Please refer to the attached photos, and sorry about my feet. Any advice would be appreciated. I have been trying to sort this problem out with what’s been happening recently. So far I have taken the extruder apart twice and found nothing; replaced the nozzle; lowered temperatures; slowed the print; lubed the rails; reset Creality Print to factory settings; and rearranged the feeder guide clips. It’s a new spool of PLA. These are different prints, with picture 4 being the latest.
To be clear, I foolishly put some thermal grease on the hotend thinking it would allow for better heat transfer, but I learned that was a mistake. I soaked it with 99% isopropyl alcohol and thoroughly cleaned it.
I have not altered the belt tensions, as I don’t know what’s too tight, though I feel like I’m hearing some sounds I have not heard before. Though I don’t know if thats just me being paranoid.
EDIT: i replaced the hot end with the swiss upgrade. issue persists. i releveled the bed i checked the ptfe tube and played with temp. issue persists. at this end its it just a bad extruder? its less then a year old.
Based on the details and the photo provided. you are dealing with a severe case of under-extrusion. The print looks like a sponge because the plastic isn’t melting or flowing properly.
Here is a breakdown of the likely culprits and an action plan to get your K1 Max back up and running.
The Diagnosis
The Thermal Grease Incident (The Primary Suspect): This is the biggest red flag. Standard thermal paste (like the kind used for PC CPUs) is only rated for around 150°C. If applied to a 3D printer’s hotend (which easily exceeds 200°C), the paste cooks, carbonizes, and turns into a hard, chalky insulator. While 99% IPA is great for cleaning uncured paste, it will not dissolve paste that has been baked on. If any of that paste got inside the filament path, on the nozzle threads, or between the heatbreak and the nozzle, it is creating massive friction and causing a persistent partial clog.
The Unfamiliar Sounds: The new sounds they are hearing are almost certainly the extruder gears “skipping” or “clicking.” When the hotend is partially clogged, the extruder motor doesn’t have enough torque to push the filament through, causing the gears to slip and grind against the filament.
Lowering Temperatures: Lowering the print temperature was the wrong move in this scenario. Colder filament is more viscous and harder to push through the nozzle, which only increases the backpressure and makes the under-extrusion worse.
Here is where I would start
1. Replace or Deep-Clean the Hotend Because the K1 Max uses a ceramic hotend, getting baked-on thermal paste out of the internal threads or filament path is incredibly difficult.
Best option: Completely replace the hotend assembly. They are relatively inexpensive and will guarantee the thermal paste issue is entirely eliminated.
Alternative: If they want to salvage it, they need to heat the hotend up to 250°C without filament loaded, remove the nozzle, and carefully clear out the melt zone with a specialized cleaning needle or a cold-pull technique (though this may not remove hardened paste).
2. Clean the Extruder Gears Even though you took the extruder apart twice, you need to check it again. Because the extruder has been fighting a severe clog, the gears have likely ground the PLA into dust. you should use a stiff brush or an old toothbrush to clean the teeth of the dual-drive gears to ensure they can actually grip the filament once the hotend is fixed.
3. Check the PTFE Tube Ensure the small piece of PTFE tubing that sits between the extruder and the hotend is perfectly flush and undamaged. If it is pinched or cut at an angle, filament will catch and cause the exact under-extrusion shown in their photos.
4. Reset Temperatures you need to raise their printing temperatures back to the standard settings for PLA usually around 210°C - 220°C to ensure the filament melts fast enough to keep up with the print speeds.
I think I may have found the issue, depending on if this is normal or not, I do think it is. The bearing on the tension arm is loose and has a fair deal of wobble. maybe 4 degrees of lateral play. I placed the DXC extruder on order. Will update if this corrects the issue.
Have you run flowrate test? My guess from what I see on the first layer and the other prints is that you are running too fast or your temperature is much too low.
3. Check the PTFE Tube Ensure the small piece of PTFE tubing that sits between the extruder and the hotend is perfectly flush and undamaged. If it is pinched or cut at an angle, filament will catch and cause the exact under-extrusion shown in their photos.
If the printer has a unicorn nozzle you will not find the short piece of PTFE-tube between extruder and nozzle… The unicorn nozzle is much longer, therefore there is no need for the PTFE-tube…
I have 2 printers, the latest one has the unicorn nozzle, I have replaced the hotend of the other one so I can fit the unicorn nozzle in that one as well.
I have tried the Swiss upgrade but couldn’t get the same print quality as with the stock one, so switched back to that (both printers have over 2000 printing hours)..
