Hello! I’m hopping y’all might have a few ideas of what I can try to fix this issue. I have two Creality CR-10 V3 printers that always clog. Whenever I seem to have them working, they only get through one or two prints before they are completely clogged again. I have two in particular that cant even make it through a print.
I have tried replacing the nozzle, I’ve unblocked them several times, I’ve replaced the entire hot end several times because often the blockage is bad enough that it cant be salvaged. The prints themselves seem to go just fine, and then out of nowhere, it’s printing an inch above the print with no filament coming out, because it’s clogged again.
I use Cura to splice the files. The bed is set to 55 degrees F, and the nozzle is set to 195 degrees F. I use PolyMaker PLA filament. I’ve used brand new out of package filament, so I don’t think it would be dust, etc. The print speed is 30 mm/s. Infill speed is 70 mm/s. Retraction is 7mm at a speed of 45 mm/s.
Here are picture of the prints on these two printers. The dark blue one doesn’t seem to have any issues, while the light blue one gets these scraggly bits before it stops working. Any advice on things I can check on would be fantasic. Thanks in advance!
Welcome to the forum, Glad you found us. I love a good problem to solve.
If I may ask a question, Are you using cura as a slicer and what are the retractions set to currently?
Are you getting the same symptom on both printers or only one?
If you take the Gcode file from one printer and print it on the other does it also fail? in the same location on the print or higher or lower?
do you hear any “clicking” when you are printing? even once in a while click would tell me more information.
After you start the print and the first layer goes down, If you were to reduce the printing speed to 50% would the print complete successfully or would it still end up clogging?
Do you have a print you completed a while ago, (a month, maybe a couple of weeks) that printed successfully? If so would you mind running that print again and see if it’s still successful?
They may sound like random questions but I am looking to be able to divide and break down the problem to develop some next steps and source out the problem.
Hi there, we are glad you decided to come to the forum,
When you are printing are there any odd noises from the extruder? I have had problems in the past where the extruder has been making clicking noises and things like that.
Does it happen at the same point every time or is it a bit random?
On the first couple pictures with the dark blue filament I see some lines that look like under-extrusion. Does your hotend temperature stay pretty stable during the print or does it fluctuate?
After looking in to it, I have a direct drive printer, so I think Blenky may be correct about the retraction. I’m going to give the lower retraction a try and see if that helps the issue.
To answer some of the questions:
-We actually have four of these printers and they seem to clog pretty badly at different points. The other two just happen to be getting through prints with good quality at the moment. They typically clog at different points in the prints though.
-We do hear occasional clicking. If it happens regualrly we usually turn the print off.
-The hot end seems to stay a consistant 195 degrees C.
On direct drive units, I generally use retraction settings between .75 and 1mm. A rare case will sometimes be 1.2. High retractions distance will cause clogging that you are seeing.
When you start to hear clicking on your printer instead of turning it off, Turn the heat up 5 maybe 10 deg in the worst case. I do 5 Deg at a time, let it run for a couple of mins, and if it still clicks, up another 5.
A lot of times printing with PLA will be successful at 195 deg however your print speed has to be slow for this to be successful. The faster you print the higher you may need to up your temp to ensure the filament will melt completely before it reaches the nozzle. Generally speaking, it clicks because the filament is too cold to extrude. It clicks a couple of times, and at the same time the filament is melting the hot end, once it melts enough it extrudes through the nozzle and therefore the clicking stops. Hope that makes sense.
Heat consistency at the hot end is a good thing so right now I would eliminate PID tuning or loose/weak hot-end components. Because the problem is across multiple printers I am looking for common denominators. In this case, It would be the environmental, Filament, Slicer, power source, (please don’t take this the wrong way I am including it to have a complete list), Operator, and HVAC in the local area
Are you using the same brand of filament for all your printers or do you switch it up? I generally like to run my PLA at around 200C so your temp doesn’t seem to unreasonable to me. But I believe you may see a big improvement if you lower your retractions.
If you aren’t seeing any noticeable consistencies in the errors on your print then it doesn’t seem like this would be a huge mechanical error with one of your gantries or something. But it still could be something inside the hotend (although it does seem unlikely to me anyways).
Ok, I replaced the hot ends and nozzles, just to start with a clean slate. I lowered the retraction to .7mm, but then they seemed to print even worse. Here are some pictures of what happened. I’ll try to raise the temp as suggested. Any ideas to this current issue? Thanks for helping me troubleshoot by the way!
Too bad this didn’t work for you! I felt so confident that would be your problem. One way to eliminate the possibility of a retraction related issue is to just completely turn them off, just set it to 0mm in the slicer and try again. The model will most likely look like crap but it should tell you more about if the issue is related to retractions or not.
Past that are you printing faster than the stock speeds or at the stock speeds? Does it happen for every model you print or just these models as well?
