Guitar strings are what I use. I can get the correct gauge guitar string for the different nozzle widths. Really helpful if they're wound strings. Eg 0.4 nozzle I use a 0.38 string.
I took the nozzle(already changed the nozzle right before) off and ran the filament straight through it and BAM a huge chunk of molten filament inside the hot end came right off. probably because I was using it too hot trying to salvage a bad filament and it actually clogged my hot end. Thx a lot for the tips.
You're welcome! What you describe could also be caused by a gap between the bowden tube and the hot end, this can occur in assembly but also after many hours of use as the bowden tube wears away. When you re-assemble, make sure everything butts up against each other and you should have another couple hundred hours without problems in this area:)
much better than the rest of the guides on youtube good job, i have this strange issue of under extruding on my ender 3v2 and i canne figure it out it only happens on a 0.4 nozzle 0.6 works fine im running direct drive no slipping correct temp everything is tight and true just replaced my hot end and thermal resistor with official ender replacement the one and only thing i noticed is after i do a print i try to pull the filliment wilst its still hot and theres mega resistance when i do get it out i notice the fillament has swelled its no longer 1.75mm dia its much thicker its like 2.5 is this what is causing my under extruding and if so whats going on?
I suspect you're trying to print at too high a flow rate for the 0.4 nozzle resulting in too much pressure. If you reduce the print speed, you'll probably get better results.
@@CallumColes ty dude but turned out to be the position of my nozzle relative to the new hot end, after unscrewin the nozzle half a turn and bringing the throat down that changed my transition point and stopped the under extruding
I've tried so much to fix my under extrusion and no matter what I do, there's no joy Though I also have random bouts of over extrusion and weird artefacts in my walls too which is confusing af I've tried; - Replacing the Nozzle - Cleaned my Nozzles - Replacing the PTFE Tube entirely after cutting it back a few times, now I have a high heat resistant one - Replacing the drive gear - Tried every kind of extruder gear tension from super loose to super tight - Cold pull - Replaced extruder tension arm (Turned out my old one snapped way before I even had extrusion issues, so I got a replacement) - Cleaned the fan and heating area thoroughly - Cleaned the entire hot end and flushed it through to make sure there's absolutely nothing there - Thoroughly cleaned and de-dusted the entire rig - Changed flow rates - Calibrated E-Steps more times than I can count - Tried every temp I can without burning filament or being too cold to drive (180-240 and such for PLA for instance) - Adjusted filament settings in Cura for density, flow, acceleration, Jerk, etc - Used new and old filament profiles for my filaments - Changed print speed countless times, but even when super slow, the issues persist - Changed the wall printing orders and such - Changed retraction settings - Tried priming every layer with additional filament - Turned off power recovery settings - Rebuilt the entire printer frame, adjusted Z-Axis lead screw tension, replaced grease and adjusted guide wheels tension to ensure assembly is secure with no wobble/give - And all the other fiddly stuff inbetween Yet still it's always under & sometimes over extruding. The absolute only thing I can think of that changed to cause all this in the first place was that Cura had an update months ago and screwed everything up. But the trouble is I don't remember the last version I used that worked flawlessly and while I'd like to try using other software I always found Cura to be the most user friendly, customisable and gives the fastest prints Kind of at a loss, does anyone have any advice?
This is all great advice. I do appreciate it. Unfortunately (for me) there has to be at least one more possibility. I have checked everything and even printing an old slice which was known to be good, fails due to an extrusion problem. I'm still struggling to figure it out.
I've done everything you mentioned, plus I have a new upgraded tension spring, but my printer still pops and I'm getting a rough finish on my layers. When leveling, I bring the bed higher for closer printing and it scrapes, I bring it lower and the filament doesn't stick in spots. I'm running out of troubleshooting ideas. It worked well for months, then I did a few upgrades, learned some tricks for better prints and things get screwed up. I think it's an issue with feeding faster than extrusion but I just cleaned it out earlier today. Not quite sure what to do at this point.
