feed problems

[John F]

I have an older Flash Forge creator which has been giving me a lot of frustration lately

the feed is not consistent which seems to be the heart of my problems 

when I do a l "load filament" I get a start/stop flow of filament that is varying widths when it does flow.

I have taken apart the head and cleaned to "drive gear" and confirmed that the drive/feed motor (sorry lack the correct terminology) is turning correctly

the Drive gear seems to grind the filament which would appear to indicate either not enough tension on the drive gear or not enough heat on the extruder

 

[Nick Wimpney]

A partially clogged nozzle will create a lot more resistance as well.

Just pushing the filament through the hotend by hand will usually give you an idea if it's working correctly, though if you haven't done it before you may have a tougher time judging what's normal.

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[KP Chiang]

Check the idler as well.   It has to be free to pivot/rotate to properly pinch/feed.    I had a failure-to-feed caused by a bad plastic idler.   Yours looks like it's made from steel but check anyway.

DId this started happening after you changed a new roll of filament?   If so, a piece of leftover filament from the previous roll may have its upper tip bent inside the hot end (it gets bent when one tries to jam new filament in)...I also had a failure-to-feed caused by this.

[John]

it does seem to to flow if I force the filament through but it takes a fair amount of pressure -  not sure how much pressure it should take....

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[John]

the idler is free to pivot, and is made of steel on a bearing that spins well

I had left the printer for a couple of months, when I went back to it, the print quality was terrible. digging in to it i started finding issues with the feed. I am thinking either "Dried out filament?", "clogged nozzle" or bad feeder mechanism 

electrically, the feed motor does continue to spin (in load filament mode)  which says possibly a jam or the temperature is not high enough but everything seems to be correct

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 9:27 PM, 'KP Chiang' via 3D604 <3d...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Check the idler as well.   It has to be free to pivot/rotate to properly pinch/feed.    I had a failure-to-feed caused by a bad plastic idler.   Yours looks like it's made from steel but check anyway.

DId this started happening after you changed a new roll of filament?   If so, a piece of leftover filament from the previous roll may have its upper tip bent inside the hot end (it gets bent when one tries to jam new filament in)...I also had a failure-to-feed caused by this.

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[Graeme Bennett]

When the filament extrudes (particularly when pushed through by hand), does it come out more or less straight and even, like spaghetti, or all curly and uneven?

If the former, your nozzle is not the issue. If the latter is the case, then a new nozzle or a serious cleaning (perhaps try the "atomic method") might be in order.
By the way, a pushpin or similar can clean out those gunky teeth on the extruder feeder gear. Be sure that the filament path is entirely debris free, of course.

Could be poor quality filament, too. If it was fine two months ago and is suddenly not good now, that's possibly the reason.

  
On Monday, April 24, 2017 at 10:41:48 PM UTC-7, John F wrote:

the idler is free to pivot, and is made of steel on a bearing that spins well

I had left the printer for a couple of months, when I went back to it, the print quality was terrible. digging in to it i started finding issues with the feed. I am thinking either "Dried out filament?", "clogged nozzle" or bad feeder mechanism 

electrically, the feed motor does continue to spin (in load filament mode)  which says possibly a jam or the temperature is not high enough but everything seems to be correct

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 9:27 PM, 'KP Chiang' via 3D604 <3d...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Check the idler as well.   It has to be free to pivot/rotate to properly pinch/feed.    I had a failure-to-feed caused by a bad plastic idler.   Yours looks like it's made from steel but check anyway.

DId this started happening after you changed a new roll of filament?   If so, a piece of leftover filament from the previous roll may have its upper tip bent inside the hot end (it gets bent when one tries to jam new filament in)...I also had a failure-to-feed caused by this.

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