That is some seriously bad filament. You should request a refund from the seller if he is local. Also share with us where you buy those filaments so we can avoid poor quality filaments making into our printers.

the filament come with the kit i bought from aliexpress this store http://www.aliexpress.com/store/1081732 and the printer http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6393647269.html

for someone who want to buy the printer you better find other kits cause the frame and the controller.

For frame when i request the files for me to bring it to local shop here to laser cut it to upgrade acrylic to aluminum and the seller told me that their frame is top secret LOL.

And their controller is melzi that their block buyer from changing the firmware to newest version, i change mine to ramps and now i can use ABL hehehehehe

I guess these guys running that aliexpress shop are full of it. There is nothing top secret about Prusa i3 since its open source.

No wonder the filament is free with every printer. makes sense for a crappy filament.

LOL Maybe i should upgrade my i3 to wilson ts, it look nice and used aluminum as main frame, it should be stable i think. And the TOP SECRET frame maybe i should sold it to who interest building i3

I didnt notice anything wrong with the filament. It may be caused by the dust which may have settle on the filament during the whole time i did not use the printer. Will observe it further and see what seems to be the issue.

i did it like this that time before i knew that my filament is a crap,

Make sure hobbed bold and bearing grip onto the filament tight enough
increase 10-15 degree the hotend temperature from your current setting
i also increase a little bit power to extruder stepper motor
then i try printing something take around 1hr to complete

That what i did, and my nozzle still clog several time after couple hours of printing than i know that i got bad filashit

Anyone who want build prusa i3 rework printer, i got 1 new complete set prusa i3 rework parts to letgo , i change my mind from wanting to convert my i3 into i3 rework to wilson ts. All parts still new and not yet remove the support for the extruder body.Can pm me if interest

This post has been edited by Prosperer: Apr 23 2015, 01:15 PM

Argh!!! I broke the thermistor on my hotend. Anyone know how i can fix this?

Thank you.

if it break near the thermistor head then i think there no way you can fix it

Any1 here already done themselves a filament extruder?

Elo guys!

I am here to update everyone regarding the issue I have with my printer.

To keep this short, my printer seems to have this problem of filament clogging the hotend resulting in incomplete or no print at all. The printer seems to be functioning fine in the initial stage but after around 1 minute into a printing session, the dreaded sound of the extruder grinding on the filament can be heard. By this time, little or no filament will come out of the nozzle.

Initially i thought it was something to do with the filament quality so i swap the filament from another source and yet it stills clog up the hotend. After that i went to the trouble of cleaning the filament off dust cause i thought it might be the cause of the problem and yet the problem persist. I tried to manually push the filament into a preheated hotend and the filament seems to be able to pass out fine.

Next, i tried to clean out the hotend which i thought must have some residue filament inside clogging up the component. So i disassemble the hotend and clear the filament pathway as best as i could. Still the problem persist. I even go through the trouble of borrowing a new hotend from a friend of mine and yet it doesnt work.

Last but not least, I checked on the extruder stepper but there wasnt any problem with it too.

So after accidentally snapping my old hotend in half, I have yet to find a solution for my problem. Any advice from all the seniors here?

Thanks in advance.

what kind of hotend do you use? pla or abs filament?

It is a Blomker custom hotend. PLA all the way for me.

Maybe you should try these 2 step below

Try increasing the stepper motor power a little bit

Do your current nozzle throat got ptfe tube inside? i seems got the same problem as you before and change the nozzle throat to the nozzle throat that got ptfe tube inside and my problem stop. i think pla will smooth inside the throat and it will cause the hotend to jam, that why i change mine to ptfe inside. Since i change the throat i didnt experience any jam on my nozzle anymore even when i direct printing for 7hrs.

pro user please correct me if im wrong

Increasing the stepper motor power? How do i actually do that? Is it the same if i were to increase the flow of filament?

Yup, there is a teflon tube inside the throat but as far as im concerned it didnt block the filament from entering the hotend. I actually tried to use a different hotend which doesnt require a teflon tube and the problem still persist.

PS. I went back to reexamine the printer last night and found out that there seems to be an issue with the part of the extruder which is suppose to hold and feed the filament into the hotend. The bearing does not seems to be moving sometimes so instead of guiding the filament into the hotend, it ends up pinching the filament in place with the stepper on the extruder grinding away the filament. I took this component apart and lubricate the bearing. Managed to print a small item without any issue after that but i will need to conduct a few more runs to make sure that i have managed to get rid of this problem.

Thanks for the help anyway.

Here the guide for increasing you stepper motor power https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89BHS9hfSUk

the PFTE lining in the hotend still ok? mine did the same as fixed after changing the PFTE lining, my mendelmax from blomker still using it original hotend since day 1, lost count how many hours of print time but at least it have printed more thang 10 spool of 1kg PLA

if you already done that, your firmware step for extruder are correct? and sometime printing to fast also cause this example my printer still skipping step if I print to fast example if I set my infill speed too fast, and do check you filament diameter make sure it consistent, I did got a spool of bad filament suppose to be 1.75 but measured 1.9mm

This post has been edited by DarkTenno: May 11 2015, 04:22 PM

My issue is similar to what this bro has been facing previously.

The teflon tube was still intact the last i was able to print with the jhead which came with the kit. I have now gotten myself a new barrel for the hotend but the ID seems to be a little bit too small for me to install the teflon tube. I was told that i need to drill the barrel down to the diameter of the tube but I have yet to do that.

And regards to the firmware setup for the extruder. As far as im concerned i have never done anything to it and it is still in stock condition. Same goes to the printing speed. You gave me a good suggestion though. Makes me wonder if its going to solve my problem if i were to reduce the speed of the printing instead.

Will double check on the size of the filament later when i got home.

what temperature you currently printing?, nozzle throat that are small are for all metal hotend, you can use them with no lining just make sure it are smooth as silk or PLA will jam, ABS should be fine with lining