Hey guys,

I just thought I'd type up this little tutorial for all you other Replicator 2 users!

Recently, I was having a huge amount of issues with my Replicator 2 jamming! I did a ton of tricks - Pulled the motor out and cleaned it, forced filament through the extrusion head - all to no avail!

What I eventually found through hours of scouring forums, was that there was a problem with my insulation on the top side of the extruder, which was causing heat soak into the filament guide tube.

This was causing pre-expansion of the filament (I got my digital calipers out for this - it was getting close to 1.95mm!!!)

So here is my fix-

Disassemble the machine as usual - take off the fan, the motor, the side fan, and the heater block.

Completely disassemble the extruder part.

Here's the next trick - re-insulate the extruder. I used a double layer of ceramic insulation tape, from my "local" i.e. Australian source BilbyCNC, then about 12 layers of Kapton tape to really help keep temps at bay.

The next trick was one that requires some extra gear.

Take the threaded tube - the one that the filament goes down, and apply a bit of thermal paste around the outside! Then, when you screw this into the aluminium block, it will coat the inside of that with the thermal paste as well. This acts as an extra insulation.

The final trick was to thermal-paste the bottom of the aluminium block.

Sorry for lack of pictures, I was so involved in getting my printer going again I plain forgot to take any!

But 30-40 hours on, I've still not yet had a better print! It may be the double layer of insulation tape that did most of the work, but it hasn't jammed, or skipped again!