I’m new to 3d printing and just got the ender 3v2 at the end of December. I was able to print but the test cube and test cat sculpture kept coming out wavy. I mean each layer seemed to be offset from one another.
I ended up buying the spring upgrade for the bed, the filament feeder upgrade and a new hotend assembly. I bought the new hotend assembly as it turns out I had partly crushed the brass nozzle as I had it hit the bed several times from incorrect levels. I couldn’t remove the nozzle after striping it so I bought the replacement.
now I can’t get it to extrude filament after replacing the hotend.
so my question is how I can tell if the hotend or the filament feeder is the problem?
Diagnosis 1- the motor knob does spin with the turn wheel is on it so it works but I can’t completely tell if the teeth are grabbing the wheel and gear.
Diagnosis 2 - the hotend replacement does heat up and is indicated as such on the display. I have the bowden tube tight in the hotend. is there some trick to making sure it’s locked in place in the hotend? does it have it a dead center point.
Diagnosis 3 - it’s motherboard v4.2.2 and firmware 1.0.2 fyi.
I am trying to be patient with it. I had no idea this was such a fiddly process. I admit I kind of bought on it a whim and didn’t read enough of the user hassles. at this point I almost wish I bought a less capable machine that just worked albeit with a smaller output profile.
I am determined to get this working smoothly. its just a bit frustrating when I seem to get one thing working and something else doesn’t seem to work.
thank you for any advice you can give.
oh and I do have the needle cleaning set but didn’t seem to be clogged so im not sure if it’s feeding at all.
Ah, welcome to the 3d Printing World, or maybe down the rabbit hole.
My hobby is fixing/modding then fixing again my printer and sometimes if I get bored, I’ll actually print something…
Either way, you could unhook your bowden tube from either the extruder or the hotend, and run a print, see if the filament is feeding through the extruder correctly. if it’s not, look for a loose or disconnected wire(s) to it.
If it’s the hotend, bring it up to temp, see if you can manually extrude through it, or via the LCD extrude through. If it’s not extruding, it’s probably a clog, if not at the actual nozzle, then it’ll be at the bottom of the bowden. Tube not seated all the way, or worked itself back out is a culprit. Hot, molten filament will fill in around that area, but it is not hot enough to keep it liquid, so next time you go to print - clog. My friend just had his first of this this morning, in fact.
I sometimes try to help add a bit of pressure by grabbing the filament right before the extruder with a pair of pliers, help push it in, see if you can force past it a bit, but not too hard. After that, hotend teardown.
Everyone goes through this when starting out and occasionally later on. Once you get it tweaked and working well it will screw up from time to time. Experience will tell you the problem and how to fix it.
Check out this video, it shows how to fix the hot end so that leaks and degraded tubing problems as well as other things don’t happen. It may not be your problem but it does work and generally fixes hot end problems, plug tips not withstanding. I have not had any of the usual hot end problems since doing this. You will need to get some Capricorn tubing to do this.
It is possible that the extruder tension is not set high enough to force filament though. Mobi’s answers should tell you that. If the extrude works and the tip is hot then it may be a clogged nozzle, the fix in the video usually stops them.
I was able to tighten the sprocket and cog wheel on the extruder. it did let me grab the filament and pull it through. however it didn’t go through the hotend.
it looks like that will be my next area of investigation. I’ll check out the video and look into it.
thanks!
oh and by clicking do you mean backing out? it was pulling forward then backing out a bit. I didn’t check on that after my tightening however.
A clicking extruder can be several things but mainly it means the filament is not feeding so it skips in the extruder making the dreaded clicking noise.
Try changing the tip or clean out the current tip and see if it feeds. You can just pull the boden tube out of the extruder and see if it feeding out of the extruder. If it is then the extruder is probably OK and the problem is further along. If the extruder is pushing filament then something is blocking it usually a blocked tip. It can also be blocked inside the hot end if the liquid filament leaked out between the boden tube and the heat break. If you are still using the white tube that came with the printer check to see if the hotend end is still OK it can be burned and then it will cause problems.
K, so stock bowden tunes can melt a bit at end. Make sure the tube is cut straight across and not on angle. That can allow hot filament to gather. Make sure the tube isn’t melted a bit either while you are there.
3rd, Make sure your hot end fan is always on. My V2 board fried and it shut off the hot end fan after a few minutes.
4, Make sure your feed rate is accurate. If you’ve upgraded the extractor your ratio may be off and it’s usually off a bit from factory. Google “feet rate” and “teaching tech” for some good info.
5 Make sure your hotend is in the range of the filament. Everyone has their own preference, mine is 195c.
6 Make sure the feedrate ratio is 100 or equivalent in your slicer. The video mentions a website that walks you through tuning your Machine a step at a time.
