Yes, that's nylon trimmer line. It doesn't soften until you get way up to 230C, so it's perfect for cleaning out PLA at around 160C I found a 2ft. length of it laying in my lawn one day. Probably flew off a neighbors trimmer. So, I picked it up and used it to remove my clog. Lucky me. Although I think it's pretty cheap at most stores.by loughkb - General Mendel Topics
Not too long ago, 4 months, I built a reprap. In the month previous, I spent LOTS of time playing with every free CAD/Modeling program I could get my hands on. FreeCAD seemed the best in the CAD catagory, but boy oh boy, what a learning curve! CAD has so many rules to follow like constraints etc. It took me an hour to design a simple part with a couple of holes for screws. I played wiby loughkb - 3D Design tools
I've never actually disassembled mine. There are many references on the web though. It looks a bit complicated. Drive to the store and pick up some nylon, or find a neighbor with a trimmer and ask for a foot of line. You'll save yourself some trouble...by loughkb - General Mendel Topics
You can tear the whole thing down if you want to work that hard. I took the hot end off the extruder, set it on a dinner plate and used pronterface to set it to 170C. Once warm, I pushed some nylon trimmer line in and twisted it then pulled it out. It came out covered in PLA. I'd cut off the coated end and do it again. Eventually, the glob pictured in my bid came out with it. Let it cool, pby loughkb - General Mendel Topics
I had a similar issue. I could start a print, but within the first layer or second, extrusion would stop and I could hear the hobbed bolt "ticking" as it tried to push filament through. I straightened a bit of spring wire and used it to push up into the nozzle and clear it, but it would jam again shortly after I started printing. What I had, was a small ball of junk down in the nozzle. Itby loughkb - General Mendel Topics
The reason your fans are not running, or running slowly, is you have them wired in parallel with a 6.8ohm resister that is your heater. Electricity likes to take the path of least resistance, so most of the available power is being used by the heater, leaving very little current for the fans. That being said, hooking the fans up directly to the power supply will have them running full speed alby loughkb - Mechanics
Thought of something else. If you're using the latest version of Slic3e r to create G-code. I've seen what I think is a bug in Slic3r. While printing, I noticed that the extruder would suddenly run at half the speed it should be at based on the movement speed of the nozzle. This caused beading since not enough plastic was coming out. I've seen this happen on different models, so I'm pretty sby loughkb - General Mendel Topics
Reread your other posts, about it starting out ok then reducing to droplets. I had exactly the same symptom recently. In my case, it was debris in the nozzle, video with pics here: I removed the debris from the top with nylon trimmer line while the nozzle was at 170C. The only other thing I can think, would be that you have an electrical problem and the heat is turning off while you're priby loughkb - General Mendel Topics
I think you said your nozzle was 1mm from the bed? Way to high. Rule of thumb, Nozzle should be one half it's diameter from the surface. So, if you have a .5mm (that's point five) nozzle, you want only .25 clearance to the bed. You want the nozzle to deposit and very slightly press the filament onto the surface as it moves. Otheriwise, it will just sort of drag along behind. Now, if youby loughkb - General Mendel Topics
I had similar results from cheap filament. Some Chinese suppliers don't care too much about quality. I have some clear I bought that started to ooze from the nozzle all the way down at 130C and was like liquid at 180. Managed to print with it at 170, but it was a bit messy. With filament, you get what you pay for. Was this cheap stuff?by loughkb - General Mendel Topics
Use the same diligence you used to calibrate your extruder in checking the calibration of X, Y, and especially Z movement. I think your Z travel is a little short. Also, I have found that if I got slightly higher than my measured filament diameter, I avoid this kind of excess plastic. So, if you measure a filament diameter range of 2.7-2.78, try printing at 2.82. So with your measurementby loughkb - General Mendel Topics
I built an iteration 2 prusa and love it. There are a few well known problems with the design and I've solved most of them. One solution that proved particularly valuable to me, was supports for the ends of the Z threaded rods, taking the weight off the coupling bits and Z motors. I've been printing for over a month without the need to adjust the Z end-stop or level the bed. My models areby loughkb - General Mendel Topics
Don't bother. I built a two stage neoprene seal yesterday and set it all up. I had a completely airtight seal at the top of the feed tube and verified that I was airtight at the nozzle end. It made no difference in ooze. Further investigation lead me to discover that the molten plastic is not liquid enough for surface tension to come into play. Therefore, it's much like trying to suspend sby loughkb - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Hello Everyone. I have an idea that I believe will completely eliminate ooze, and also allow for FAR more precise control of extrusion. It is very simple and should be easy to implement on nearly all extruder and hot end designs. The biggest reason that retraction does not perfectly stop the ooze of material out of the nozzle, is that retraction does not create suction. Air simply isby loughkb - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Just a small dimensional change to part of the model.. Scaled it a bit up in blender, by 1mm. I'm no stranger to modeling in blender for 3D printing. There were no errors in the model.by loughkb - Slic3r
Hello, Using the most recent beta of slic3r and I think I have found a bug. I was slicing a small model I did, and the first print was pretty good. Made some changes and resliced, and noticed on the next print that during the outtermost perimeter, that the extruder was running at something less than 1/4th the speed it should, causing the extruded filament to break up into little blobs. Duby loughkb - Slic3r
Hello, I have a prusa mendel I2 and prefer to use Slic3r since it seems to produce the best consistent results with my machine and Marlin firmware. I have used Cura once or twice and find myself envious of one particular behavior of Cura. The startup. Slic3r produces G-code that begins an actual print, (after heating is done), by homing Z and then moving out to the first part of the prby loughkb - Slic3r