Filament jamming and unable to drag fully, now stringing seriously on some prints
This is about my 2nd month using the printer, and aside from minor issues with having a bad flashdrive, most of everything seemed to be working very well (printer was still calibrated, prints were lifting off really easily, etc). I also had started using PETG relatively recently, after taking precautions, and this still didn't cause that much problem. I had swapped between PETG filaments with no problems, except for one time I tried unloading a spool. When I did this, the filament got stuck and I wasn't able to remove it, so I opened up the gear assembly in the loader. Apparently the filament had gotten caught on the gears, and this created some issues with loading. I removed the spool, cut it, and then went back to PLA as I was doing test prints, and everything seemed to be working fine.
I then decided to use PETG again for a real print. This caused a similar jam as before, and this time I actually took a picture of the inside assembly (attached). As before, I just removed the rod of jammed filament, and tried to load PLA back in as this had been working before. However, when I tried to load in PLA, I had to use Load Filament 3 times to get it from the insertion tube to extrusion, and I had been smelling burnt plastic. Additionally, prints that worked relatively better before started having large amounts of stringing, and I speculate that this is due to the filament not being able to retract fully. Is it possible that I could've stripped the loading gear in slightly by yanking the filament out? If so, is there some way I could simply order replacement gears rather than sending in the entire piece for service? Thanks in advance, y'all!
RE: Filament jamming and unable to drag fully, now stringing seriously on some prints
This looks similar to this, posted a day ago -except in your case PETG is involved.
It's hard to say what caused this, but is it possible that you unloaded PETG at PLA temperature? Or when going from PETG to PLA... when PETG is unloaded, there is still small amount (remains) of PETG inside hotend. Now, when PLA is loaded, it's loaded at lower temperature at which PETG remains don't melt enough to be entirely purged out... -just thinking aloud here.
Anyway, I would take hotend apart, take a look inside heat-break & nozzle and clean it.
I don't think extruder gear system got damaged at manually removing filament.. but that depends on method/force you used.
[Mini+] [MK3S+BEAR]
RE: Filament jamming and unable to drag fully, now stringing seriously on some prints
So that's actually what's confusing, the issue isn't on the hotend clogging, but rather on the feed system, which is far before any heating is done. It seems like once it's past that gear area and through the PTFE tube, heating is perfectly fine (and at the right temperatures). I do agree with you on that front that it's not possible the gear would be damaged by the filament (it's a weaker material), but it's the only logical explanation I could come up with for the seemingly "worse grip" it has on the filament. I've been printing PLA for now though and I think I'm going to be sticking with it at least for a long time, until I figure out what's actually happening.