RE: MK4 Squeaky Extruder
It surprises me to see how many people are experiencing this as Prusa is known for reliability. I have four MK4S’s - The first 2 were one “preassembled” & one kit-build, which I named “STEALTH” cuz it’s so quiet = both have been flawless. The other two I JUST bought (Feb 2025), both were kit-builds, they each have less than 15 hours print time on them, and they both have been squeaking at the extruder from the beginning of the very first print - in other words “right outta the box”. Keep in mind I am VERY meticulous with the assembly and following instructions “to a T”. Something to note as others have said: the worst of it tends to be during high speed movements with rapid & frequent retraction/deretraction. To test this, I allowed the filament to gently pass between my finger & thumb at the nextruder’s feed port on top of the print head while following the print head’s movements, to get a feel for the “feed” in relation to the squeaking = in my case it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the squeaking is SOLELY during retraction/deretraction movements (definitely NOT X-axis travel) … & I know for a fact the PG gears are well greased & aligned/calibrated. — its comforting to know you’re not the only one experiencing this issue (not an isolated instance), but at the same time, the replies here seem to be “stabs-in-the-dark” and “scatter-gun” attempts at a fix without any definitive knowledge of or diagnosis to the problem = just hoping that echoing confirmation of seemingly a widespread issue will help bring Prusa around to nailing it down in either a topic-reply or help-article.
RE: MK4 Squeaky Extruder
I hope there will be a solution for the squeaky noise of the extruder. I have been suffering from it for quite some time now. It seems to do it mainly with PETG. I have tried new Prusa rolls, other brands and dried rolls. I have also loosened and tightened the Idler screws to test. Nothing helps. And my prints now fail 50% of the time. It seems that there is too little flow through the nozzle or that the filament does not go through it fast enough. By the way, I have also tried cleaning filament.