What would make a 3D printer suddenly start clogging repeatedly? (CR-10)
My brother and I recently got a CR-10 and went through two full rolls of filament and the original small roll without any clogging or filament issues. Suddenly, it’s clogging every other print. We are using cheap Inland PLA but the first half of the roll worked great. We were running it a few degrees over the high end of the recommend temperature range, as suggested by other CR-10 users who had trouble without doing this.
When it first started we were hearing a “click” sound as the gear feeding the filament would slip/skip. Sure enough, the extruder nozzle was badly clogged. The “Atomic” method for clearing it did not work. We cleared the clog but it happened again in the first layer or two. We cleared it again, thoroughly disassembling the extruder and trying again with a higher temperature but it clogged almost immediately again. The next time we cleared it spotlessly and replaced the original cotton + kapton insulation pieces with equivalents from Amazon. We upped the temps about 5 more degrees and it printed several more items without issue before it inexplicably clogged again. ARGH!
It’s almost like the first half of the spool was good filament and the second half is contaminated/bad somehow. Is that known to happen? Could it be related to humidity? The outdoor temps have changed a lot since our trouble-free days but temperature indoors is controlled. Humidity, on the other hand, has fluctuated. If anything it should be LOWER but if the filament absorbs it over time perhaps that doesn’t matter? Should I build a dry box or is that only for specialty humidity-sensitive filaments? Should I generally remove and store it between prints?
We’ve been out of commission for almost 2 weeks now so any advice is appreciated!
