MatterHackers 3mm pla filament issues
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Bought some filament last week and I am new to printing. I've run into a few problems and little disappointed with the latest incident today. This filament measured 2.9mm in thickness when I first bought which works fine in regards to feeding however today the printer filament got stuck. I had to disassemble the extruder mechanism because it just would not release even after puliing with pliers to the point that the filament snapped.I found the stuck portion tapered from 2.85mm (possibly stretched) to 3.59mm and had to drill it out to clear the block. Luckily did not damage the extruder in the process and got it re-assembled.
The issue I've been battling is the plastic making contact with heated bead seems to have surface cracks. I did not have this issue with the sample PLA that came with the K8200. I've tried to up the bed temp from 50 to 60C which showed some improvement however the bed cannot maintain the temp. I also tried to up the nozzle temp from 190 to 200C but that did not show any difference. I may be completely off with this type of issue being related to temp so any input would be great. Has anyone experienced this and what did you do to fix it?
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Did the filament expand to 3.59 mm because it was melted in the hot end, or did you actually have a bulge in the filament that was that large? If your filament actually has fat spots, its obviously defective. You should call or email us with your order number and we will replace it.
What do you mean by surface cracks? Can you take a picture?
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"Did the filament expand to 3.59 mm because it was melted in the hot end, or did you actually have a bulge in the filament that was that large?" Lets assume it bulged that big. It did get stuck in middle of print and I did attempt to free it. I am new to this so probably did something dumb.
"What do you mean by surface cracks? Can you take a picture?" Pictures attached.
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Those cracks are normal as the filament overlaps and folds over/under itself. They can be a sign of slight overextrusion. Make sure you have your filament diameter set to what you measured. If it is still a problem for you, you could try printing slightly higher off the bed, or calibrating your extruder.
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After having the 3mm pla get stuck again about a week ago I was a bit more careful and made sure not to pull up the PLA. What I found after carefully looking at everything is I was setting the feeder pressure too high and it was squeshing the PLA. This caused it to get stuck.
I've been running fine with half spring pressure.
Still trying to smooth out the cracks. Thanks for the feedback. I've lowered the first layer extrusion width and first layer speeds with noticeable progress.
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Unfortunately, Had more issues with this filament today. The filament became very stiff and brittle. It snapped in the extruder. I grabbed the filament directly from roll, which had not touched extruder and therefor never heated, and attempted to simply straighten the bend in it and it kept snapping for about 16-24 inches.It seems to be fine after this and hopefully will not repeat.
I seen in another forum this may be related to dry storage. This roll has not been stored and typically been doing small daily prints as I'm still learning and playing with print setting to improve the prints.Other thing that is weird is it only affected that 16-24 inches and not entire roll. Maybe this part of the role was heated from heatbed convection and dried up? And if that's the case, at a later date if I build a enclosure for the printer, should I also move the roll holder outside of the enclosure and humidify the room?
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It seems like you've got things backwards. PLA is supposed to be stored in a dry environment. Moisture is what causes it to have issues. This effect is called hygroscopy, and there's more information about it in this thread.
In any case it sounds like you just had a bad spot in the spool. If you find that the rest of the spools is excessively brittle, contact support@matterhackers.com and we will replace it.
