Extruder issue

[Alexander Kazarian]

Hi all,  I got my makergear M2 about two weeks ago.  the first week it printed great, but about a week ago it suddenly started having issues.  The PLA just stops coming out of the nozzle after a few perimeter on the first layer.  The V3b hot end is not loosing temperature (set to 215) and the 40mm is constantly running.  The issue is not with z offset or bed leveling, with the nozzle in the air I can only manually extrude a few mm's of filament before it stops.  It seems like my nozzle/hot end is clogged, but several times I have cleared it by heating to the PLA glass temp (set for 90 degrees) and retracting the filament and cutting off the bad plastic.  I am using black makergear PLA with a V3b hotend and.35mm nozzle.  

I would appreciate any suggestions and thanks for the help!

[Jin Choi]

What do the gear marks on the filament look like once you retract it out? If it is squishing the filament into an oval with very deep bite marks, loosen the tension screw. If they are very shallow, try increasing the tension. Also, once you have had an extrusion problem, it is a good idea to dismount the filament drive and clean out the filament drive gear. It will gouge out bits of filament and they will fill up the grooves. Also try upping your temperature to 220 or 225, that will help it flow a little easier. My current standard PLA temperature is 225.

If none of these things work, it is time to try your first extruder cleaning. The easiest step is to use some tools to push down on any filament in the heated barrel to try to get it all out. These bits come in handy: http://forum.makergear.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=162 (but be very careful with the tiny bit, it is very fragile and you don't want to enlarge the exit hole).

The measures above should get you going again most of the time, but after a while you will want to do a full disassembly and cleaning. This is a helpful thread with some good info: http://forum.makergear.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=732