Extrusion stops mid-printing
Hi,
I have a brand new Prusa Core One kit that I assembled myself.
Unfortunately, after a few successful prints, I’m now unable to complete any jobs — it always stops extruding filament after about an hour of printing. The nozzle and bed temperatures appear to be good and stable. The chamber temperature is slightly higher (around 26–28°C), but also quite stable.
Do you have any suggestions on what might be causing this and how to fix it?
I am using standard PLA Prusament.
Overall, I have to say that I'm quite disappointed with this new printer so far. I used a Mini+ for many years without major issues, but with the Core One, I've been facing numerous problems since I built it - clogging, bed leveling, LCD display blinking...
RE: Extrusion stops mid-printing
I know it has been a while, but have you found a solution?
I have the same issue and I'm out of ideas on how to fix it.
Filament type doesn't matter. I've had it happen with PLA, PETG, and ASA.
I've tried new hot-ends, tore apart the extruder multiple times, and
tried various parts from Printables that users thought would fix the problem.
I've wasted too much filament due to this issue, and the Core One is
has become more of a source of frustration than an enjoyable tool.
Hi,
I have a brand new Prusa Core One kit that I assembled myself.
Unfortunately, after a few successful prints, I’m now unable to complete any jobs — it always stops extruding filament after about an hour of printing. The nozzle and bed temperatures appear to be good and stable. The chamber temperature is slightly higher (around 26–28°C), but also quite stable.
Do you have any suggestions on what might be causing this and how to fix it?
I am using standard PLA Prusament.
Overall, I have to say that I'm quite disappointed with this new printer so far. I used a Mini+ for many years without major issues, but with the Core One, I've been facing numerous problems since I built it - clogging, bed leveling, LCD display blinking...
RE: Extrusion stops mid-printing
I know it has been a while, but have you found a solution?
I have the same issue and I'm out of ideas on how to fix it.
Filament type doesn't matter. I've had it happen with PLA, PETG, and ASA.
I've tried new hot-ends, tore apart the extruder multiple times, and
tried various parts from Printables that users thought would fix the problem.
I've wasted too much filament due to this issue, and the Core One is
has become more of a source of frustration than an enjoyable tool.
What kind of Core One? Is it factory assembled or a kit? This specific issue could be caused by heat creep. Or Nextruder gear alignment. Or an issue with the idler tension screws. My advice is to start a chat session with support.
RE: Extrusion stops mid-printing
I bought a kit and assebled it myself. Looking back, I would definitely buy an assebled version - the endless hours I have spent on the assembly was not worth the money 😀
How my issue above got resolved? I have took the whole print head and Nextruder into pieces and reassebled again. Something must have gone wrong during my original assembly - not sure what exaxtly, maybe a missing washer?
Since then, I am printing w/o any errors.
RE: Extrusion stops mid-printing
Since this came up in Google while I was trying to troubleshoot the same problem, I will just add my experience here.
It turned out it was heat creep for me, where heat from the nozzle works its way up and makes the filament too soft for the extruder to push through. The extruder starts making a loud clicking noise when this happens which I think is the tell-tale sign of heat creep. Another sign is also that prints always start fine, and only stop extruding after some amount of time. But by the time you restart the print everything has cooled down and it seems to work fine for a little while longer before the problem returns. This means it can't be a blocked nozzle because that wouldn't reliably clear itself between every print.
In my case just printing with the door open was enough to fix the problem.
I also went into the UI settings and under Footer I added the heatbreak temperature to the display. This allowed me to keep an eye on how hot things were getting closer to the extruder, and after a few test prints I found that just before the heatbreak reached 45 degrees that's when extrusion would fail with PLA. I haven't tried other filaments yet.
So now I just keep an eye on that temperature and make sure it stays below 44 degrees and my PLA prints since then have completed without incident.
RE: Extrusion stops mid-printing
Since this came up in Google while I was trying to troubleshoot the same problem, I will just add my experience here.
