Hi everyone,
I recently upgraded my Ender 3 V2 with the Creality Sprite Pro direct drive extruder. Since the upgrade, I’ve been struggling with under-extrusion issues, and after some investigation, I believe it’s caused by heat creep in the hotend.
Here’s what I’ve observed:
- Filament seems to jam or slow down mid-print, especially on longer jobs.
- I occasionally hear clicking from the extruder.
- Prints show inconsistent extrusion, especially after retractions or on small features.
- The extruder fan is running, but I’m not sure if it provides enough cooling for the heat break.
What I’ve already tried:
- Lowered retraction distance to 1 mm and retraction speed to 30 mm/s.
- Reduced print temperature (tried 200°C for PLA).
- Verified the hotend fan is always on.
- Performed cold pull to clear possible partial clogs.
- Measured and recalibrated E-steps (currently around 424).
- Dried filament before printing.
- Using quality PLA.
Despite all that, the problem still occurs, and it seems to get worse the longer the print goes on — which makes me think it’s definitely heat creep-related.
Any advice? Should I upgrade the hotend fan? Or try a different heatsink paste or part cooling setup?
Thanks in advance!
