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I took your photo and attempted to scale it to the E3D drawing and then superimposed the images. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that your Bowden tube is not completely seated into the top of the heat break.

That plug is coming from much farther inside the hot end. Feels like it's near the heat break.

Make sure there aren't any burs. I had that problem on my V4 and it would occasional snag on PLA because the PLA retains the teeth marks from the extruder. Occasionally, these lined up with the bur and boom, it stopped extruding.

Maybe you drilled too far, thinning out the nozzle cone, and not enough heat can get to the nozzle tip? That would explain why the filament feeds great, but jams if it ever stops. If the filament easily passes through at first, it transmits heat to the tip area, but once it stops, the tip cools too much.

Take some fresh filament and run it through. Mark the filament right at the top of the hot end, and then pull it out. The measurement will tell you precisely where it's jamming.

mhackney wrote:Make sure there aren't any burs.

I tried to be very methodical with the finish of the drilling. Used a magnifying eye piece to make sure I didn't end up with any burs as I know they can be a huge problem.

I used this (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:197152) and tossed on my 40mm high CFM fan instead of the stock one. I also wrapped the heater block in kapton tape in order to try and keep the heat closed in for the tip in case 626Pilot is onto something.
I went from my plug (top filament) to the one on the bottom after the changes.
I tried moving the filament in and out, stopping, going slow... I couldn't get it to jam at all. I'm going to try a print and see how it goes.

Update:
Designed a 50mm fan holder that would fit into a GoPro base so that I could cool the print from the side of the build plate. I don't have a blower for the nozzle yet with the E3D being mounted under the effector instead of on top. The print went perfect. It was only a 28 minute print though.

I'm now trying for a 16 hour print now. Not many retractions. We'll see what it does.

Ok, what are your retract settings - length and speed?

mhackney wrote:Ok, what are your retract settings - length and speed?

Length: 1.6mm, speed 20mm/s. This is something I'm going to be toying with once I get a print with lots of retracts. I just wanted to see if I could keep the hot end extruding for now.

I came downstairs to my printer this morning to this:
BUT!!! Then I look up to the top and see this crap.
I didn't have time to restart the print this morning, but I have high hopes! It was putting down amazing lines and had already run longer than I've ever got it with the E3D. Again though, on this print, there probably wasn't a single retract except from the loops to the print. Still, when I was playing with it manually, it was working like a dream.

I got an E3D V6 nozzle pretty early after getting my Rostock Max V2. I haven't had a single jam. No oil, and running all kinds of filament through it. I have did ABS, PLA, and ninjaflex. The ninjaflex does fail, but its because of the extruder losing grip on jamming there. I just tried it a few times.
As far as retraction.... I have did everything from 2mm to 7mm and speeds from 40 to 120 (I think its actually limited to 60 in the firmware. Not certain). I haven't had any jams at all. Perhaps it has to do with following the setup correctly? I did have mine "leak" from around the top of the extruder tip once, but that was an easy fix.

Over the last week I've been doing a pile of different retraction tests and hollow pyramids to try different retract speed and lengths in order to find a sweet spot. I've ended up at about 25mm/s speed and 3.2mm for length. The largest improvement though, was going from Cura to KISSlicer. I absolutely love Cura. It rarely needs to do any retractions at all. KISS is all over the place hopping around, but it handles retractions so well that there is almost no stringing at all. I find this so strange. Even using the exact same settings, including Z-hop and height settings, you get totally different outcomes.

I'd really like to pick up some polish and polish the nozzle tip as per mhackney's suggestion. I'm fairly confident that if nothing is going to stick to the nozzle tip, it may very well lead to virtually zero stringing.

I think I might have my E3D pretty well jam-free. Getting a fan with more flow on the cooling fins has made a vast improvement. I've done multiple tests and prints ranging from 30 minutes to 6 hours without a single problem. I do however have one filament that I cannot get to print. It's a black PLA and it jams before I can get from the Home position to the bed. I've tried all sorts of different temperatures, different retracts, speeds... I cannot get it to come out of the hot end unless I feed it in there and keep extruding like mad. It's like it gets way too soft way too easily. The filament itself looks different from the norm as well. It's matte black with tiny lines down it's length. It could very well be just an odd filament. Anything with a glossy exterior has been flying through the E3D.

I have been using Matterslice for about everything. After the update, I cannot get Mattercontrol to use the slic3r option at all though. It will just set the temps to zero and say that it is heating up...... nothing happens. Matterslice has given me the cleanest prints by far. I haven't even tried Kiss or Cura. I have use Repetier host and slic3r to get some really clean prints as well, I just hate waiting forever for it to slice.

Tinyhead wrote:Over the last week I've been doing a pile of different retraction tests and hollow pyramids to try different retract speed and lengths in order to find a sweet spot. I've ended up at about 25mm/s speed and 3.2mm for length. The largest improvement though, was going from Cura to KISSlicer. I absolutely love Cura. It rarely needs to do any retractions at all. KISS is all over the place hopping around, but it handles retractions so well that there is almost no stringing at all. I find this so strange. Even using the exact same settings, including Z-hop and height settings, you get totally different outcomes.

