Extruder Jam  

Extruder Jam

Hi there,

Assembled my printer a few weeks ago now and had many successful prints, up till the other day.

I started a print to go while I was out for the day, and when I come home the printer says it's finished yet only a dozen or so layers have been done and they look terrible; see the gear picture.

There was a small blob of plastic on the bed next to the print. Not sure when it got there but it was on top of the print.
Also, the previous print I did wasn't the best quality either; looking at the wheel, some of the outside layers are pretty poor.

Trying to find the problem, I've noticed that the filament is jammed or something; unloading and loading does nothing, though the extruder motor does try to spin. I tried this with the tension springs at 14mm (my standard, as recommended by aaron.s5) and 13mm. I also tried poking the acupuncture needle into the nozzle when hot and that didn't help.

This was printing the gear bearings that come on the SD card with the printer. Printing off the PLA that came with the machine. Had no issues until I lowed the z axis a little, but that should be unrelated.

If you have any ideas, thanks in advance!