Hello Everyone,

I've got a cheap I3 knockoff from Gearbest that has been working well for the past year or so. Recently, it began making a clicking noise when laying down the first layer. When looking at what was deposited on the print bed, you can see there is a "miss" that corresponds to the times that it's clicking. At first, it wasn't much of a big deal, because I typically print on a raft and that covers up most of the flaws. However, now it has gotten to the point that it is almost completely missing the first layer and just clicking away while the head and bed move around doing their thing. Measuring some of the failed first layers that I've bailed on, it is coming out at ~.2mm thick from a .4mm nozzle. Does this mean that the nozzle is starting to get clogged and that the extra pressure of having to squeeze the first layer is too much for the extruder to advance more filament? Also, if I heat up the extruder and advance the filament manually in the home position, the resulting extruded filament is only coming out around .3mm or so. Is this another indication of a partially stuck nozzle, or will the filament get drawn thinner by gravity as it comes out of the nozzle if you just let it go into space?

For reference, here's a picture from when it wasn't so bad:
0609171528_HDR.jpg

Thank you very much in advance for any suggestions you might have.

Matt