Rostock v1 Extruder constantly jamming

[dylantep]

I feel like I've tried everything. I have a rostock V1 and I've always had issues printing with the extruder. I've spent so much time trying to upgrade it to get it to work but nothing seems to help. I am currently running a E3d V6 with volcano and 0.4mm nozzle, E3d Titan extruder set up as a flying extruder (I thought reducing the tube length would fix my problems but no luck.) I even bought a higher torque stepper for the extruder. No matter what I do the extruder seems to stop printing after a few layers (extruder gear starts grinding out filament instead of pushing it through the hotend). I am printing PLA at about 20mm/s (i see people printing no problem at like 100mm/s on these things) and have varied temperatures from 175-235.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

Thanks in advance,
Dylan

[thingismith]

I can't say that I've had any experience with PLA, but it sounds like your extruder is getting clogged. I can only think of a few things:
1. Your HE is too hot or too cold. Too hot and it burns the material and gets stuck, too cold and doesn't melt the filament. Solutions: print at recommended temp (which you are), and run a PID Autotune...could be that your HE isn't able to hold the right temp.
2. Increase the layer height...if your filament doesn't have the room, it can get stuck to the nozzle, burn up and clog the nozzle.
3. Maybe your PLA fans are blowing air too close to the nozzles? Like I said, no experience in PLA...but maybe try another material like ABS to test it without the fans.

GL

[IMBoring25]

Have you tried a different roll of filament? I've stored all my filament the same way and they're about the same age, but the transparent filaments and Semiflex have started jamming quite consistently where they didn't originally.

[dylantep]

I have done a PID auto tune and played with temps quite a bit. I think i will try no fans and no retractions to see if that helps next

I have a couple rolls and they've all had the problem, but they are all from the same company. I'll see if I can get my hands on another company's filament to try

[pouncingiguana]

It could also be your extruder motor getting to hot and making the filament pliable. Once that starts it'll grind away and not pass any more filament sometimes. Have you checked the temperature of the stepper motor on your extruder when this happens? Maybe the motor current it too high.

[Polygonhell]

Given you've tried different extruders, different hotends and different plastic, and still have the issue, I'd be inclined to say it's print settings.
The first thing I'd check is that the temperature is as reported using a thermocouple set the temperature to 210 on the E3D and verify it's actually at 210, IME E3D's in particular over report temperature with the recommended settings.
The next thing is to disable retractions and print some simple test parts, watch the temperature during the print, if the PID settings are good you should see less than 2C variance.
Until you can print a simple cylinder with no retractions, anything else is going to fail.
Once you get to that point, try a more complex part still with no retractions, watch the print to see if anything obvious is happening.
If that works set a modest retraction etc etc etc.
The idea is to introduce one thing at a time verify and identify what results in the issue.

Assuming you are running a genuine E3D V6 and it's not a light, the only real place that assembly error can creep in is if the nozzle is not tight against the heated break in the heater block, there should be a small amount of thread exposed where the nozzle enters the block.

Hotends jam with PLA for a number of reasons the most common is insufficient cooling of the heated break, the fan on the E3D must be correctly installed and it must run at all times during printing.
E3D's are susceptible to jamming when retractions >2mm are specified.
You can get a jam if extrusion steps are too great or the first layer is too low, increased back pressure can cause a failure to extrude in this case.