the extruder hiccup

[godon]

hi, i've got a Geeetech Prusa I3 Pro B,
now, when i bought it and mount it, (a couple of weeks ago) it was all ok, i printed without problems with PLA filament.
Then the ABS filament arrived, bringing a lot of problems with him...
The extruder started to make a clicking noise, I found out that the extruder piece, was damaged,

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The clicking noise was the stepper motor that coud not rotate.
Thinking that the problem was the ABS, i put the PLA back swearing not to use ABS ever again. (even because the plate took a while to heat up and was boring) the clicking continued, but when I pushed the filament or press the release buttom, the filament extruded fine, so I just put a rubber band to keep the release button pressed.
Then I printed a new piece, and replace the broken one. For half print was fine, then I put the rubber band back.
Now I update the rubber band with some cable ties

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There were a couple of soved problems i didn't mention, like the distance between the nozzle and the plate, and the jammed z axes, but now they're fine...
Now, my problem with is that the printer can not extrude properly, I mean, I launch the print, it make a couple of loops extruding and not extruding, and then it start to print the model, but sometimes it fail to extrude some parts, it does it randomly: sometimes is the filling, sometimes is the perimeter, the lack of a recognizable patterns is frustrating.
What can I do about it?
I already:
• cleaned the nozzle and tried to extrude (and when i do it manually from the repetier's print panel works fine...)
• calibrated the hot plate with the A4 thing

Please helpme
thanks for reading and for the help

[William]

Hi，You can replace the broken parts, which may be caused by the temperature of the hot end is not enough,
you can increase the temperature to above 230 ℃.

[GAQ]

You don't mention print speed...
Most claims you see are optimistic.
Slow your prints down - a lot - say to 60% of what they are now.
If everything seems to be working better, then that could be the issue.
(Then slowly increase speeds until the clicking sounds starts - when you slow it down a little again to find the correct setting)
Attempting to push filament into an extruder faster than it can melt the material will inevitably result in a mis-feed and a constant 'Clicking' sound.
ABS would have shown this up faster than the PLA.
You could always upgrade to an all aluminium extruder...
They're only about £6 or so on eBay ?
(Won't go any faster than plastic, but more robust... Speed limit is more a function of the ability of the hot end to melt the filament.)

[enhaxed]

I'm having this same issue except i'm having trouble getting successful prints at all, extrusion seems fine for a while then the clicking starts and the build is ruined. Worse it has become almost impossible to get the filament to load, just more clicking no matter how i manipulate the screw, some instructions as to what that's for would have been nice.

I'm using Geeetech PLA filament and the printer appears fine other wise. three times now I've had an issue with the filament curling inside and coming out the back of the carriage between the tracks.

When I first installed it I noticed some loose ball bearings with it in the packaging, not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Now it appears there is some filament trapped in it and I will have to try to disassemble it to remove it but wonder if there's any point when i'll be back to not being able to load filament.

I'm starting to wonder if i should just go buy another extruder as mentioned above.

[enhaxed]

To be honest, Australian Consumer affairs may be interested in goods being sold that aren't fit for purpose. I am not happy that I'm looking at paying for another extruder in a printer less than 2 weeks old.

[William]

Hi,if the temperature is too low, the consumables will not melt and cannot be squeezed in.
The melting temperature of Abs is on the high side, you can increase the temperature to try, it has nothing to do with the speed.
For the broken part, you can contact the salesperson to replace it.

[enhaxed]

Thankyou for your reply William, it's a pity that information wasn't correct in the manual.

I finally managed to get the extruder working well enough to print something.

It turned out the recommended temperature for PLA was wrong by about 25 degrees and i only started getting decent results after raising it to 210. I'm using Geeetech black filament.

Another helpful thing was using the white tube with 90 degree endcaps supplied with the kit. It makes a good straightener for the filament, not sure if that was the intent since it's not mentioned in the build instructions.

Since I'm seeing multiple posts here about extruder problems it might be worth improving the design or at least providing more information on filament issues in the manual. It might also be worth updating the Easyprint PLA profile to reflect the actual temperatures PLA needs.