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Topic: Need a bit of help

Hey guys I need a bit of advice. I used my Filastruder to extrude a bit of filament (about 12 ft came out) after waiting for it to empty up I turned it off. Anyways a week after that I decided to extrude some more and after heating for about 10 min some filament started to come out so I decided to wait see if there was more after 45 min about 4 inches came out. So I turn on the motor and it did a horrible sound (Dowel Pin got some bad bends). So I assume I still had plastic I turned off the extruder motor and left it heating for 6 to 7 hours while I was working on my desk. Only 1 inch or so of filament came out and it still stuck I cant remove the auger or anything from the the pipe. What should I do? Has anyone had this problem?

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Re: Need a bit of help

Well, you definitely should not have left it idle for 6 hours. Not sure what gave you that idea.

Sounds like the dowel pin needs to be replaced. Why are you trying to remove anything from the pipe?

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Re: Need a bit of help

No I mean after I saw that it had plastic still left inside (which I think its what is causing the jam) I left it next to me on my desk till it stopped extruding I saw mini bubble come out and then after 6 hours it stopped extruding anything at all. What I want to do is to be able to extrude again but since the auger wont spin I cant do anything.

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Re: Need a bit of help

By the way if I turn it on right now to try and extrude its still jammed and if I just let it heat I don't get any more abs coming out I assume that either something else is causing the jam or there is still abs a bit further in not sure.

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Re: Need a bit of help

-L- wrote:

No I mean after I saw that it had plastic still left inside (which I think its what is causing the jam) I left it next to me on my desk till it stopped extruding I saw mini bubble come out and then after 6 hours it stopped extruding anything at all. What I want to do is to be able to extrude again but since the auger wont spin I cant do anything.

What? Originally you said you left it with heater on, motor off, for 6 hours. This is not a good idea. Your explanations aren't matching up or making much sense, which makes it difficult to offer help.

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Re: Need a bit of help

-L- wrote:

By the way if I turn it on right now to try and extrude its still jammed and if I just let it heat I don't get any more abs coming out I assume that either something else is causing the jam or there is still abs a bit further in not sure.

How can you know it is jammed when the shaft pin has failed? That needs to be replaced first. It fails because something was done to overload the motor.

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Re: Need a bit of help

Sorry I read it and it does sound a bit bad let me do this again. I used it and I thought it had no filament left so I turned it off.  A few days later I decided to do some more extruding but after the 10 usual minutes of heating I saw filament of a few inches sticking out of the nozzle. So I thought it had some filament inside after a bit it stopped so I turned the extruder motor and put some pellets in it made a weird sound so I stopped it. Dowel Pin got all weird so I removed the pellets I added and tried moving the auger by hand it doesn't move. Thinking it had filament stuck causing the jam I build the thing up again turned on the heater and waited to see when abs stopped coming out ( extruder motor is off at this time). 6 to 7 hours passed and abs bubbles and filament still came out it was in my desk next to me during the entire time. After said time the abs finally stopped coming out so i tried again and it still made the sound and when I took it apart and tried moving the auger by hand it is still stuck. I'm sorry if its confusing English is my second language. Anyways its still stuck I can't remove the nozzle to try and remove the abs by hand (I'm not even sure what could be causing the jam) if I turn the heater on and let it sit no abs comes out but its still jammed.

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Re: Need a bit of help

Heating it up won't make it come out. Hot plastic is still very thick, it will not flow out on its own.

10 minutes of heating is not long enough. You need to let it get to temperature, then wait 15 minutes. This will work out to closer to 25-30 minutes. This is probably why the shaft pin started slipping.

Not sure why you can't remove the nozzle. You need two large pairs of pliers, or a pipe wrench and a crescent wrench. The hot end must be at 180C for this to work, and should be removed from the rest of the unit to prevent bending the barrel.

Again, the correct path forward is to replace the shaft pin and go from there. I have run over 500 hours on a shaft pin and not experience a failure. If installed and treated properly, they work properly.

Also, again, never leave it idle for 6 hours, or more than 30 minutes even. You probably have cooked ABS in the hot end that will be at least partially carbonized and a big mess to clean out.

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Re: Need a bit of help

Look I'm sorry if I'm sounding stupid but I'm just looking for advice the dowel pin is in bad shape but it still fits and works(well it did until the second try) Anyways I haven't turned the motor on anymore since then and the first time it was only on for about 20 to 30 seconds the second time for less than 15 second. I think its jammed because I tried using a ratchet on the auger and a pliers on the heater block.

I left it 10 minutes heating but when I saw abs coming out I waited till it finished coming out.
I have 2 extra pins and even if I put another it changes nothing.

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Re: Need a bit of help

I also tried heating it wait 20 to 45 min turning it off and then trying to remove the nozzle as it cools down I still wasn't able( I might have to try using a vise from a friend maybe that will help with the grip).

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Re: Need a bit of help

-L- wrote:

Look I'm sorry if I'm sounding stupid but I'm just looking for advice the dowel pin is in bad shape but it still fits and works(well it did until the second try) Anyways I haven't turned the motor on anymore since then and the first time it was only on for about 20 to 30 seconds the second time for less than 15 second. I think its jammed because I tried using a ratchet on the auger and a pliers on the heater block.

I left it 10 minutes heating but when I saw abs coming out I waited till it finished coming out.
I have 2 extra pins and even if I put another it changes nothing.

It is very difficult to turn the auger by hand. Nearly impossible. This is normal.

If you install another pin, what happens? You said previously it "made a bad sound", which implies it is slipping. Does a new pin slip? How are you installing it? Why didn't you mention this earlier?

It sounds like you've caused some serious damage to the unit, for starters by leaving it idle for 6 hours with the heater on, and also your comments about applying a ratchet and pliers. It wasn't designed to have forces applied to it that way, especially without countermeasures (like applying a counterforce at the ratchet head to keep from bending the auger).

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Re: Need a bit of help

I'm sorry I'm not sure what details were needed to diagnose. It just tries to move the auger and after 10 secs more or less just bends the pin and then it slips. I'm putting the dowel pin on a corner of the socket then placing the motor with the flat side on the dowel pin.

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Re: Need a bit of help

-L- wrote:

I'm sorry I'm not sure what details were needed to diagnose. It just tries to move the auger and after 10 secs more or less just bends the pin and then it slips. I'm putting the dowel pin on a corner of the socket then placing the motor with the flat side on the dowel pin.

This is wrong. You need to wrap the shaft with tape to fill the remaining gap. Just the pin and the motor shaft offers too much clearance.

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Re: Need a bit of help

I suspect that after 6 hours heating, the pellets inside the barrel probably all melted into a glue and solidified the auger in the barrel. I think your only choice is to either burn everything out with a big blowtorch, or soak the whole thing in a vat of acetone for a week or two...

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Re: Need a bit of help

Hey everyone. Hoping someone can help me here. I need a new heating element for the filastruder. After only 6 lbs of pla, the heater doesn't seem to be working. It takes way too long to get past 100c. I have done the auto tune on the PID, and it doesn't seem to do any better. Hits 100 and stops. I have other heate cartridges and they work fine. But they aren't band types.

Where can I get a 12v heater for this? All I'm finding are 110-120v ac bands.

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Re: Need a bit of help

agilliam,
Contact Tim via filastruder.com contact page and he should get you hooked up.

-os3dp