Funky Filament

[jmargush]

I recently just upgraded my hot end and extruder to the HE280 HOTEND and the EZR Struder but I'm having troubles printing. It will start out beautifully with a wonderful first layer but after some time it starts laying drops instead of a steady flow. I tried pushing the filament through manually and it would not extrude. Next time it happened I pulled the red release on the extruder so that more pressure would go on the filament, this seemed to work for a while after I got it to work, until it started doing it again. I'm completely lost on whether its a clog or a jam or how to fix it.

[lightninjay]

If you are printing PLA, to my knowledge, the SeeMeCNC HE280 is an all-metal hotend.

In my experience (and others here will disagree) all-metal hotends are finicky when printing PLA. If you attempt to print too hot, or your retraction settings are too high, you will experience a phenomena known as heat-creep.

To test if this is the case, print until your hotend jams. Let the hotend cool down. You can either attempt to pull the plastic out at room temp, or you can heat the hotend to about 130C or 150C and pull the plastic gently until it slides out.

When examining the tip of your filament after pulling it out, if the end seems "bulged" and definitely thicker than 1.75mm, then you are more than likely experiencing heat-creep.

The only relatively commonly accepted solution for heat creep is better cooling at your heatsink/cold-end barrel.

[Mac The Knife]

NOT an all metal hotend. However, I think the meltzone is a little longer then the stock hot end, so things prolly need to be re tweaked.

[lightninjay]

NOT an all metal hotend. However, I think the meltzone is a little longer then the stock hot end, so things prolly need to be re tweaked.

Mac, my understanding is that it IS an all-metal hotend, however the bowden tube is slid into the hotend all the way down to the heatbreak, effectively becoming the PTFE insert the v2 had inside it. My main intention in saying all-metal was that SeeMe removed the PEEK insert and made an entire metal body.

My thought is that since PEEK seems to be less thermally conductive than aluminum or stainless steel, it does a better job of maintaining the harsh temperature dropoffs at the heatbreak.

If PTFE is given the chance to get too hot, like right at an improperly cooled cold/heatbreak, it will swell and jam the filament.

[Mac The Knife]

Yep, its a hybrid of sorts. My Eris has a similar hot end. I had a problem of the ptfe tube softening up enough from the heat to allow a gap between the heat break and the tube to eventually create a blockage.

[lightninjay]

That is PRECISELY what I suspect is happening here.

[jmargush]

That is PRECISELY what I suspect is happening here.

There isn't an exact way to get more air flow on the heat sync but I lowered my temperature and it seems to work okay, but it wont print level now. Should have I specified it as a v3 machine or v2 machine in the firmware?