm filament holes in each part were ever so slightly off, causing th filament to jam and do all sorts of wierd and wonderful things!

You can also clothespeg a bit of cloth to the filament with a drop or two of vegetable oil. Keeps dust out and makes extrude that much more reliable after a retract or pause. Won't cure badly designed extruders though.