Troubleshooting Extruder and Hotend Problems
The main thing to keep in mind is that the E3D V6 hotend is air cooled, and rated to work in ambient temperatures up to 40C. Exceed that for any one of a myriad of issues, and heat builds up to the point that low-temp filaments like PLA soften prematurely in the extruder, and you are likely to encounter skips and jams as the efficiency of the heatsink drops. A bunch of issues have been linked to these problems:
If the PLA softens, you can start to get into a feedback loop as increased friction contributes to extruder motor effort, contributes to heat… Turning up nozzle temps can help to a point, but also contributes yet-more heat to the picture.
By rectifying one or more of these contributing factors, it’s very likely you can get below the threshold at which problems occur. If you’ve got an enclosure, open it up for PLA. Improve airflow around the heatsink. Just keep this list in mind if you encounter the problem again as months get hotter. You may have to tweak several things.
In short: Anything that contributes to heat that can’t be vented away from the hotend (rated to 40C ambient) impedes air cooling efficiency. There are so many related factors that a problem with any one can cause a variety of feedbacks and problems. I’m willing to put money on the number of these posts declining rapidly once we’re out of the summer months.
RE: Troubleshooting Extruder and Hotend Problems
40 degrees is MAX, in my experience I would treat anything over 30 as potentially problematic, well when printing PLA anyway.