@@thelotrfreak1 Sort of. I changed my retraction distance and speed and discovered the tune ability on the printer which allows for fine tuning during a print. So now I give the printer and bed a few minutes to adjust for expansion after pre-heating, do my leveling and monitor it once it starts. You can then adjust the extruder height in baby steps for a better "spread" of filament. It seems to work.
I watched lots of tutorials. even though this is the most practical one my issue is a little different. my printer lacking extrusion on a specific part of the any object, the rest is decent as always but that specific part (specific location of the heat bed) is always the same spot no matter what I print. I'm clueless right now
It could be to do with where you’re extrusion starts / stops. Have a look at the setting in your slicer which dictates this position (name varies by slicer). Changing it to random or fastest should make less noticeable, other slicer settings could also improve the performance. If your printer is Bowden, the problem could also be related to the tube, in certain positions it may restrict the movement of filament.
@@CallumColes thank you for your reply. i'll check it. my printer is bowden and im suspecting a restriction of the movement of the filament as well. there wasnt an issue with 0.4 nozzle, this started when i changed it to 1.2 tho.. thanks again 🙏
got major under extrusion can see through my prints and pull them apart checked all of the points you showed no joy prints blob perfect new nozzle too i did notice the stepper motor is hot is this normal
I'm slowly losing my sanity. When printing petg, everything goes perfect, when i try pla extruder starts skipping and underextrusion gets progressively worse with each layer. My printer is brand new ender 3, the extruder looks perfect, I've tightened it anyway. Wasn't sure if bowden tube wasn't losing contact with nozzle, so i have modded hotend to make it unable to lose contact. Replaced nozzle to fresh one, updated printer firmware, updated slicer, tried printing at higher temp, done many cold pulls and calibrated e-steps. Nothing helps and i still can'd do pla.
When going from PETG to PLA you have to run the PLA at PETG temperatures for a while to make sure it cleans out all that remaining PETG that is in the nozzle
Well you always learn more figuring it out yourself, so at least there’s that:) glad you got it sorted in the end! Always a good idea to start with the easiest option first, which in this case fan -> nozzle/hot end -> drive gear. Did you upgrade your drive gear (if so what did you go for?) or just replace?
Seeing a lot of dust on new swiss direct drive. So much that I scrape small chunks off. Instead of gear and bearing, my setup has two gears (1 thats drives). How do I know if my spring tension is too light or too tight (It is adjustable)? I have also noticed dust throughout the entire roll of filament, so installing a filter. It would also skip at first. Think it stopped skipping since
Hey Jayy, first of all, always try a manual push test just to be sure the filament moves through nicely. If it doesn't the problems are more likely to be coming further down the line! In terms of getting the tension right, there's a bit of an art to it. I'd normally start the tension nice and loose and watch it as the extrudes (most printers allow you to extrude a chunk of material from the settings/prepare menu). When the tension is loose the gears will quite often just slip on the filament without really moving it. As you increase the tightness you should find that the grip improves and the filament is moved more consistently. Stop tightening when the filament seems to move forward consistently. For hard filaments you don't want the tension to be super tight, since the gears will grind it away if there is a lot of resistance from the extrusion pathway. Flexible filaments are more suited to higher tensions.
@@CallumColes Great! Seems like it may be further down the line. Filament ran smoothly. I will disassemble, clean, and reassemble the hot end and nozzle to ensure all is tight and seated well. I did configure the extruder e-steps, then ran a PID. All seemed well. I will also try a higher temp when tightening the nozzle, etc, and a higher temp with PID. Previous did it at 210. I may try a higher temp than my usual 210 with PLA, since I have an all metal hot end now.
Nice video! I had a mystery with this a few months ago on my Ender 3 v2. Ended up being a small crack in the tensioner arm which made it so there wasn't enough pressure on the filament to push it through the nozzle even though everything else looked fine. Replaced it with an aluminum extruder assembly and no more issues.
5:50 ..... Did you never lubricate the drive gears? Even a drop of sewing machine oil every couple of months would have prevented the wear of the dual gear extruder tension plate. I have the same extruder gear as you, put hundreds of hours of printing through it and with a drop of sewing machine oil every 3 or more months, its barely scuffed the surface of the red anodized aluminum tension arm plate.
