Filament not loading - jamming somewhere in the hot end
Okay, after three hours this morning this has driven me nuts.
A jam last night that I blamed on dodgy filament is now turning into a bit of a battle, and I've stripped down the hot end about 6 times this morning to no good effect.
As far as I can tell, the mini is just not feeding filament to the hot end at all - it's jamming somewhere between the end of the long PTFE tube and the nozzle. If the hotend is removed from the heatsink and allowed to dangle free, once it is up to PLA temps I can push bits of filament through from the top of the heatbreak by hand and it all extrudes properly. I can't feel any undue resistance, binding or anything that stops the filament getting to the nozzle.
But once all assembled, I hit the "load filament" button only to have it start grinding away at the filament at some point after the filament gets to the heatbreak.
Not running the stock heatbreak FWIW (that left me with WAY too many jams over time); I have the Bondtech heatbreak installed.
RE: Filament not loading - jamming somewhere in the hot end
Back in the game.
Turns out that by assembling everything THEN loosening the three grub screws holding the heatbreak in place, applying a bit of upwards pressure on the heater block, and re-tightening the grub screws, everything now feeds properly.
PS - best mod I have made to my machine was to remove the grub screws and replace them with some short cap head set screws; that way (i) they're easier to tighten and loosen, (ii) there is no risk of stripping them, and (iii) I can use the same allen key as on all the other screws on the machine.
RE: Filament not loading - jamming somewhere in the hot end
Why is the print quality suddenly rubbish?
Did you remember to recalibrate the Z height? No, because I didn't move the SPINDA.
But you did move the nozzle height, didn't you? In fact, you specifically pushed it UP. Oh yeah, I'd forgotten that. I'd better recalibrate ...