Direct Drive no longer feeding

Hi I have an Ender 5 + upgraded last year to the direct drive.
Woke this morning to several hours of air printing…

Printer has been printing great and pretty much non-stop for a few weeks now. I’ve had the direct drive for almost a year and its been working well. The drive does not seem to be feeding properly. I removed the filament, tried feeding it and it seems to be slipping…sometimes its catching but sometimes nothing feeds.
Manually extruded a bit with back pressure on filament . Any thoughts?

Not a clog…flows well with manual pressure…

My thought is a stripped gear? Its been working so well could some part have come loose?
thanks
Kris

I just saw a video that might provide you with some diagnostic steps

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If you have been printing very heavily there might be some crud in the extruder that needs cleaned out. Extruders need basic cleaning and maintenance.

It does sound like heat creep or a tension issue but could be junk in the extruder.

If you pull back back the tensioning arm with the extruder at printing temperature are you able to manually push the filament through and see it extrude? If not it sounds like a clog to me…

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Sorry been away a bit…It will feed if i add a little pressure to the filament as its loading but it wont otherwise…I fed through about a foot of cleaning filament as well to get any small bits…fed easily and came out clean after a little bit…I am gonna watch that video again on tension and see if perhaps thats it…i suppose with a lot of printing it could loosen?

Hmmmm that sounds like the gear isn’t gripping the filament very well. Maybe adjust the tensioning arm?

If there is a spring that holds the arm tight against the filament it might be getting weaker.