What a great idea, definitely should have done that! I'll have to add that to the maintenance routine. In fairness to that printer, it was probably well over a thousand hours at that point, they run 24/7. But always nice to prolonge part life where possible.
@@CallumColes I don't know how many hours my Ender 3 has on it after I swapped the mainboard with a SKR Mini e3 last year. The drive gear was from new and it's about 3 years old now. Sewing machine oil I got a handy small bottle with a nozzle on it from a local food store in the utility section. It was like a couple dollars. Just when I'm feeding in the filament, I just check if it's looking excessively dry and give or take its been a while. I will just press the oil bottle nozzle on the outer drive gear. Surface tension of the oil is viscous enough to pull itself to the gear and will settle between the drive gear and the plate. You'll notice the surface tension holds it in place and will ride up the gear as required. Try not to get it on to the filament grip of the gear if possible. The oil is also thin enough to lubricate the roller bearing in the drive gear too. This will stop it wearing and squeaking if it dries out.
@@RamjetX impressive stuff! Normally always add some lubricant for anything metal on metal, don’t know why I didn’t think of it for this, but will implement going forward. My go to is 3-in-1 PTFE lubricant, makes a little less mess than some oils/greases. But your solution sounds like it works well too🙌🏼
The metal wrench conducts a lot of the heat away, so wouldn't have been crazily hot by the point I pulled out the plastic. I was also aiming to grab the filament not the nozzle! But equally, I've been printing for 7 years so my fingertips have developed heat resistance🤣
I get the "thin string of pearls" extrusion, resulting in a "sponge" looking part with stringing all over. I have already replaced the nozzle. Previously, I successfully printed with a name brand petg. Wonderful precision parts, that is until I changed to another well-known brand of filament, also petg. Now the "string of pearls". Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for what you do on YT.
Try the manual push test demonstrated in this video, if it pushes through easily you know the issue is more likely to be with your drive gear. If it is difficult to push through, the problem will be hot end / nozzle side. PETGs vary massively, some print at 200C others need 240C, so it could be as simple as increasing extrusion temperature.
My god this is Gold, i am watching it at 3:50am but this is going to solve my current problems right now. You deserve more views,likes and subs
Hey Ben, appreciate your time to leave a comment, how did you get on fixing your problems?
I agree, this video out of all the "professional" videos, this one beats them.
Honestly tho same.
same here lol ,woke up to another failed print smh
YO FUCKING SAME 3:47 am I TRIED TO PRINT A LANTERN RING 3 times
That tip whith the shorter ptfe tube in the hot end assembly was mind-blowing to me, you have my eternal grattitude!
Haha, thank you! Comes from years of experimenting fixing blocked nozzles 😂
This was a great video and out of many it actually helped me figure out my underextrusion problem.
Pleased to hear it helped you, thank you for the comment:)
Thanks! I did everything I could think of, even cleaned the nozzle...but not good enough! Now I think it's working well!
Great to hear! Pleased this helped:)
the greatest video i've seen for this problem since too long time
(only) 2k subs and top tier quality content you don't even get on bigger channels. Well done!
Really appreciate the comment, thank you
Superb! it’s a real shame you don’t seem to be making videos anymore. This channel really should have blown up!
Thanks! I took the nozzle off, and pulled the plastic out! Working fine now!
Nice work! Cheers for the comment, glad it helped
No one explains this. Thanks
No problem, happy to help:)
This really helped. Hours of troubleshooting, knowledge gained!
I've tried nearly everything to fix my problem, and just had no idea what was causing it...until maybe now. Thank you!
Cheers for the comment!
@@CallumColes Sure. Thanks for the advice!
Good video. I put a washer on that side when I installed it.
Guitar strings are what I use. I can get the correct gauge guitar string for the different nozzle widths. Really helpful if they're wound strings. Eg 0.4 nozzle I use a 0.38 string.
This was the best video for diagnosing problems. Thx.
