Galaxy Silver PLA has possibly ruined my printer
I have two printers that have been working without any issue for a while, my i3 mk3s which I've had for a month now, and my Ender 5 plus which I've had for about 6 months now. When I got the i3 mk3s I decided to load up the Galaxy Silver PLA that either came with the printer or I purchased separately from the prusa store, I can't remember which, into my ender 5 plus. My ender 5 plus then had a bunch of issues and I could no longer push the filament through and I completely cleaned the nozzle out, removed the old nozzle, got a new bowden tube...still no luck, purchased an aluminum extruder, still no luck. Now at this point I never suspected the filament could be the issue so I decided to order a whole new metal hotend for the printer. That metal hotend is supposed to get here this weekend.
Fast forward to today, I ran out of filament on my i3 mk3s which was printing like a champ, and I thought, hey why dont I take the Galaxy Silver PLA that's sitting there not in use on my ender 5 plus and use it on the i3 mk3s. Bad move, almost immediately the hotend blocked up and jammed completely solid. Now I don't know how to get it unblocked because I'm not as familiar with the i3 mk3s because I purchased it pre assembled and so far it's printed nonstop without any issues. How am I supposed to get this unstuck? I've gone ahead and thrown the Galaxy Silver PLA in the garbage can, I'm so disappointed at how much time I spent on my ender 5 plus just to realize all this time it's the filament. The filament says 205-215C, I tried pushing it through at 205, 220, 250, no luck. Help!
RE: Galaxy Silver PLA has possibly ruined my printer
Not that this helps you, but the silver PLA that comes with the printer isn't Prusament and isn't Galaxy Silver.
A common problem with the MK3S is that the stock heatbreak in the hotend is a customized version with a wider section just before the heatblock. This is supposedly there to help with the MMU2 if you have one, but it also tends to cause jams when the filament melts in the wide spot and won't move.
What I would suggest is to remove the nozzle and heat to 250. Use the "acupuncture needle" included with the printer (at least it was with mine), run it up from the bottom and try to poke through the clog. Then retighten the nozzle and run filament down. If that doesn't work you'll need to disassemble the extruder and hotend, and clear the clog manually.
RE: Galaxy Silver PLA has possibly ruined my printer
@holmes4
Thanks for the suggestion I'll give it a shot. I'm not sure exactly what happened, I'll have to check my prusa orders but either my printer came with it or I ordered it separately from the prusa shop. Either way, I agree it's not prusament, but it is from prusa or at least made on prusa's behalf which they then sold to me. The label on the filament says "PLA galaxy silver filament made for prusa research"
RE: Galaxy Silver PLA has possibly ruined my printer
Posting an update in case others run into this issue...loaded a new filament and the gears didn't hop or anything, absolutely no issues. This issue was 100% due to poor filament. This filament has probably cost me about 10 hours of my life in troubleshooting both of my printers, as well as purchasing about $60 in various parts for my other printer. This filament is absolutely evil, if anyone would like me to ship some of the filament to them so they can see just how evil it is please PM me. I'm serious, I don't know what this stuff is made of, it looks like filament but it cannot be extruded by anything other than the grace of God.
RE: Galaxy Silver PLA has possibly ruined my printer
You may have ended up with a bad batch. I just completed printing a whole spool of the Galaxy Silver with no problems at all, just using the default Prusa PLA settings. I've used all sorts of brands before, never Prusa, but it came with my Mk3S. In fact, I think it's awesome. Perfectly wound on the spool. Comes out the hot end perfectly. Gorgeous color. And it's on a transparent spool. I looked at it and was like "Of course! Why in the world does everyone else use black spools so you can't see how much filament is left?" Anyway, my point is, it worked great in my hand, so maybe you jusy got a lemon. I'd contact Prusa and see if they're willing to send you a replacement.
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- until all hell broke loose with the forum software...