Constant jamming (Page 1 of 2)

Hey Dude,
I've propped the material lid about halfway and have had no problem with hour+ prints. I feel the ABS gets too soft from the heat of the hot end and thus the spur gear slips. I feel it's also an issue with the number of bends as it comes from hopper to feeder.

It usually jams for me in about hour 3 of a 4 hour print.  Ive tried the lid open etc.  Mine kinks inside the extruder chamber I think the diecast extruder is getting too hot and makes the filament more likely to kink.  I might try adding another fan instead  of that plastic shield. Heres what it looks like.

Well there is the problem!! Great photo, entire unit is getting to hot filament gets to warm and deforms, the motor can't push the filament at that angle and the servo motor starts to skip. 
Here is what I would do to fix it.

1 - Replace the fan way to small.
2 - Take the extruder to my friends dads welding shop and get that area filled up where the filament
       bents in, then sand or grind it smooth.

Our Makergear M2 extruder has a more straight through design, no area for the filament to bend into it can only go straight down. Not sure what solidoodle was thinking with that design.

Looks like an easy fix anyway.

Unsuccessful things I have tried to fix the filament jamming on the press:

Removed the plastic shield
While taking apart the extruder over and over, I stopped replacing the plastic cover.  At the very least, it allows you to see the wheel spinning, or not, and any build up of shredded filament dust.

Loosened the set screw
I started by tightening the extruder set screw, but that actually made the grinding of the filament worse.  So counter-intuitively, I loosened the set screw.  Tightening it only just enough that the D shaft catches the screw while turning, but loose enough that I could slide it onto the shaft.  This allows the wheel to move forward / backward as needed to match the spring and filament placement.  One issue with leaving the set screw so loose is that it will vibrate itself too loose.  I prevented this with a bit of electrical tape wrapped around the wheel covering the screw so it would stay in place.

After leaving the set screw loose, I had lots of clicking and clunking during the first layer, but also a lot less grinding.  Easily tripled my success rate of no filament grinding during the first layer.    Layers 2 and beyond extruded normally... most of the time.  Not a perfect solution.

So for the past couple days, I'd been having all the same problems as you all. And I will probably continue to have them until EVERY little gremlin is worked out. But this is what I discovered about the stock filament that the Press ships with:

It's terrible.

It's too brittle so the spur gear grinds into it rather than pulling it through. I've spent hundreds of hours printing and screwing around with a variety of printers and, in my experience, good/higher quality/pure-ish ABS doesn't smell like the Press ABS does when it's extruded. There's some dilutant in the formula or something. It also looks like it's melting too high up in the extruder nozzle causing back pressure that no extruder drive can overcome.

I Amazon Prime'd myself some high quality ABS filament and BOOM. Lots of the gremlins that I previously had are gone gone gone. Completely gone. It's sort of ridiculous actually. I would have gladly paid a premium to have a premium filament that I know is of high quality.

So this isn't meant as an advertisement for SainSmart at all but after doing some research, it appears that they make one of the highest quality filaments available. I purchased the one called SainSmart 1.75mm ABS Filament 1kg/2.2lb for 3D Printers.

I highly recommend making a similar purchase. Actually, it looks like it's on super sale right now too.

I've also heard and read great things about the MakerBot filament. If you're lucky enough to live in an area where there is a retail store, they generally only stock PLA but sometimes they have some ABS available.

BONUS INFO: If you buy the SainSmart ABS, the filament comes on a heavy cardboard reel with plastic inserts in the middle. If you remove the plastic inserts (carefully) and then reglue- I used hot glue- the round sides in place, the reel just barely fits over the Press' filament feed nozzle thing in the hinged top.

Well, you bought PLA and without further tinkering, I don't think the Press extruder drive will handle PLA all that well. PLA is a completely different type of plastic than ABS with much different structural properties. PLA is more brittle and melts at a lower temperature. It also does not have the warping problems that ABS prints are known for.

The Press extruder drive has that spring loaded lever arm which seems to basically be pressing into the drive spur wayyyy too hard for PLA to handle. I tried to run some really high quality PLA through the Press last night and it was a non-start. Almost instantaneously the drive spur ate into the filament and extrusion ceased. I think this problem can be resolved with a slightly less stiff spring but that's another story.

I for some reason cannot post links but here is the link-ish to the ABS that I purchased: www[dot]amazon[dot]com/gp/product/B00AA5AH62/

Its really good stuff you bought.  Ive probably run 15 rolls of the stuff on my other printers with perfect prints.

Hardcore mod! Hopeful for a long part with the door/lid closed!

Something I noticed on mine was most of the "grinding" noise was not coming from the extruder. I put a dot on the face of the gear with a Sharpie pen so I could see exactly what was happening. When the noise occurred it did not show slipping on the gear. It turned out the bed was the noise maker. It is constantly moving up and down to correct for not being level. The bed is cantilevered off two rods behind the plastic panel. At the top there is going to be a lot of use since every print covers this area. I don't know if they didn't put enough grease on the rods or if it wore away, but adding grease to them eliminated most of the noise.

In my experience Solidoodle filament is of lower diameter than 1.75 (1.66 or so) with relatively poor tolerance. But your starter filament sat for a long time in a shipping container without dessicant. You can hardly expect it to be "good." I highly recommend octave filaments.

Anyone figure anything out yet.  I hate to say it but i am still jamming on EVERY print.  I have a perfect Z height running rep host....new tried and true filament........every time the filament kinks in the opening right before entering the nozzle.  It takes me two seconds to unclog then its going again.   Its driving me crazy!

I had issues with the z-offset.  I ran the soliprint z-offset calibration.  Prints a good line.  I am using Repetier 85 (Press) and if you look in the Slic3R settings, under layers and perimeters, you will see its trying to print at 3.5 on the first layer.  Change back to .3 for 1st layer height.  Also under advanced, print settings, set 1st layer extrusion value from 200% back to ZERO.   This may give a good line in Soliprint, but not in Repetier.  This causes it to print too much filament on first layer, causing the filament to get torn up and fail to extrude.  Why?  Cause its too close to the bed and  trying to push too much plastic on first layer and there is no place for it to go....  Try it, you will like it.  No more filament failing to feed problems at all.