Confusing PLA troubles

[ry...@ccandrsf.com]

A friend recently gave me his Pico hotends he received from his contribution to the Kickstarter campaign. I just got the 1.75mm hotend installed in my 2014 Type A Machines Series 1 printer using the included groove mount. After spending the last few days testing the Pico out, I have become a bit frustrated with it.

When printing using the cheaper and lower quality PLA (Hatchbox brand), it extrudes just fine without any jamming. But when printing using the somewhat pricier and higher quality PLA (MatterHackers brand, and also Type A Machines[?] brand) the hotend always jams up in the middle of the print. I have also noticed that if I let the cheap stuff sit in the hotend for a few seconds, it has no problem extruding again, while the high quality stuff jams after sitting for only a few seconds. I have not yet tried printing using any other material. Before installing the Pico hotend, my printer's original hotend had no issues printing with any of the PLA I have (no jamming or anything).

I'm starting to go a little crazy trying to figure out/understand why the higher quality PLA is jamming up in this hotend while the cheaper stuff works great. I have tried raising the temperature and lowering the temperature, and it still jams in the middle of the print. I have one of the included fans currently set up to blow air on the cooling fins of the Pico, but not the heat zone (as instructed), about 40-50mm away. I have also tried printing with the fan off... but the issue persists.

This is driving me somewhat insane... does anybody have any ideas? Thanks in advance!

[B3]

There are many different brands and qualities of PLA. That being said, variances will occur. If everything is setup correctly (fan, alignment between hot-end and extruder, temperature sensor etc) the best solution to lower performing PLAs is to use our provided filament filter, injunction with a drop or two of vegetable oil on the sponge of the filter. If you do not have one of these filters, we will gladly ship one to you.

We would like to see pictures of your setup far away and up-close to Pico and the extruder. If you can, post them here or email them to us at: he...@b3innovations.com

I am looking forward to your reply!

Thanks

Mike

The B3 Team

[ry...@ccandrsf.com]

Mike,

How funny! Just the day before your response, I came across some forum post elsewhere on the web that suggested such an "oiler," as well as possibly "sesoning" the hotend (which I skipped). I actually already had a filter printed out that I never ended up using in the past, so I quickly tried that out with a little canola oil on the sponge, and to my surprise... viola! No more jamming on the "high quality" PLA.

I would have never suspected this to resolve the problem, but I tried it, and couldn't have been more pleased that I did. Thanks for getting back to me, and offering to send a filter, but I think I'm all set for now! Will definitely post back with some photos if I come up with any further issues with this.

[B3]

Its good to hear your success with Pico. I am still interested, if you ever run across it, to see some photos. I always wanted to mount a Pico to one of those machines.

Regards,

Mike

The B3 Team

-print on printers-

[ry...@ccandrsf.com]

Finally got around to customizing a proper cooling system for the Pico in my Type A Machines Series 1, and thought you might want to have a look at it now: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:904349

[B3]

Awesome!! Thank you very much for this!! Looks like it already helped a few people out.

[ry...@ccandrsf.com]

Just re-designed my Pico cooling setup for my Series 1: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1477168