Glad it helped! Appreciate your comment:)
I took the nozzle(already changed the nozzle right before) off and ran the filament straight through it and BAM a huge chunk of molten filament inside the hot end came right off.
probably because I was using it too hot trying to salvage a bad filament and it actually clogged my hot end.
Thx a lot for the tips.
You're welcome! What you describe could also be caused by a gap between the bowden tube and the hot end, this can occur in assembly but also after many hours of use as the bowden tube wears away. When you re-assemble, make sure everything butts up against each other and you should have another couple hundred hours without problems in this area:)
@@CallumColes ah, my printer is direct drive, so no tube here. CR 10 V3
Thank you
Ty man. Finally solved the problem. You helped a lot!
You're welcome, glad you're sorted!
much better than the rest of the guides on youtube good job, i have this strange issue of under extruding on my ender 3v2 and i canne figure it out it only happens on a 0.4 nozzle 0.6 works fine im running direct drive no slipping correct temp everything is tight and true just replaced my hot end and thermal resistor with official ender replacement the one and only thing i noticed is after i do a print i try to pull the filliment wilst its still hot and theres mega resistance when i do get it out i notice the fillament has swelled its no longer 1.75mm dia its much thicker its like 2.5 is this what is causing my under extruding and if so whats going on?
I suspect you're trying to print at too high a flow rate for the 0.4 nozzle resulting in too much pressure. If you reduce the print speed, you'll probably get better results.
@@CallumColes ty dude but turned out to be the position of my nozzle relative to the new hot end, after unscrewin the nozzle half a turn and bringing the throat down that changed my transition point and stopped the under extruding
I've tried so much to fix my under extrusion and no matter what I do, there's no joy
Though I also have random bouts of over extrusion and weird artefacts in my walls too which is confusing af
I've tried;
- Replacing the Nozzle
- Cleaned my Nozzles
- Replacing the PTFE Tube entirely after cutting it back a few times, now I have a high heat resistant one
- Replacing the drive gear
- Tried every kind of extruder gear tension from super loose to super tight
- Cold pull
- Replaced extruder tension arm (Turned out my old one snapped way before I even had extrusion issues, so I got a replacement)
- Cleaned the fan and heating area thoroughly
- Cleaned the entire hot end and flushed it through to make sure there's absolutely nothing there
- Thoroughly cleaned and de-dusted the entire rig
- Changed flow rates
- Calibrated E-Steps more times than I can count
- Tried every temp I can without burning filament or being too cold to drive (180-240 and such for PLA for instance)
- Adjusted filament settings in Cura for density, flow, acceleration, Jerk, etc
- Used new and old filament profiles for my filaments
- Changed print speed countless times, but even when super slow, the issues persist
- Changed the wall printing orders and such
- Changed retraction settings
- Tried priming every layer with additional filament
- Turned off power recovery settings
- Rebuilt the entire printer frame, adjusted Z-Axis lead screw tension, replaced grease and adjusted guide wheels tension to ensure assembly is secure with no wobble/give
- And all the other fiddly stuff inbetween
Yet still it's always under & sometimes over extruding. The absolute only thing I can think of that changed to cause all this in the first place was that Cura had an update months ago and screwed everything up. But the trouble is I don't remember the last version I used that worked flawlessly and while I'd like to try using other software I always found Cura to be the most user friendly, customisable and gives the fastest prints
Kind of at a loss, does anyone have any advice?
hey! did you ever figure this out? 🤞
This is all great advice. I do appreciate it. Unfortunately (for me) there has to be at least one more possibility. I have checked everything and even printing an old slice which was known to be good, fails due to an extrusion problem. I'm still struggling to figure it out.
Same any update?
Probably calibration would be best thing next
YOU ARE THE BEST
I've done everything you mentioned, plus I have a new upgraded tension spring, but my printer still pops and I'm getting a rough finish on my layers. When leveling, I bring the bed higher for closer printing and it scrapes, I bring it lower and the filament doesn't stick in spots. I'm running out of troubleshooting ideas. It worked well for months, then I did a few upgrades, learned some tricks for better prints and things get screwed up. I think it's an issue with feeding faster than extrusion but I just cleaned it out earlier today. Not quite sure what to do at this point.
