Extruder problem?  

Re: Extruder problem?

Have you checked the hob pulley to see if its clean?
Link on how to clean if needed

It can also be the nozzle causing an issue, here is the link on cleaning it. https://help.prusa3d.com/l/en/article/WWVRzOY1dX-clogged-nozzle

and last it can be the filament is messed up do you have another spool to try?

Re: Extruder problem?

Thanks Adam, so I cleaned off hob pulley which was clean, the bearing on the other side though was dirty. I didnt go through the whole nozzle clean process but im fairly certain its clean. I have heated it to 250 and pushed a lot of filament through no problem. I have also used a few different brands of filament including hatchbox, amz3d and two others I forget the brand. This is what printed after your instructions and a pic of the hob assembly. Again I really appreciate your help!

Re: Extruder problem?

Good to hear.
I don't use Hatchbox because I never got a good print from it I mainly just get my filament from Prusa the Fillamentum brand, I also like Colorfabb from E3D and Filament Innovations sells decent stuff for the price.

Happy printing.

Re: Extruder problem?

Thanks my next orders will be through them. BUT do you have any ideas of other things which could be going on to cause my prints to look like crap. In hesitant to believe its the filament because I've had all of these for months and printed from them multiple times with no problems. I am using Cura to slice and have not updated it recently because the recent update didn't work with my octoprint so I went back to the older one. So I am thinking it has to be hardware related somewhere in the extruder.

Let me know if you have any additional ideas. Thanks for the help man!

Re: Extruder problem?

You need to try and narrowing down the issue with some testing.

First I know you said you use Cura well try printing a simple model with the same setting such as 0.20 layer height, Linear Advance off. ETC. on both Cura and Slic3r from Prusa.
If you get the same result then it may still be a mechanical issue but if one prints good and the other is bad then something is wrong with the software and how it doing things.

You can get the latest Slic3r from Prusa here as well as the latest firmware.
https://www.prusa3d.com/drivers/

Also if you are running in "Silent mode" try running it with "High Power" mode on as I have had issue with this on some of my prints.

I do not know how you store you filament but if ts been left out in a damp or humid area it could be bad.
If you here pop or cracking noise from the extruder while printing then that is not good.
A way to test this is to put the nozzle to 215c and manually run some filament through it and see if it makes a noise are if it comes out looks weird.

Here is a video to help with the Filament.