Left hand e3d hotend not extruding

Vertex 3D Printer Vertex - Issues while printing
1

I posted this problem last night but as I thought I had sorted it I deleted the post so others didn’t waste their time reading it. However, I didn’t sort it. The problems is this, the left hand extruder loads and unloads filament perfectly but when I come to print it is barely extruding any filament at all. I have dismantled the extruder and can see no problem, I have dismantled the hotend and checked that there are no obstructions in the nozzle. Although it used to print perfectly well at 195 degrees before I have tried raising the temperature up to 230 degrees but with no observable effect. The only way I can get it to print is if I manually feed the hotend by hand which I take as indicating that the problem doesn’t lie with the hotend

To me it suggest that the extruder stepper motor while working in load and unload modes is not responding to the commands in gcode, but I am guessing so any thoughts other than swopping the stepper motor over would be most welcome

The right hand hotend works fine.

2

When the extruder motor struggles feeding filament, you can hear a clicking noise.
You could also check the stepper driver reference voltage (look here for an easier way to do it).

3

Thanks for your advice

4

I meant to ask you Roby,if the reference voltage has been fine up to now why would it change?

5

It shouldn’t but as you’re experimenting some issues with the extruder motor it could come from the stepper driver so it might be interesting to check that nothing changed.

6

I checked it, it was 0.913. would 0.001 make a difference? Anyway I set to 0.912 but I still have the same problem.

7

[quote=“rrekwa”]would 0.001 make a difference?[/quote]Nope. Around 0.9V is fine. Is the extruder motor turning when there’s no filament loaded?

8

How would I test that? As I previously stated it load and unloads filament.

9

I wrote gcode file instructing the stepper motor to extrude various length but the stepper motor never turned. However, I think that was because I had overlooked the minimum temperature setting of 160 in the config h file for when I ran a print job, but did not have the PLA going into the Bowden tube, it extruded. I then ran the same gcode file with the pla in the Bowden tube and once again noting wasn’t extruded. The nozzle isn’t blocked as I can manually feed the filament and it extrudes at the hot end and I do not hear any clicking noise from the stepper motor which I believe indicates it is struggling to push the filament.

All thoughts welcome

10

could it be that the extruder gear is loosened a bit and that it bearly can push it without hotend but that it slips when the filament hits the hotend?!
Not sure if you’re using an original stepper extruder assembly from velleman as it is the left one…
I made my own as left and decided to make the same for the right but my own stepper hadn’t got a flatspot … so I had to dremel it a bit…

But again this is just speculative!!

11

Thanks and all speculation is very welcome. Yes it is the original one. I have disassembled it and couldn’t find anything wrong. The pulley was secure on the shaft. I put my finger on the pulley and I get no sense it is trying to turn when under resistance yet, as I previously said, it works fine when it is simply extruding filament into the air.