easy filament change question

[Eric LB]

I modified my RMax v2, moving the EZ extruder outside of a heated enclosed build chamber. As a result my ez extruder is very accessible and away from any moving parts. Has anyone tried to change filament in the middle of a print by cutting off the old filament nearmnthe extruder then just inserting the new filament into the extruder just as the cut end of the old one dissappear above the hobbed drive gear, maybe depressing the tension lever a bit while pushing the new filament in against the disappearing end of the old filament???. Would this cause a "burp" in the print as the junction between new and old filament reached the hot end. The one problem I can think of is that at that moment the hot end might be extruding perimeter (which would show) vs extruding infill (which would not show).

[IMBoring25]

Can you load filament by pushing filament through the loading hole while turning the extruder drive by hand? I can easily do so on my Mendel but the ezstruder tends to balk more often than not. It will have to be consistent to work.

Not only is there a possibility of marks as the seam hits the hot end, but from the time you load the second roll until that point, retraction won't work correctly, so you can expect extra stringing for quite some time.

[DGBK]

That looks like it will have some retractions. How would you deal with those if the two ends of filament weren't fused?

[Eric LB]

Didnt think of retractions. Thanks for mentioning that. It sounds DS like waiting for PRI ter to be in an infill, hitting pause and switching out filament is the best strategy. JJ says he doesn't even pause, just makes the swap out quickly during an infill operation. Thanks again for bringing that up. Obviously I am new to this all.