Last night I finally found the root cause of the filament feed issues.

When I fitted the Hobb-Goblin, I fitted it too far forward -- it wasn't aligned with the PTFE tube. So when it was feeding filament, it was constantly trying to push it forward out of the front of the extruder.

I've also found the problem with the Chinese filament: when it was spooled, it was tangled in several places. I've unwound a few (tens of) metres, untangled it, and rewound it properly. Now my SD is feeding filament correctly!

Oh well. At least I have a few extra rolls of filament now... and it's nice to have something other than black to play with. The only problem I've got now is that models are peeling at the corners. Printing a raft around them is helping a little, but not as much as I'd have hoped.

Glad to hear you've fixed up the extruder. Alignment is pretty critical, I've been mucking around with a design based on the lawsy extruder, but trying to get the geometry just right for this hobb-goblin and a 625 bearing... When it's well aligned, and the tube to the extruder comes nice and close to the gear, it's really easy to load and smooth to feed.

A couple of tips while we're here for the ABS corner lifting:
* Design round corners into the model
* Keep using a brim on larger objects, it does help
* Glass plate + hairspray + hot bed - if you keep having trouble getting things to stay stuck to the hairspray, try measuring the actual top surface temperature of the bed: it may be lower than reported, in which case it needs to be bumped up a bit further. Many people upgrade to a more powerful bed to make this a bit quicker...
* Enclose the printer - keeping the ambient temperatures up and preventing draughts is beneficial

When I fitted the Hobb-Goblin, I fitted it too far forward -- it wasn't aligned with the PTFE tube. So when it was feeding filament, it was constantly trying to push it forward out of the front of the extruder.

I've also found the problem with the Chinese filament: when it was spooled, it was tangled in several places. I've unwound a few (tens of) metres, untangled it, and rewound it properly. Now my SD is feeding filament correctly!

Oh well. At least I have a few extra rolls of filament now... and it's nice to have something other than black to play with. The only problem I've got now is that models are peeling at the corners. Printing a raft around them is helping a little, but not as much as I'd have hoped.

350C is WAY too much - Thermistors will be damaged over 300C. I set mine at 295C after doing a PID tune to stabilize temps.

if you want to go 300C or more you will need to install a thermocouple setup

Fair point. I've set it to 295C and reflashed.

if you want to go 300C or more you will need to install a thermocouple setup

• Found that the feed hob was perfectly in line with the PTFE feed tube, but the bearing was too far back. This caused the filament to occasionally push forward, bend the PTFE tube, jam and curl up (wrecking the PTFE in the process). Moved one of the washers to the back (it's now 3 back/1 front instead of 2 back/2 front) to move the bearing further forward.

• Removed the Chinese black filament and cleared out the remains by cranking the extruder to 285C and feeding E3D Everyday grey ABS through. Had a few more jams, but a mix of "cold pull" and alternating feed/retract cycles eventually cleared it.

• Checked the firmware settings. Thermistor settings were fine, but MAXTEMP was right on the line; I had it at 290C as the thermistor is rated to 295C. This caused a few MAXTEMP trips during the extruder clean-up. I've bumped this up to 350C. I probably need to turn it down a bit, suggestions welcome!

I've successfully printed two small test models and had no issues with the E3D Everyday grey ABS at 240C. Next up is to try the E3D Everyday Black, then see about printing off the Lawsy carriage parts and some spare extruder parts... at the very least I need to make a spare filament guide.

Folks, don't use Chinese filament. It'll clog your extruder. If you're really unlucky (like me), it'll completely write off your extruder...

Cheers,
Phil.

I have an all metal hot end (E3D clone), and I run ABS at about 220°C  Depending on the roll and brand, I've gone as low as 215° and as high as 225°.  The only thing that wouldn't extrude at those temps and required me to kick it up to 250°C+ was the Affinia branded filament.

With the original hot end setup (MG Plus with the thermistor taped outside), I used to run ABS at 195°, then when I got a proper heater block and installed the thermistor inside it, the temps went up to 210°-215°.

The E3D type all metal hot ends tend to work at higher temps primarily because they don't have any pockets of molten plastic like the the MG does, so they need the plastic at higher temps to keep it flowing.

just goes to show that each type of hotend is going to run the same plastics at different temps - you have a clone, I have the real deal - temps are different.

and yes, the stock SD hotend did run things much cooler - mine was running ABS at 185-190...same spools that I now run at 235C (+/-)...

With the original hot end setup (MG Plus with the thermistor taped outside), I used to run ABS at 195°, then when I got a proper heater block and installed the thermistor inside it, the temps went up to 210°-215°.

The E3D type all metal hot ends tend to work at higher temps primarily because they don't have any pockets of molten plastic like the the MG does, so they need the plastic at higher temps to keep it flowing.

PLA is about 215C - give or take a degree or 2 depending on the specific roll.

I've tried probably 20-25 different brands of ABS (I don't use PLA), and the only brand of ABS I ever came up on that needed 250°C was from Affinia.  That particular stuff is made specifically for the Affinia printers which extrude somewhere between 250°-260°C.

What brand of filament are you using?

Just checked the temperature with a thermocouple and repeated the PID tuning.

I started out with:
echo:   M301 P37.55 I4.15 D84.89

New PIDs are:
ok p:33.92 i:5.45 d:52.79 c:1.00

With a setting of 250C, I'm getting 235C at the hottest point on the heater block. So it's probably fair to say my temps are a bit low, and the extruder kept jamming.

I had to increase the temperature in Pronterface to 280C (262C measured) before the filament stopped jamming. Does this seem too high for ABS?

260 is not uncommon for ABS.. Keep in mind that 260 is what you are printing at but you have to set to 280 to get that setting due to a 25 degree offset that may or may not be able to be tweaked out.

I started out with:
echo:   M301 P37.55 I4.15 D84.89

New PIDs are:
ok p:33.92 i:5.45 d:52.79 c:1.00

With a setting of 250C, I'm getting 235C at the hottest point on the heater block. So it's probably fair to say my temps are a bit low, and the extruder kept jamming.

I had to increase the temperature in Pronterface to 280C (262C measured) before the filament stopped jamming. Does this seem too high for ABS?

Could be that you used a higher temp material like ABS and then went to a lower temp material like PLA without liading the lower temp at the higher temp. When going from a high temp to a low temp you need to load the lower temp at the higher temp then several hundred mm at the higher temp to purge all the high temp material. Otherwise you could have small bits of the high temp left in the extrusion path that won't melt fully or at all at the lower temp and cause clogs. This is one reason I like dual extruder systemd. I use one extruder only for low temps and the other only for high temps.

Nope. The E3Dv6 extruder has only ever been used with ABS.

wardjr wrote:

And I assume your heat chart in RH is showing constant temps. The filament may or may not be the issue.  When in doubt toss it out.
I have never clogged an E3d, you can cook ABS out by turning up the heat to 280 or so.

Wow, that worked well! Took it up to 280 and hit extrude and the nozzle cleared right up!

Which begs the question, why is it clogging at lower temperatures?
I might try it at 250 or so and see if that cheers it up a bit.

Thanks,
Phil.

Could be that you used a higher temp material like ABS and then went to a lower temp material like PLA without liading the lower temp at the higher temp. When going from a high temp to a low temp you need to load the lower temp at the higher temp then several hundred mm at the higher temp to purge all the high temp material. Otherwise you could have small bits of the high temp left in the extrusion path that won't melt fully or at all at the lower temp and cause clogs. This is one reason I like dual extruder systemd. I use one extruder only for low temps and the other only for high temps.