Sometimes doing some factory resets can help
I'm in the exact same situation, did you figure out your problem?
@@thelotrfreak1 Sort of. I changed my retraction distance and speed and discovered the tune ability on the printer which allows for fine tuning during a print. So now I give the printer and bed a few minutes to adjust for expansion after pre-heating, do my leveling and monitor it once it starts. You can then adjust the extruder height in baby steps for a better "spread" of filament. It seems to work.
Nozzle can clog due to heat creep, due to gunk covered cooling fins.
It can indeed, the hot end cooling fan is incredibly important
I watched lots of tutorials. even though this is the most practical one my issue is a little different. my printer lacking extrusion on a specific part of the any object, the rest is decent as always but that specific part (specific location of the heat bed) is always the same spot no matter what I print. I'm clueless right now
It could be to do with where you’re extrusion starts / stops. Have a look at the setting in your slicer which dictates this position (name varies by slicer). Changing it to random or fastest should make less noticeable, other slicer settings could also improve the performance. If your printer is Bowden, the problem could also be related to the tube, in certain positions it may restrict the movement of filament.
@@CallumColes thank you for your reply. i'll check it. my printer is bowden and im suspecting a restriction of the movement of the filament as well. there wasnt an issue with 0.4 nozzle, this started when i changed it to 1.2 tho.. thanks again 🙏
Great video! Thanks for the info
I use a heatbreak and a razor blade to get a uniform and flat ptef tube
Just stick it in and cut the protruding end flat
got major under extrusion can see through my prints and pull them apart checked all of the points you showed no joy prints blob perfect new nozzle too i did notice the stepper motor is hot is this normal
Thanks very good video!
I'm slowly losing my sanity. When printing petg, everything goes perfect, when i try pla extruder starts skipping and underextrusion gets progressively worse with each layer. My printer is brand new ender 3, the extruder looks perfect, I've tightened it anyway. Wasn't sure if bowden tube wasn't losing contact with nozzle, so i have modded hotend to make it unable to lose contact. Replaced nozzle to fresh one, updated printer firmware, updated slicer, tried printing at higher temp, done many cold pulls and calibrated e-steps. Nothing helps and i still can'd do pla.
When going from PETG to PLA you have to run the PLA at PETG temperatures for a while to make sure it cleans out all that remaining PETG that is in the nozzle
Thank you man 🙏🏻
No problem 👍
😂 😂 i could have used this a month ago i changed the drive gear first, and it wasn't the issue, and it was perfect when i changed the nozzle
Well you always learn more figuring it out yourself, so at least there’s that:) glad you got it sorted in the end!
Always a good idea to start with the easiest option first, which in this case fan -> nozzle/hot end -> drive gear.
Did you upgrade your drive gear (if so what did you go for?) or just replace?
@@CallumColes i just replaced it, my current printer doesn't have much room to upgrade
Seeing a lot of dust on new swiss direct drive. So much that I scrape small chunks off. Instead of gear and bearing, my setup has two gears (1 thats drives). How do I know if my spring tension is too light or too tight (It is adjustable)? I have also noticed dust throughout the entire roll of filament, so installing a filter. It would also skip at first. Think it stopped skipping since
Hey Jayy, first of all, always try a manual push test just to be sure the filament moves through nicely. If it doesn't the problems are more likely to be coming further down the line! In terms of getting the tension right, there's a bit of an art to it.
I'd normally start the tension nice and loose and watch it as the extrudes (most printers allow you to extrude a chunk of material from the settings/prepare menu).
When the tension is loose the gears will quite often just slip on the filament without really moving it. As you increase the tightness you should find that the grip improves and the filament is moved more consistently. Stop tightening when the filament seems to move forward consistently. For hard filaments you don't want the tension to be super tight, since the gears will grind it away if there is a lot of resistance from the extrusion pathway. Flexible filaments are more suited to higher tensions.
@@CallumColes Great! Seems like it may be further down the line. Filament ran smoothly. I will disassemble, clean, and reassemble the hot end and nozzle to ensure all is tight and seated well.
