After about 2 years of printing very happily I started to get a lot of stuck filament - not feeding properly into the extruder. A closer look quickly revealed the problem: the idler assembly (this bit: https://www.lulzbot.com/store/parts/beefy-idler-assembly – but the original version that came with my TAZ5) had cracks all over the place and one side was completely detached. That means not enough pressure on the filament (or worse, pressure by the plastic rather than the rotating wheel) and the filament gets stuck and doesn’t feed right.
After playing around with it a bit it more or less disintegrated into 4 or 5 parts. I thought - ok, it got a lot of use, many filament changes, so fair enough and anyway no problem, since had I ordered a dual-extruder 6 months ago and have been waiting to try it anyway. So, exchange the extruder, calibrate (some effort on the TAZ5, a lot more fiddly than the single extruder), and I’m ready to print… so I thought.
While putting in my filament I noticed that both idler assemblies on the dual extruder we already cracked, the back one quite severely, even though I’d never even used it! Aargh! And sure enough, when testing the printing, the PLA won’t feed well into either extruder
So, now I have 3 questions:
- does this part: https://www.lulzbot.com/store/parts/beefy-idler-assembly fit both the original TAZ5 extruder and the dual extruder (V2)?
- it it really more beefy than the original?
- can I send in my dual extruder for replacement? It doesn’t seem fair to have to repair it before even getting to use it…
Regards from Vienna,
Richard