Clicking and poor extrusion
My Mini recently started making a clicking sound while printing and resulted in under extruding (using Prusa pla). I unloaded the filament and discovered scratches on the filament, picture attached. I cut off the scuffed portion and re-loaded the filament. The next attempt at printing made the same sound but didn't fail. However, the under extrusion did make for a more brittle print.
Is there anything I should be aware of as I take apart the housing of the filament feeding assembly and z-axis?
RE: Clicking and poor extrusion
Tension is the most pointed to issue, but Before I mess with that- since it is a qualitative tweak, I’d look at:
right profiles and temps? I swear that sometimes Between slicer And the printer, temp’s get changed. Check the slicer and printer temps.
Blow out and make sure the gear Teeth are clear
Dry the filament. This is my go-to, it is amazing how many adhesion and flow issues go away after drying the filamant.
confirm the filamant diameter
does the design have more than normal retractions causing grinding
remove the Bowden tube at the Hot end and manually feed some filament. PLA should move pretty fast and fat. Slow and squiggly might point to an issue with flogging on the hotend.
RE: Clicking and poor extrusion
I opened up the door to look at the extruder gear and found build-up in the teeth. After cleaning my test print seems to be running normally.