Cannot feed filament: New MK3s
Greetings all! I recently purchased and finished assembly of my new Prusa printer. I completed the calibration and all went well.
When I go to insert filament into the extruder (after cutting at a 45) it barely enters, stops, and will go no further. The printer does not "grab" it and take it in all the way to the nozzle. Should it? I cannot get any material to come out of the nozzle whatsoever. It is definitely not clogged as nothing has ever ran through it.
What could I be doing wrong and how can I fix it?
Thank you in advance for your help. Please advise.
-Rob
RE: Cannot feed filament: New MK3s
Happy to help, but I recommend first logging in to the online store and contact support via chat. They are very good and should be able to walk you through initial issues. You paid a premium for Prusa support, so be sure to use it!
A couple of things you can check:
- Open the extruder door and insert a 1.5mm rod or wrench down from the top and verify it has a clear path down through the top & filament sensor, past the Bondtech extruder gears and into the PTFE tube at the top of the hotend.
- Verify the extruder motor turns. Have you tried manually loading filament from the printer menu? Does that work?
- If manual loading won't work but the extruder motor turns, check the Bondtech idler gear in the door and be sure it rotates freely and the axle is properly mounted.
- If the idler is clear, check the grub screw on the extruder motor gear. This is often a problem with kit builds.
Those are quick suggestions. Again, hit up support for more help.
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RE: Cannot feed filament: New MK3s
Sort of an obvious question, but did you check the diameter of the filament to make sure it is not over-sized? To that point, what "calibration" did you complete that didn't involve having filament loaded?
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RE: Cannot feed filament: New MK3s
I am trying to use the included silver prusament, so I would hope it is compatible.
My question is, what does the loading procedure look like? How far should I manually be able to insert the filament? On my Ender 5+, I could push it all the way to the nozzle and starting forcing it to extrude manually. Is that the same case here with the MK3s? Or, does the auto load sequence take control after a certain point? Manual and documentation are not at all clear on this point.
RE: Cannot feed filament: New MK3s
[...] Or, does the auto load sequence take control after a certain point? Manual and documentation are not at all clear on this point.
You want to cut the filament at a 45 degree angle then feed it in from the top until you hit resistance (the Bondtech extruder gears). If you have autoload enabled, the sensor should detect it and start pulling the filament in. If not, stop when you hit resistance and select the load filament menu option.
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He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking. -- Spock in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
RE: Cannot feed filament: New MK3s
If you loosen the extruder gears and get the hot end hot, yes, you should be able to push filament through and have it come out the nozzle. There should be nothing in the path that prevents this once the gears are allowed to separate.
The next thing I would do is verify that the filament sensor is working and that the stepper motor that drives the gears indeed starts when the filament is sensed.