Extruder bolt tightness

[jesse]

Does anyone know the correct torque to tighten the bolts in Steve's extruder?

[daftscience]

I haven't seen it anywhere. IMO getting that right is the trickiest part of the whole assembly. Like others have said, make sure there is no dust on the rollers, start loose and tighten by 1/4 to 1/2 turn on both bolts evenly.

[barnett]

The other guideline I've read here is to start so loose that you can prevent it from extruding by holding the filament with your fingers. Then tighten slowly as Daftscience indicates until your fingers aren't able to stop it any longer.

[thingevery]

I had mine too tight and the white gear on the moveable piece was rubbing on the bottom of the PTC adapter.

I don't know the torque, but if I tighten the screws so the rubber o-rings get squeezed, but not so much that they're bulging out, then the rollers grip the filament nicely. It took me 3 tries to get it right.

Edit: I may have spoken too soon. My test prints are coming out pretty bad so far and it appears that the filament isn't always moving even though the gears are turning. I've been adjusting the screws while printing and I think I may have found the sweet spot. (The filament looks like it's moving now.) But my prints still look like crap, so I've got to mess with my Slic3r settings and experiment some more.

[img]http://thingevery.com/rostock/BadPrint.jpg[/img]