My Solidoodle 3 jams consistently with clear PLA. I finally found a possible solution. Use a regular small house fan (put on low speed) and set the Extruder temperature to 180 and print bed to 80 deg C. This did not permanently work. Now I have a jam that will not unclog.
Be careful that the extruder temperature does not go below 170 because the printer turns off the extruder below 170 even though the printer keeps moving like it is still printing. I cannot find the setting to change this 170 deg limit. The first few layers (15) are very good, but the upper layers are very poor (30+). While the prints are very poor the extruder has not jammed yet. The closer layers to the bed the better the print (therefore I probably need to only cool the PEEK, not the extruder). Blocking the fan from hitting the extruder really helped.
Details: My SD3 did not jam with PLA when I first got the SD3 6 months ago, but it still gave very poor prints in PLA. ABS worked fine. The first jam I got 4 months ago seemed to be in the nozzle (I replaced the whole hot end). Today I switched back to PLA (clear) and I got 5 jams in a row today. It works for 5-10 minutes and then jams each time. As I pried the filament back out, I noticed the PLA had a bulge that was probably in the PEEK. In order to remove the PLA filament I had to put pliers on the PLA filament, where it enters the hot end assembly. Another post mentioned jams in the PEEK because the filament starts to melt too high up in the PEEK. Therefore use a fan. One post mounted a fan on the PEEK. Note: when I tried to follow his post, it took me to the wrong post.
The PID control loop for the extruder has difficulty maintaining the temperature above 170 deg C (if the fan is too close) and therefore turns off the extruder while printing. Therefore I chose 180 deg C.
It would be nice to be able to set the extruder threshold a little lower. Perhaps PLA would work without the fan. I tried it at the lowest temperatures I could get to run (175) and it still jammed. But the filament still seemed very well melted. So setting the extruder to 165 may work better if the extruder threshold would allow the printer to extrude.