I did configure the extruder e-steps, then ran a PID. All seemed well. I will also try a higher temp when tightening the nozzle, etc, and a higher temp with PID. Previous did it at 210.
I may try a higher temp than my usual 210 with PLA, since I have an all metal hot end now.
Nice video! I had a mystery with this a few months ago on my Ender 3 v2. Ended up being a small crack in the tensioner arm which made it so there wasn't enough pressure on the filament to push it through the nozzle even though everything else looked fine. Replaced it with an aluminum extruder assembly and no more issues.
ahh mannn instant fix, i had the same problem as you! instant subscribe!
Here buy a coffee :)
Ah really appreciate that thank you, glad it helped, I do love my coffee😁
@@CallumColes 😂👍
5:50 ..... Did you never lubricate the drive gears? Even a drop of sewing machine oil every couple of months would have prevented the wear of the dual gear extruder tension plate. I have the same extruder gear as you, put hundreds of hours of printing through it and with a drop of sewing machine oil every 3 or more months, its barely scuffed the surface of the red anodized aluminum tension arm plate.
What a great idea, definitely should have done that! I'll have to add that to the maintenance routine.
In fairness to that printer, it was probably well over a thousand hours at that point, they run 24/7. But always nice to prolonge part life where possible.
@@CallumColes I don't know how many hours my Ender 3 has on it after I swapped the mainboard with a SKR Mini e3 last year. The drive gear was from new and it's about 3 years old now.
Sewing machine oil I got a handy small bottle with a nozzle on it from a local food store in the utility section. It was like a couple dollars. Just when I'm feeding in the filament, I just check if it's looking excessively dry and give or take its been a while. I will just press the oil bottle nozzle on the outer drive gear. Surface tension of the oil is viscous enough to pull itself to the gear and will settle between the drive gear and the plate.
You'll notice the surface tension holds it in place and will ride up the gear as required. Try not to get it on to the filament grip of the gear if possible.
The oil is also thin enough to lubricate the roller bearing in the drive gear too. This will stop it wearing and squeaking if it dries out.
@@RamjetX impressive stuff! Normally always add some lubricant for anything metal on metal, don’t know why I didn’t think of it for this, but will implement going forward. My go to is 3-in-1 PTFE lubricant, makes a little less mess than some oils/greases. But your solution sounds like it works well too🙌🏼
How the hell did you touch the nozzle when it was hot at 2:27?? 😱😱😱
The metal wrench conducts a lot of the heat away, so wouldn't have been crazily hot by the point I pulled out the plastic. I was also aiming to grab the filament not the nozzle! But equally, I've been printing for 7 years so my fingertips have developed heat resistance🤣
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
Haha, glad you liked the video:D
Tried everything in this video and still under extruding, already open 2 new filaments to check if it wasnt just humid
I get the "thin string of pearls" extrusion, resulting in a "sponge" looking part with stringing all over.
I have already replaced the nozzle.
Previously, I successfully printed with a name brand petg. Wonderful precision parts, that is until I changed to another well-known brand of filament, also petg. Now the "string of pearls".
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for what you do on YT.
Your extruder is likely skipping steps. Check the filament tension screw, or driver temperatures
Try the manual push test demonstrated in this video, if it pushes through easily you know the issue is more likely to be with your drive gear. If it is difficult to push through, the problem will be hot end / nozzle side. PETGs vary massively, some print at 200C others need 240C, so it could be as simple as increasing extrusion temperature.
How about the slicer?
👍
Omg that extruder wear tho
Thousands of hours of metal on metal! I’ll be adding oil/lubrication to the maintenance routine
Not your fault but did break my fan blades whilst checking my fan blades (face palm)
Ahh nightmare... well every cloud has a silver lining as they say, its a good chance to upgrade to a quiet noctua fan!?
Wait the fan can cause under extrusion? My fan has a broken blade....
The hot end cooling fan can for sure. If the hot end isn’t kept cool, you’ll get heat creep and filament will start melting where it shouldn’t!
Man using white filament looks suspect right now. 😂
u got 3thousand subscribes and u have hunderd of ads on your video, it's a shame.