prusa mini underextrusion
I have been using my prusa mini for about 14 months and I have recently found some underextrusion. All printed parts are weak and brittle. I have tried cleaning the extruder, adjusting the idler spring, replacing the ptfe tube in the hotend, and cleaning out the nozzle. Any suggestions?
RE: prusa mini underextrusion
Following this with interest. After 15-16 months of mostly trouble-free printing with PLA, I'm having terrible trouble this summer with partial clogs leading to what looks like under-extrusion and failed prints. Sometimes it will just stop laying down PLA altogether (because the extruder has ground away a chunk of filament).
Annoyingly, this does not happen to the filament brand I have used for most of the last year - that still prints fine. But every different brand - and several new rolls of the reliable brand - now jams/clogs/underextrudes.
I've had teh hot end apart so many times; tried new PTFE tubing, different temps, different tension on the idler etc. My usual filament will print fine, but everything else starts okay before underextruding about an hour or so in. It's been driving me nuts.
Wonder if there could be a common cause - and it's interesting that it's started after a year or so of use. Has something worn, I wonder?
RE: prusa mini underextrusion
I gave up on pla because of the continual clogs and having to micromanage each new spool of filament. Generally the solution to avoid it happening is to bump up the hot end temps and slow the print down significantly.
using pla every spool and even 2nd half vs 1st half of the spool needed retweaking increasing the temp slowing it down, messing with tension etc , on petg there is no such nonsense and every spool runs a 255 no issue.
RE: prusa mini underextrusion
I have the usual crappy printing quality problem with PETG, so for that and other reasons prefer to stick with PLA.
My problems are mostly absent when printing simple things, but as the tool path gets more complicated - especially with retractions - the underextusion and clogs start to occur where previously things were fine.
The fact that it was all fine a few months ago makes me think that it's actually caused by age/wear and tear/something drifting over time on the machine. At some point I’m going to strip down lots of it, clean and replace bits as necessary, then test and calibrate it all to within an inch of its life :). Main suspect right now is the PTFE tubing (although that's pretty new), hot end cooling fan or something with the extruder.