I don't like that KISSlicer is unsupported abandonware (even for paying customers like me), but it definitely generates good toolpaths and I still use it today for everything except spiral vases. Cura seemed weird to me. It would generate infill in a way that makes lines on the same layer cross each other without retraction, so it would leave little bumps at each crossing that I could hear the nozzle running into on the next layer. (We need our parts knocked around like we need holes in our heads!) To me, this seems awfully strange. KISSlicer never deposits filament in the same place more than once per layer.

I do however have one filament that I cannot get to print. It's a black PLA and it jams before I can get from the Home position to the bed.

Black filament is notorious for having crappy fillers that manufacturers can't get away with using on other colors. If everything except one filament runs through like butter, I would leave them a negative review and buy from another supplier.

626Pilot wrote:

I do however have one filament that I cannot get to print. It's a black PLA and it jams before I can get from the Home position to the bed.

Black filament is notorious for having crappy fillers that manufacturers can't get away with using on other colors. If everything except one filament runs through like butter, I would leave them a negative review and buy from another supplier.

It prints flawlessly with the stock hot end. Most of the filament I've got from there has been good. This one roll was just... different.

My experience with black PLA has been the opposite, it prints like creamy licorice - beautifully. I've printed at least 6 2kg rolls from 4 different vendors and they all printed nicely. Even the translucent black I recently got prints beautifully.

626Pilot - KISS is back in active development and has been for months. There is a new forum (http://www.kisslicertalk.com) and the new beta 2 versions of 1.5 came out in the last week or so, and it is faster and generates some good looking code.

2kg spools?! Where from?

Tinyhead wrote:2kg spools?! Where from?

Most likely makerbot....

I am using Cooking Oil with good results

mhackney wrote:KISS is back in active development and has been for months. There is a new forum (http://www.kisslicertalk.com) and the new beta 2 versions of 1.5 came out in the last week or so, and it is faster and generates some good looking code.

Thanks! That is very good news. They don't have a Linux build up yet. Do you know if KISS has a spiral vase feature that works like slic3r's? I always hated having to switch to slic3r and wait the lifespan of a small furry animal for it to finish generating the code.

Yes he does have a new Linux version, it's in the dropbox and was posted 2 days ago and is actually a bit ahead of Windows and Mac.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3evahzu5gfel ... FeGZa?dl=0

No, KISS doesn't have a spiral vase option. Go to the forum and add a request. He's actually being very responsive and it might make it in a future release.

having to switch to slic3r and wait the lifespan of a small furry animal for it to finish generating the code.

Thanks for the tip! I have some crappy PLA that kept jamming in both my E3D hotends. Rather that toss it out, the canola worked great.

What was happening was that the filament above the heat break would soften. This would expand slightly and then stick. The oil keeps it from sticking.

mhackney wrote:No, KISS doesn't have a spiral vase option. Go to the forum and add a request. He's actually being very responsive and it might make it in a future release.

Okay

nitewatchman wrote:I made a number of modifications to my printer over the holidays. One of these was the addition of a E3D-V6 Hot End.

For whatever reason I was having a lot of trouble with the Hot End jamming and not feeding smoothly. Out of frustration I remember a discussion about lubing the filament with Canola Oil to help with these issues.

Well I tried it. Every time a filament change occurs I dip the end in the Canola Oil. Lo and behold no more jams, no more rough feeding with HIPS, PLA or ABS.

Likely the "canola cure" is wishful thinking but I am comfortable with the solution to the problem (it is logical) and it was much cleaner and easier than killing a chicken on top of the printer.

nitewatchman
Canola Oil Convert

I built my own printer, an italian RepRap clone, and after the first two prints or so was having massive troubles with the PLA jamming in the extruder. Finally I found this forum and saw the oil comment- it's been (so far, knock on wood) an absolute lifesaver. Indeed now I have a peice of oil soaked paper that the PLA runs through before entering the extruder. So far- NO JAMS. Also it doesn't seem like the print has been compromised either. I suppose I can't know for sure without some sort of durability test, but so far it's really clean running.

Life safer!

I'm using Vaseline based oil- the type used here in italy for oiling sewing machines, etc... Works like a charm.

The jams I was having with PLA in my E3D-V6 were forming between the heatbreak and the bowden tube. The filament would enlarge in that area. I think it was because I couldn't get the coupler secure enough to stay flush against the heat break with the mount I was using. Haven't tried PLA again with the E3D-V6 New Mount yet, but I expect better results with a better fit.

I wonder if some Hornady One-Shot would be a suitable lube for that area...

http://www.hornady.com/store/One-Shot-Spray-Case-Lube


Incidentally, lack of success with PLA pushed me to ABS which I now prefer.

Would coconut oil work for this as well? It sure would smell a helluva lot better.