Clicking extruder halfway through the print leading under-extrusion to under-extrusion  

Re: Clicking extruder halfway through the print leading under-extrusion

What's the temperature inside the housing?

Some people have reported that inside housing, the temperature gets very warm and the idler gear can reach 60c and begins melting the filament, causing symptoms similar to a nozzle plug.

Re: Clicking extruder halfway through the print leading under-extrusion

Hi,

Thanks for the hint. I was not aware of the fact others had reported this. It's possible it is indeed exceeding 60° C, but believe or not I don't have a thermometer available right now.

I'll try to print with the door open to see if it makes a difference and report back afterwards. You could be onto something here.

Re: Clicking extruder halfway through the print leading under-extrusion

[...] I'll try to print with the door open to see if it makes a difference and report back afterwards. You could be onto something here.
Are you printing in an enclosure? The E3D hotend is rated to work in an ambient temperature of up to 40C. Any higher and you can expect to see heat-related problems as temperatures creep up. I expect to see another wave of heat creep posts as large numbers of users move into summer months.

Re: Clicking extruder halfway through the print leading under-extrusion

[...] I'll try to print with the door open to see if it makes a difference and report back afterwards. You could be onto something here.
Are you printing in an enclosure? The E3D hotend is rated to work in an ambient temperature of up to 40C. Any higher and you can expect to see heat-related problems as temperatures creep up. I expect to see another wave of heat creep posts as large numbers of users move into summer months.
Yes, I was totally unaware of this. The enclosure appears to works fine with PET and ABS, but I am seeing more problems now in combination with PLA.

Is there anything mentioned on Prusa's website at all? I followed Mikolas Zuza's tutorial here:

https://www.prusaprinters.org/cheap-simple-3d-printer-enclosure/

He does mention you might want to leave the enclosure open when working with PLA but misses to mention this could cause problems like the one I have.

By the way, the print is coming out nicely now. I'll post a pic later today.

Re: Clicking extruder halfway through the print leading under-extrusion

[...] Is there anything mentioned on Prusa's website at all? I don't think so, although there have been discussions here. I think that post was made right before summer of last year, and we saw a wave of posts from people having problems shortly thereafter. Apparently there's a bit of temp difference between Prague and Perth, so what works well one place may fail miserably in another.

There are other possible causes of heat creep, but this is what drove the R3 extruder re-design last year (with the tilted fan). I personally have not had the problem, so still use the R2 (vertical fan) configuration with no issues. Other common causes:

He does mention you might want to leave the enclosure open when working with PLA but misses to mention this could cause problems like the one I have.Yeah, my enthusiasm for a Lack enclosure dropped way off when I connected the factors. I'm mostly doing PLA and PETG so don't really need one.

By the way, the print is coming out nicely now. I'll post a pic later today.Glad it's working! Be sure to pass this info on to others as summer draws near!

Re: Clicking extruder halfway through the print leading under-extrusion

Glad it's working! Be sure to pass this info on to others as summer draws near!

Will do, my friend! And here it is, perfect & shiny thanks to you guys:

Re: Clicking extruder halfway through the print leading under-extrusion to under-extrusion

Shiny and (almost) chrome!