Hi guys, I hope can you help me, some days ago my extruder sounds like “clack, clack” and I was check tension between extruder-filament sensor- filament roll and it is ok, the next to check was extruder I disarmed all and I cleaned all parts put it grease and the problem continues, when I print whatever the printer lost some layers, obviously I checked the screw in the extruder to tighten or loosening the filament.
Thanks in advance!
Well there are a couple things to take note of from my own experience/perspective. Before we start I will say I have only about 2 months of experience but being a creality owner I have already had to modify and repair several aspects of this printer myself.
I just recently had the extruder assembly off for inspection myself as I had a hot end meltdown. Removing the extruder from the drive motor revealed what at first glance looked like possible plastic/nylon gears, although it could have been a black oxide coated metal gear. I did not specifically test this further as my extruder is working correctly for the moment.
My point of this is that it would be necessary to inspect all of the gear teeth not just look and lube. The clicking is obviously a sign of gear skipping or the ‘teeth’ skipping over the filament, diagnosing this would be a matter of extruding and and retracting the filament and looking for signs of the gripping teeth ‘smearing’ or otherwise creating a non expected grip pattern on the filament.
Another thing to look for is that if you have relocated your filament spool off the top of the printer gantry as many, including myself have done, you must make sure that the new feed path is smooth. It does sound like you have checked this, although one thing I noticed regarding the filament sensor was that it was able to move freely in the Y axis, but was solid on the X axis. This was due to the design of the filament relocation guide I had printed from printables. I myself found this to be binding up the filament when the print head was traveling along the X axis.
I temporarily have removed the filament sensor as I don’t need it as I am only in the beginning stages. Just so others now, the printer will work just fine without any issues with the filament sensor unplugged/removed from the machine.
So to recap, you have 2 possible issues. (In my opinion)
- Possible broken gears within the drive mechanism of the filament extruder.
- Extruder is ‘skipping’ on the filament due to binding of the filament travel.
Hope this provides some insight to repair.
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Thanks a lot Sasha! you know you have good points about this, I was inspect the gears one by one and all teeth, about the filament recently printed a new system and it is really smooth, whaterver today I orden in Aliexpress step motor and extruder, meanwhile I tryin to learn about this and I hope find a solution!