Understanding clicking on your MK3  

Understanding clicking on your MK3

Hi,

I've been having some clogging trouble with my MK3 and I "solved" that... sort of.

Anyway, in the process I had two kinds of clicking and I thought they where different issues and (in my case) they where not so I wanted to share my findings in the hope they help other people. I'm sure experienced users would already know how to diferentiate them but it puzzled me for a while so for the newbies like me:

Loud low pitched clack

If it's clicking and the gears are skipping (a extruder motor indicator is a good addition to be able to notice that https://www.prusaprinters.org/visualize-extruder-motor-movements/ ) then you most provably have a clog (check this thread for some common examples https://shop.prusa3d.com/forum/others-archive--f66/clicking-printhead-filament-stuck--t14916.html ) and the gears are not able to push filament and the resistance is so big it skips steps.

My machine sounded like this in one of this clogs:

quitter high pitched click

If the gears are not skipping the clicking is fast and high pitched you could have a clog and the idler is too lightly tightened or just the idler is very lightly tightened.

You could tighten the idler and maybe that solves the problem or you really have some kind of resistance (clog?) and you get a low pitched clack.

I guess if the iddler is loose the gears will scrape the filament but not stop and that's why the gears don't "jump" steps.

My machine sounded like this:

If you have clogging issues maybe the best place to discuss them is the first thread linked in this post (it's the longest about clicking by clogs that I've found) and keep this thread dedicated to understanding the symptoms.

Hope it helps in some way.