Filament Jammed in Feeder

[soul_reaper_38]

The filament feeding motor seems to be jammed with filament. My extruder wasn't spitting out any filament midway through a print so I paused it and tried yanking out the filament from the top and bottom. I figure I can use some kinda rigid metal rod and hammer out whatever's in there.

This has happened a few times where the feeder doesn't send the filament down the tube to the extruder properly. Any ideas what's going on here? Maybe the spool isn't spinning and it's causing the filament feeder to claw away at the filament until it snaps in two inside the feeder? Should I reposition the spool so it feeds into the motorized feeder a bit better?

[Mac The Knife]

are you printing with PLA?

[soul_reaper_38]

are you printing with PLA?

Yes! Silver PLA PRO. Come to think of it, my ABS didn't have this happen when it did its prints.

[soul_reaper_38]

I managed to un-jam it by unscrewing the plastic housing attached to the motor. It looks almost as if the filament melted together and balled up, stopping it from being fed down the tube. Or maybe it just got crushed together by that spinning gear with those small teeth that is supposed to move it all down. Wish I knew how to fix this; it screwed up 3 hours into a 5 hour print.

[BenTheRighteous]

Have you tried pointing a fan at the extruder motor?

[soul_reaper_38]

In the end it simply turns out that I overlooked the fact that the filament feeds through a hole in the top rather than looping around the side. The angle it was coming in at kept forcing the red lever to snap off pieces as it was fed through. I've corrected the problem (and even added a funnel for that hole in the top) and it all works perfectly now. Slight oversight on my part there, haha.

[geneb]

SLIGHT?

g.

[BenTheRighteous]

Wow, I can't even imagine what other angle you thought the filament was supposed to be fed from!

Can you post a picture?