Preventing PLA jams with Oil

[daftscience]

I guess I will post this here, I couldn't find it anywhere else on the forum. I found this tip somewhere, either thingiverse or Reprap forums.

I hadn't been able to print PLA very reliably with the E3d all metal hotend. Prints with lots of quick retracts would almost always jam up on me.

I printed this and put a piece of microfiber cloth in there with a tiny bit of canola oil. It puts a fine coat on the outside of the filament and lubes it up in the hotend. I haven't notice it change the quality or properties of printing at all. The only difference is I haven't had one jam in the 20+ hours of printing since I started using it.

I don't know how this will work for the hotends with PTFE liners.


Here is a link where someone else talks about it. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:103729

[Eaglezsoar]

Thanks for a great idea. Can't wait to try it, this could solve the problems a lot of people have been
having with PLA and the E3D.

[h3ss]

I was having the same problem with my original E3D v4, but I have yet to have any jams at all on my v4.1 even when printing with many retracts.

However, I did want to make one of these to filter any dust that may have accumulated on the filament. I decided it would be nice to mount in the hole on the top plate of the Rostock MAX, so I adapted the design:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:180757

[Nylocke]

What do you guys do with your things? Only time I've ever had a jam was on my Buda when I was printing at 210 instead of 205. How do you even jam an E3D?

[Polygonhell]

What do you guys do with your things? Only time I've ever had a jam was on my Buda when I was printing at 210 instead of 205. How do you even jam an E3D?

I have 2 and neither will print PLA reliably. Sometimes I get away with it, but it isn't worth the effort when my JHead will print it without issues.

[Flateric]

I finally got mine to be jamm free at nearly any temp even when sitting there for extended periods of time by upgrading it's cooling fan to one size larger.

[626Pilot]

For E3D jamming issues there are two mods I recommend: Pot your heater cartridge and tape the fan shroud to the bottom cooling fin with Kapton. After I did those things, my E3D got a lot better at holding temperature and not jamming. (Bonus: The fan shroud no longer buzzes against the effector!)

When you build your E3D, you might be inclined to put some PTFE tape around the threads, like you would for other hot ends. DON'T do this. I did when I first built mine and it was terrible.

For retracts, I use at least 100mm/sec, 4/4, and NO wipe. If you use longer retracts, sometimes it will jam - and you don't even NEED them. I'm not sure what the wipe feature is good for, but I do know that it ruins anything with thin towers or other features with no side support.

If the above doesn't stop your E3D from jamming, put your filament in a sealed bucket with some molecular sieve dessicant for a couple of days. I have this one roll of beautiful gold filament that refused to print before, but now it does.

[img]http://forum.seemecnc.com/download/file ... &mode=view[/img]

[dpmacri]

If the above doesn't stop your E3D from jamming, put your filament in a sealed bucket with some molecular sieve dessicant for a couple of days. I have this one roll of beautiful gold filament that refused to print before, but now it does.

Can you say where you got the dessicant, how much you used, etc.?

[h3ss]

Thanks 626Pilot, that seems like a good idea, and will be one of the first things I try if I start getting jams again.

One trick I have found is that putting the shroud one fin down from where you would normally put it seems to keep the bottom fin cooler which I think helps prevent the heat from creeping up too far and causing the PLA to deform above the heat break.

You can kinda see what this looks like in this pic:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/KkJFLrF.jpg[/img]

I was worried that the radiant heat from the block would be close enough to melt the bottom corners of the shroud but this has yet to happen. I do make sure to keep the block lined up so that the part that sticks out the most is lined up with the back of the shroud where there is no plastic to melt.

As far as I can tell little to no air is escaping from the bottom of the shroud in this configuration.

I wasn't doing this before with my v4, so I don't know if that's what fixed the problem or whether the 4.1 is inherently less prone to jamming. I suspect it's a little of both.

[626Pilot]

One trick I have found is that putting the shroud one fin down from where you would normally put it seems to keep the bottom fin cooler which I think helps prevent the heat from creeping up too far and causing the PLA to deform above the heat break.

I'd still seal it. ANY pressurized air leaking down from the fan shroud will increase the duty cycle, and that's something you have to avoid. As long as the bottom fin is near room temperature there's no chance it will contribute to jams.

Can you say where you got the dessicant, how much you used, etc.?

http://www.mcmaster.com/#1523t63/=pbp50s

Using three of the 5 bags, I got the humidity from 25% to 15%. I opened the other two today.