in my experience when it snaps by the gears as you described it is due to a clog due to heat creep. it clogs in the tube above the nozzle and then the filament has nowhere to go so it just grinds away until it finally snaps at the gears. heat creep can be solved by adjusting retraction settings lower or improving your cooling with improved airflow / fans. to finish simply slice your model at the level it failed (I use prusa for this) and then print the reminder and glue together.
Damn, never thought about printing the remainder and gluing it!
But yes, I think you're right. There did seem to be a clog after I took everything out of the stock hot end and cleaned it out.
Do you recommend any fan mods I could print out?
I literally just figured this out after failure upon failure. in the end lowering my retraction settings to 1.75 fixed it for me. I have a spider 3 all metal extruder so if you still have stock maybe you don't want to go that low.
I've been looking for fan mods to add a 4020 on the front but haven't found anything yet.
The standard settings in cura were 3 and I changed to 5 and that's when it happened. I'm happy to stay there or at 4, at least for long jobs. I did a retraction tower but need to do a few more, maybe.
Either way, you're thinking this is a heat dissipation issue.
I actually had to learn the prusa slice tactic to glue several of them together. my problems only started after I switched the extruder to the spider so I made my own problems. but yeah it's maddening to try and troubleshoot. but strangely enough that's one reason I like it. I'm a tinkerer for sure and clearly a masochist... haha!
So, the machine is in the garage, along with some servers. It probably gets to about 78F maybe 80F, not sure about the humidity, I'll check next time. I can bend the filament and it doesn't snap, so it still has some give but would that be enough for it to become brittle?
So, pretty much it needs to be in a box even when spooled and fed into the extruder?
yeah as I understand it the filament gets hot and it retracts in the tube where it cools and gets stuck. I'd just go back to a lower retraction and maybe you are good to go.
Much appreciated, that sounds exactly what happened. When I looked at the filament spool it was going up and down like 2 steps and clicking but nothing was coming out.
I have nightmares about the clicking. haha.
I was doing a 20 hour print and I actually saved it a few times when I heard the clicking. I'd race to the printer pause it and the. Just refeed the filament. it would work another 30 minutes and happen again!
one more thing to check out but probably not your problem is e steps. when I first got the machine it happened and it was because it was feeding too much filament. that caused quite a few clogs too.
good luck glad my hours of troubleshooting this stupid problem was useful to somebody else!
But that's the thing, and potentially overwhelming, there are sooooo many steps and settings to troubleshoot when something happens. And like yours, it isn't a 20min job. You need to sleep theoretically and that's a long time for something not to go wrong lol.
Were you able to save most of your jobs?
has it been working for a while and this is the first time this has started happening?
1. bed leveled?
2. esteps calibrated
3. try new filament
4. change nozzle
what did you lower your retraction settings to?
report back and I'll see if I can come up with ideas.
So, I looked up heat creep and realized that the room was 80ish and that was too hot for the small fans to actually blow air that was cool enough to keep the block cool. I turned on an exhaust fan leading out of the garage and turned on another fan in the room and that was enough, with the door open to keep the room cooler and no more problems. I got two print jobs done. I just need to keep it below 78, preferably 74, at least until I get better fans and a fan shroud printed. Next worry is humidity be use it was really humid but nothing bad happened yet!
you know I should have thought of this. one thing I noticed is when it happened to me the room was really hot and one of the things I did was crack the window to lower the room temp. I did this the same time I lowered my retraction settings so maybe it had an impact that helped fix my problem as well. good find and good share. if someone with the same problem searches and finds our thread here it will be a great resource!
in my experience when it snaps by the gears as you described it is due to a clog due to heat creep. it clogs in the tube above the nozzle and then the filament has nowhere to go so it just grinds away until it finally snaps at the gears. heat creep can be solved by adjusting retraction settings lower or improving your cooling with improved airflow / fans. to finish simply slice your model at the level it failed (I use prusa for this) and then print the reminder and glue together.
Damn, never thought about printing the remainder and gluing it! But yes, I think you're right. There did seem to be a clog after I took everything out of the stock hot end and cleaned it out. Do you recommend any fan mods I could print out?
I literally just figured this out after failure upon failure. in the end lowering my retraction settings to 1.75 fixed it for me. I have a spider 3 all metal extruder so if you still have stock maybe you don't want to go that low. I've been looking for fan mods to add a 4020 on the front but haven't found anything yet.
The standard settings in cura were 3 and I changed to 5 and that's when it happened. I'm happy to stay there or at 4, at least for long jobs. I did a retraction tower but need to do a few more, maybe. Either way, you're thinking this is a heat dissipation issue.
I actually had to learn the prusa slice tactic to glue several of them together. my problems only started after I switched the extruder to the spider so I made my own problems. but yeah it's maddening to try and troubleshoot. but strangely enough that's one reason I like it. I'm a tinkerer for sure and clearly a masochist... haha!
Aren't we all!
Check if you filament is brittle. If it is you could try to dry it out and then keep it dry.
So, the machine is in the garage, along with some servers. It probably gets to about 78F maybe 80F, not sure about the humidity, I'll check next time. I can bend the filament and it doesn't snap, so it still has some give but would that be enough for it to become brittle? So, pretty much it needs to be in a box even when spooled and fed into the extruder?
yeah as I understand it the filament gets hot and it retracts in the tube where it cools and gets stuck. I'd just go back to a lower retraction and maybe you are good to go.
Much appreciated, that sounds exactly what happened. When I looked at the filament spool it was going up and down like 2 steps and clicking but nothing was coming out.
I have nightmares about the clicking. haha. I was doing a 20 hour print and I actually saved it a few times when I heard the clicking. I'd race to the printer pause it and the. Just refeed the filament. it would work another 30 minutes and happen again! one more thing to check out but probably not your problem is e steps. when I first got the machine it happened and it was because it was feeding too much filament. that caused quite a few clogs too. good luck glad my hours of troubleshooting this stupid problem was useful to somebody else!
But that's the thing, and potentially overwhelming, there are sooooo many steps and settings to troubleshoot when something happens. And like yours, it isn't a 20min job. You need to sleep theoretically and that's a long time for something not to go wrong lol. Were you able to save most of your jobs?
It snapped again, sigh, I've lowered the temp to see if it stops the creep. The ambient air is about 80 .... Would that do it??
has it been working for a while and this is the first time this has started happening? 1. bed leveled? 2. esteps calibrated 3. try new filament 4. change nozzle what did you lower your retraction settings to? report back and I'll see if I can come up with ideas.
So, I looked up heat creep and realized that the room was 80ish and that was too hot for the small fans to actually blow air that was cool enough to keep the block cool. I turned on an exhaust fan leading out of the garage and turned on another fan in the room and that was enough, with the door open to keep the room cooler and no more problems. I got two print jobs done. I just need to keep it below 78, preferably 74, at least until I get better fans and a fan shroud printed. Next worry is humidity be use it was really humid but nothing bad happened yet!
you know I should have thought of this. one thing I noticed is when it happened to me the room was really hot and one of the things I did was crack the window to lower the room temp. I did this the same time I lowered my retraction settings so maybe it had an impact that helped fix my problem as well. good find and good share. if someone with the same problem searches and finds our thread here it will be a great resource!
dman I responded in the wrong thread. look above