Quote Originally Posted by RobH2 View Post
That's a really odd one. It looks like a Wade's Extruder so the filament is being pulled in and not being shoved in. I have two suggestions depending on what causing it.

1. If the filament is actually melting above that hole, then something is way too hot in your enclosure (if you have one). If you don't have an enclosure, then that makes matters worse or you are in HELL and HELL has email. I don't think that the air envelope around everything should be anywhere close to the temperature to soften PLA. If that's the culprit, open the front and or side and see if the softening stops.
2. If a twist like 3D OZ suggests is occurring, then pull a few meters off of a spool and just have it freely floating so its nice and free to be pulled in. If that stops it then maybe it was some sort of twist that was building up as the filament was being pulled off of the spool.

Other than that, evaluate it again and send some more photos. Try to get them sharper so we can actually see what's going on. I'm curious to hear what your final analysis and solution is.
Rob,

I do not have an enclosure. I do have the fan and shroud on the hex .4 extruder. I think that 3d might be right on the twist issue, or, I am getting too much heat traveling up the filament.

Since I posted the issue I went to a new roll of PLA. I also reduced the temperature after the first layer from 220 to 200 even. I have been able to make three of the parts without any problem.

Once I am caught up (probably next week) I need to stick that old PLA back on and see if the temperature change made a difference or not. If not, then I will unroll some PLA and try again and see if it is the twist. I'm hoping that it is a temperature issue, as not using or stringing out the last 25% of each roll is a pain in the you know what.

Also, taking with Makerfarm support, recommendation to vegetable oil my extruder. Interesting, and I might give that a try as well. They also suggest that I can't use Slicr 1.1.6 but frankly, every successful print over the last two days has been using Slice 1.1.6. I am curious what the problem is with 1.1.6. From my perspective, it seems to do a better job at filling the odd little spaces that show up.

I will post more after I test the several theories.

CalifDan