It turned out it was heat creep for me, where heat from the nozzle works its way up and makes the filament too soft for the extruder to push through. The extruder starts making a loud clicking noise when this happens which I think is the tell-tale sign of heat creep. Another sign is also that prints always start fine, and only stop extruding after some amount of time. But by the time you restart the print everything has cooled down and it seems to work fine for a little while longer before the problem returns. This means it can't be a blocked nozzle because that wouldn't reliably clear itself between every print.
In my case just printing with the door open was enough to fix the problem.
I also went into the UI settings and under Footer I added the heatbreak temperature to the display. This allowed me to keep an eye on how hot things were getting closer to the extruder, and after a few test prints I found that just before the heatbreak reached 45 degrees that's when extrusion would fail with PLA. I haven't tried other filaments yet.
So now I just keep an eye on that temperature and make sure it stays below 44 degrees and my PLA prints since then have completed without incident.
You shouldn't have any problems if the top vent is open, otherwise you can just print PLA with the door open as well.
RE: Extrusion stops mid-printing
I would bet, that the overheating is a secondary issue caused by e.g. incorrect assembly (as in my case). My printer had the same symptoms as you described (overheating, clicking noise, correct printing after cool down etc.). Your printer really shouldnt reach temparaures that high. In normal setup, printing with PLA, doors closed, top vent open, my printer doesnt go over 30 C.
You should definitely check your assembly - especially vents orientation!
RE: Extrusion stops mid-printing
The top vent is open - I paid close attention to the orientation, although I'm not sure why - the printer never opens or closes the vent on its own, I opened it manually once like it prompts me to at the start of every print and it has been open ever since.
The ambient temperature here is around 32-33 degrees which I think is a bit higher than average, so the chamber temperature never goes below 35 degrees, even with the door open. I managed a five hour print with the door closed when I first got the machine, but then the following day it started doing this and I haven't had a successful print since with the door closed (only with the door open). We did have a couple of cool days where it got down to 30 but I can't exactly remember when so it's possible the days it worked with the door shut the ambient temperature was lower.
I don't think it was an assembly issue as I paid close attention to the instructions, and haven't had any other issues other than occasional homing calibration failures despite the gantry being perfectly aligned both sides and the belt tension adjusted so they both vibrate like crazy at 96 Hz. But other than the extrusion stopping if the door is closed, the prints come out perfect.
I did remove and reinstall the hot end thinking it was clogged and did a few cold pulls thinking it was jammed, but it didn't make any difference. The end of the cold pull split into three smaller lines which I believe means the cold pull pretty much worked the way it should, but it didn't make any difference here.
The idler tension screws were slightly loose so I tightened them by a couple of turns but this just released pressure on the idler door so the clicks were quieter when the extrusion stopped.
I'm not really sure what else to check that might cause this, if it's an assembly issue. What would you suggest?
I wonder if you heated your chamber up to 35-36 degrees while printing PLA whether you'd have a similar problem?
RE: Extrusion stops mid-printing
Try adding the heatbreak temperature to the footer of the UI screen. You can do that in Settings -> User Interface -> Footer and set one of the items to [Heatbreak]. For PLA try just lowering the nozzle temperature 5-10C
RE: Extrusion stops mid-printing
Thanks, yes I had already done that and worked out that just before the heatbreak temperature hits 45 degrees (I estimate around 44.8) that's when extrusion fails. So as long as that stays below 44 degrees then my PLA prints are successful. I tried lowering the nozzle temperature by five degrees and it seems to slightly reduce the height of the "peaks" formed at either end of 100% fill lines, but it doesn't seem to stop the heatbreak temperature from increasing.
I have now tried PETG with the door closed and the heatbreak reaches 49 degrees but there are no extrusion problems there.
It looks like perhaps the heatsink just isn't powerful enough on its own when the chamber temperature approaches 40 degrees. There doesn't seem to be a way to get the chamber fans to start automatically when the chamber temperature won't drop to the desired 20 degrees. (Not that it would ever get down to 20 here but with the chamber fans manually activated it does at least pull slightly cooler air through the open vent into the chamber and through the heatbreak fan.)