Extruder suddenly not working half the time
I've had my printer for a week or two now, with nearly a dozen and a half successful prints under my belt, and a few small mishaps (usually due to the 3D file) That was until Sunday. I tried printing the outside of the Infinity orb from Guardians of the Galaxy.
(This file https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:430184 )
It got a little over 2/3rds of the way through and then the extruder motor started making a clicking noise. That's when print quality went to hell, and it kept getting worse until by the end of the print the extruder head just wasn't pushing anything out.
I have since removed the filament, checked the toothed pulley, reinserted the filament and made sure it was extruding again. (it was) I put in a smaller print that I've done before without a problem to see if it was possibly a corruption in the file that had done something. The new file got about 1/3rd of the way through and then the same clicking noise started.
I looked at the pulley while it was making the noise and it seemed that the extruder motor was pulling filament in, and then pulling it out again; with the click being the change in direction of the motor from insert to extract) The extruder head also stopped putting out filament so I cancelled the print.
If it prints part of the print just fine, but suddenly has feed issues, it can't be the toothed pulley can it? nor an alignment issue with the filament feed...
Has anyone had this happen to them? What did you do to fix it?
Thanks a lot,
Henry