Not printing.. Tried everything :/

I have been having some serious problems with my da vinci 1.0 printer.. Click click click. The extruder does not extruder unless you put pressure on the tension lever, even then it starts clicking within seconds. I cleaned it with some .35mm wire.. came out clean. Took a tiny screwdriver and removed the hot end, attepting to clean it out from the top after soaking in acetone overnight. Still clicks.. didn't help. I also got another extruder thinking it was faulty etc.. after 4 hours of printing same problem. I ran a few different brands including the XYZ stuff. Running repiteer and going from 200-240 and everywhere in between hasn't made a difference. I've also ran the extruder extremely slow, makes no difference. Skips in the exact same pattern. I've owned this for 5 months now and am out of ideas . Also I did extrude while the print bed was out of the way, this was just extruding in the air. But, Prints skip also.

nightmare1944 wrote:

I have been having some serious problems with my da vinci 1.0 printer.. Click click click. The extruder does not extruder unless you put pressure on the tension lever, even then it starts clicking within seconds. I cleaned it with some .35mm wire.. came out clean. Took a tiny screwdriver and removed the hot end, attepting to clean it out from the top after soaking in acetone overnight. Still clicks.. didn't help. I also got another extruder thinking it was faulty etc.. after 4 hours of printing same problem. I ran a few different brands including the XYZ stuff. Running repiteer and going from 200-240 and everywhere in between hasn't made a difference. I've also ran the extruder extremely slow, makes no difference. Skips in the exact same pattern. I've owned this for 5 months now and am out of ideas . Also I did extrude while the print bed was out of the way, this was just extruding in the air. But, Prints skip also.

Your bed is too high or unlevel. Many of the beds are bowed and the middle is higher. Start a sample print. As soon as it starts laying thr purge line turn of the power. Move the head to the center of the bed. Turn each adjusting screw equal movements counter clockwise till you can just slip two pieces of paper between the nozzle and bed. Once you do that dont run the auto adjust, just start a sample print or your own print and see what happens.

nightmare1944 wrote:

carl_m1968 wrote:

Your bed is too high or unlevel. Many of the beds are bowed and the middle is higher. Start a sample print. As soon as it starts laying thr purge line turn of the power. Move the head to the center of the bed. Turn each adjusting screw equal movements counter clockwise till you can just slip two pieces of paper between the nozzle and bed. Once you do that dont run the auto adjust, just start a sample print or your own print and see what happens.

I'm running a modded da Vinci and I was extruding into the air, the bed is well out of the way. And thanks for the quick response

If it wont extrude in air, what temp is the LCD showing at the moment you try to extrude? The heater harness connector above the extruder is known to be cheap and is bad on some machines. It works when the head is in ceryain locations but when moved the connection opens enough thst the heater cannot maintain extrusion temperature.  That would be 190 or greater for ABS. If you are trying to print PLA give up. The 1.0 cant do it without extensive mods or the optional PLA head sold by XYZ for 100 bucks.

nightmare1944 wrote:

carl_m1968 wrote:

If it wont extrude in air, what temp is the LCD showing at the moment you try to extrude? The heater harness connector above the extruder is known to be cheap and is bad on some machines. It works when the head is in ceryain locations but when moved the connection opens enough thst the heater cannot maintain extrusion temperature.  That would be 190 or greater for ABS. If you are trying to print PLA give up. The 1.0 cant do it without extensive mods or the optional PLA head sold by XYZ for 100 bucks.

Its ABS and I had problems awhile back so I soldered it and put some heat shrink tubing. The temperature doesn't go above or below 1 degree at any time including extruding. I've tried temps from 210 all the way up to 240 to try and get it to extrude properly. I've tried xyz filament and hatchbox stuff.

Another user had this similar problem and found the release lever on the idler for loading and unloading was slightly bent and not allowing the spring to pull it fully against the filament. You might take a look at that. It should press against the motor gear with a little force when no filament is loaded.

nightmare1944 wrote:

carl_m1968 wrote:

Another user had this similar problem and found the release lever on the idler for loading and unloading was slightly bent and not allowing the spring to pull it fully against the filament. You might take a look at that. It should press against the motor gear with a little force when no filament is loaded.

It doesn't seem to be bent, the extruder with the idler by itself with the assembly removed does have plenty of grip.. By hand its impossible for met to stop it from feeding. Even with pliers it's very difficult. . Seems to also bite into the filament pretty bad, when taken apart and extruding. Leaving pretty deep bumps on the filament itself.

It should bite in to like that. Well I am clueless. Maybe somebody else might have ideas. I covered everything I know of and would suspect.

Make sure you are not chewing up the filament. There should be no shards of filament when extruding. When you try to extrude without the filament in the extruder does it still click? Take apart the extruder and look at the gear and idler, make sure they are aligned next to each other. Any clicking I ever had was from the filament being too tight against the gear and idler. Your stepper motor could be shot but I doubt it because they never go.