Cracks in print and clicking extruder motor

[Fast one]

My printer was working great but now large prints fail after an hour or two due to the extruder clicking with no material flowing. A smaller print didn't fail but it has cracks in it from some layers not sticking to each other. One print about the size of a 1" cube came out ok. Does anyone know what is causing this?

[JohnR]

The extruder clicking sounds like either a clog in the nozzle, or the nozzle's heater isn't up to temperature. The extruder isn't able to push the filament through the nozzle, which causes the clicking. I have encountered the latter a lot with my printer. It is usually a faulty cable (it has happened 3 times) which doesn't feed enough current to the heater for it to maintain the required temperature. If this is the case, you may need a new x-axis cable. The telltale sign of this is that the temperature trace in Octoprint is wildly varying.

[Fast one]

It failed after 25 minutes but the temperature trace was stable with no dropout spikes.

[Bolon]

I am also having these issues, it seems like the extruder jumps steps on the filament.
Our temperatures is also stable so that's not the problem. We've been using a whole lot of different filaments.
All filaments has the issue, but its worse with some. such as copperfill and woodfill. tried 3 manufacturers of PLA, different TPE etc.

Is there a flaw in the current extruder design?

[jarhead]

You probably have a clog. If using all different types of material, it happens. Clean out the nozzle and try again.

[Bolon]

You probably have a clog. If using all different types of material, it happens. Clean out the nozzle and try again.

I shouldnt have to clean it multiple times an hour or so do i?
Just as Fast one is saying (if i understand him right), it works for a while and then starts clicking, then suddenly starts working again. it can be for a few seconds which only causes some cosmetic issues, or it can be for several layers. then it stops clicking and prints on normally.

I tried sanding down the extruder gear yesterday since i read another thread that small pieces from the gear was breaking of and going down with the filament. i ran a 2 hour job after that which came out flawless. but that could also been a coincidence. i can sometimes print jobs for 24 hours without problem, but sometimes they start clicking already on the first layer.

I've gotten the feeling that its worse when it's models that needs many retractions. nothing that i can tell for sure.
I will return when i've tested some more with the sanded gear and hopefully it might help Fast one and others too.

Edit: Still same issues, but i noticed that it's the extruder motor thats clicking and is unable to bring enough force to rotate.

[JohnR]

That definitely sounds like clogging. I've also experienced that with models that have a lot of retraction tend to clog the nozzle more. My solution was to run at a higher temperature after cleaning the nozzle really well (burning out the nozzle with a blow torch, dragging a wire through a few times and then blowing it out with compressed air ).

[kellurian]

I am having the same problem. I actually don't think that the problem is clogging, I think the extruder motor is causing clogging since its not feeding filament. The problems generally happens at the beginning of a new print, and the temperature is not wildly off (more that +/- 5 degrees). I can remove the filament and hit "extrude" in octoprint, and the motor will do the same clicking, which for me is actually moving back and forth without continuing in one direction. It does the same thing if you hit "retract". I have noticed two strange things. First, activating the cooling fan for me seems to jolt the extruder motor back to working again. The second is that if I unplug and re plug in the extruder motor, the problem stops for a while. Things will start working, for a while, even without cleaning the extruder. I HAVE cleaned it extensively since I first thought that clogging was the problem.

[kellurian]

So I actually think I solved this problem or at least partially. The nema 14 extruder has a loose connection to the board. Apparently only some of the wires are making contact which is causing it to "wobble" back and forth. If I hold the wires so a better connection is made, it works fine. Still haven't figured which wires are having a bad connection, but this made sense with the sporadic way it was presenting and why unplugging it in and out caused the problem. Will probably have to talk to type a about either getting a new motor or how to make sure all the connections are in the socket better, because they all appear to be in place.

[Fast one]

The cracks were caused by using the wrong material, somehow I ordered ABS instead of PLA and sometimes the bottom curled up or didn't stick to the glass for long. The extruder clicking was caused by not enough initial voltage for the motor driver setup, the 0.45 volts wasn't enough to overcome small bumps in the print. The 0.45 volts wasn't enough for the other motor drivers either because sometimes the print would shift partway into the build causing a mess of material. I turned up all the stepper motor driver voltages a lot and now there is no extruder clicking or shifting in the part being printed.