Hi all, i’m currently having some issues with printing in PLA. It’s currently the only filament i have on hand to test with. Perhaps it’s not the best filament to use for testing as it’s not a filament i’ve worked with before. I have experience with ABS, and so i figure HIPS is similar to that so i will pick some of that up at some point. However i would like to find out the cause and solution to these printing problems.
The PLA seemed to coming out too slow and/or seemed like it was cooling off too fast when i start my first layer, so i was heating up my extruder about 20 degrees extra so it came out nice and fast. Printing the bottom layers seems to have worked great like that, but after awhile it seemed to get slow again and or not able to come out of the extruder. It seemed to “fix itself” for awhile, but it did it again and again. I tried heating up the filament even more and i think i may have went too high and clogged my extruder completely, so that’s probably my bad and i’ll have to check that out.
But what is causing these layer problems? Is it just that my extruder was already beginning to clog? If so, is this a common problem with PLA? What ways are there to prevent this? If my extruder is now clogged (whether my fault or not) what is the best way to clean it? Do i just take the nozzle off and clean the inside of it? I’m still relatively new to 3d printing so i can’t say i’ve ever seen this kind of print mess up online or in person before, but again this is my first time using PLA.