HI @earlofpreston Welcome to the forum, Glad to see you here. I got a Coke around here somewhere help yourself.
I A lot of troubleshooting every day I use a lot of the divide and concur mentality. If your not sure if its extruder or Hot end test each one separately. Like the others have mentioned earlier if you are getting heat on the hot end and the extruder is moving you are half way there.
Pull the bowden off the extruder and feed filament into it (you will have to warm the nozzle for the extruder to function, it will not extruder unless its over 180) Give the filament a little resistance with your fingers on the inbound side and make sure the extruder will pull it from your fingers. For the most part this will eliminate slipping in the extruder as being the issue.
Next part is just use filament and push it manually into the hot end and see if when its at printing temp you can easily push filament through the Bowden tube with your fingers and have a nice round extrusion out the other end. then that will tell you the hot end is not clogged.
One of these 2 will give you an issue, either the extruder wont push or the hot end wont produce a nice round even filament from the nozzle.
I had a extruder problem once, sounding like I have been doing this for years and it would extrude while pushing filament though but still had a hot end problem. The end of the bowden tube had burned a bit so it was no longer square to the heat break and that allowed melted filament to squeeze out some, not enough to flood but it interfered with the extrusion IE: it would extrude some but not properly.
That is when I used the Luke Hatfield trick (in the video) with Capricorn tube and all has been well since. All rainbows and unicorns.
P.S.
There are several methods for cleaning out a plugged tip IE: the Atomic pull etc. (see YouTube) but I prefer a quicker more brutal method. Remove tip, remove jammed plastic by drilling out the inside cavity with a #72 drill bit (???), being careful not to damage the tips interior walls…much, then heat it with a torch and run a cleaning wire through. Reinstall and your good to go.
I had to take a break before diving back in. I’m recharged and tried again.
I still had the no extrusion problem. I unhooked the fan and tried the needle. I got a small blob out but still no go (with preheat to 200).
I was about to stop but decided to take the nozzle off. I was able to feed the filament all the way. so it looks like my nozzle is the issue so I tried another but still no luck.
my tube was originally choppy at the end so I recut it but same issue.
so it seems my feeding is OK and I can push through the hot end without a nozzle. I watched the video and it looks like my tube isn’t going all the way down.
is there an easy way to move the washer/nut on the tube down and up? ive tried a wrench and some needle nose pliers but it was tough… I think I need to give a little more tube to get flush with the hotend bottom.
I think I’ll also order some bowden tube. what’s this Capricorn stuff? is that available on creality or is that just generic? (edit looks like it’s the blue tube I got with one of my upgrade kits)
thanks again for all your help and encouragement. I feel closer now.
The fitting for the bowden tube is a pneumatic fitting. for reference:
The white top part (not always white) presses in toward the metal body releasing the tube from the fitting. It does not need to be compressed to insert it into the fitting. There usually is a collet to ‘lock’ it. This can be removed.
Capricorn is a brand name, they make very tight tolerence tube. This is good because it prevents the filament moving around in side the tube and allows for more precision. The flip side it it can jam more easily. If you buy Capricorn tube the fittings are best changed too the Capricorn tube is a bit bigger than most and very slippery.
It makes a small difference you may not notice at this point.
Switching to Capricorn tube and doing the Hotend trick as mentioned in the video above will generally fix most hotend problems. Make sure the tube is cut square at the end or else you will have problems and the hotend MUST be reassemble properly or… you don’t want to find out what will happen.
I have to say, please forgive my ridiculous spelling in the last post, Must have had a couple of wobbly pops before I posted that… Brutal
Just another thought as i read through the thread again, Have you checked the extruder, Been hearing of a couple of extruder arms breaking and not being able to solid feed. Just a thought to double check as we all go down this rabbit hole.
Anytime you need help we are here. Whenever you are installing new parts, Especially if you are newish to 3D printing Always look for an install video before you even get your new parts. Just preps you for what you are in for. Like a dry run install. I usually look for 2 or 3 vids of the same parts. (the University of YouTube, I should have my Doctorate by now).
I will generally never rely on just one. Everyone does it a bit differently and different printers will post different problems. The biggest problem is trying to weed out the wrong way over the right way. In most cases, if you see 2 or 3 the most common process is right.
thanks I’m sure I’ll dig up some when the drive comes in. I will say the one video I followed to setup the printer in the first place was great.
I also bought the newer auto level kit and the laser engraver. I haven’t used these yet as I’ve been trying to just get it going smoothly in the first place.
I just wish I knew how complex it was before I started this journey :d
I’m sure I’ll dig up some when the drive comes in. I will say the one video I followed to setup the printer in the first place was great.