Clogging is a very common phenomenon in 3D printing. During printing, if the nozzle does not extrude the filament smoothly, or there is an obvious lack of material (insufficient extrusion) on the surface of the printed model, it means that there is an abnormality in the flow of the filament,.
This may come from outside the printer, such as tangled filament or an excessive material tube resistance;
It may also be that after the filament is fed into the tool head, abnormal resistance occurs, when there are two or more filaments in the filament hub at the same time, or it may be that the extruder is working abnormally, resulting in poor printing filament output and blockage of the hotend, etc.
This WIKI will guide you in troubleshooting the problem of air printing or poor extrusion of A1 series printers.
This situation may be caused by excessive feeding resistance of the external filament spool or AMS lite. It is usually caused by the entanglement of the filament on the spool and excessive bending of the PTFE tube.
Generally, it can be discovered directly through visual inspection, as shown in the figure below. They are all the causes of "air printing " or insufficient extrusion.
The A1 mini has the Filament tangle detect feature, which can detect excessive external feeding resistance and automatically pause printing.
If you didn’t enable the Filament tangle detect feature, and the printer is "air printing" not being able to extrude the filament it means that the filament tangle detection module has been pressed down (as shown in the following image).
The possible reason is that the external feeding resistance of the Tool head is too high. To solve the issue, please refer to this wiki for troubleshooting: HMS_1200_8000_0002_0001: AMS1 Slot1 filament may be tangled or stuck.
After troubleshooting the cause of the blockage, we suggest that you enable the filament tangle detect feature to detect filament tangles during the printing process. This feature will also pause the print promptly to avoid printing failure.
Normally, there is only one filament inside the AMS Lite Filament Hub, however, there may be more than one filament inside the hub due to the following reasons:
If you find that 2 or more filaments enter the Filaments Hub at the same time, please manually pull out the material at the AMS lite loading and unloading assembly.
For a more thorough inspection, we can also remove the Filament Hub and inspect it as follows:
1. Pry up the lock cover of the Filament Hub with a hex key slightly, and then remove the Filament Hub;
2. Then manually pull the filament to feed and unfeed the filament, and confirm that the filament moves forward and backward smoothly.
You can also check whether there is excess filament or debris inside the Filamen Hub when the filament is completely withdrawn.
If you find filaments or debris inside, please refer to Disassembly and cleaning the AMS lite Filament Hub for cleaning steps.
Next, we need to troubleshoot the Extruder unit. The extruder unit's problems will include the following situations:
In cases 1 and 2, please refer to the A1 series extruder cleaning tutorial for specific operations;
In case 3, after removing the Extruder Gear, operate the printer to extrude and observe whether there is a pause in the rotation of the extrusion motor. If so, the extrusion motor needs to be replaced.
After confirming that the Extruder Gear is clean, you can also refer to the following video to check whether the extruder is smooth.
/n1/troubleshooting/blockage-troubleshoot/a1mini_how_to_check_whether_the_extruder_is_blocked.mp4
If there are no abnormalities in the previous troubleshooting steps, then it is certain that the problem is with the hotend, and we need to clean the hotend.
For specific cleaning operations, please refer to the A1 mini Nozzle Unclogging Guide
What needs special reminders are:
1. To keep the hotend unobstructed, we recommend regular cold pull on the hotend, which can effectively avoid blockage of the hot end;
2. If during the inspection of the extruder, it is found that the teeth of the extruder gear are worn or chipped, it is also recommended to cold pull the hotend, which can effectively clean up the metal fragments brought to the hotend by the filament.
We hope that the detailed guide we shared with you was helpful and informative.
We want to ensure that you can perform it safely and effectively. If you have any concerns or questions regarding the process described in this article, we encourage you to reach out to our friendly customer service team before starting the operation. Our team is always ready to help you and answer any questions you may have.
Click here to open a new ticket in our Support Page.
We will do our best to respond promptly and provide you with the assistance you need.