New Flashforge Creator Pro user and new to 3D Printing having some bad luck...

Hello,

I am new here and I am also new to 3D printing and the Flashforge Creator Pro is my first 3D Printer. I was very excited to get into the world of 3D Printing as a hobby along with my other hobbies that include DIY electronics such as those at Adafruit and programming. However, I have not had any luck getting started after having the printer for a week. I understand that 3D Printing is very new and will have a lot of tinkering and hard work and won't be easy, but here is the trouble I am having.

I am not able to get the Hatchbox PLA I purchased to work. It will not extrude at all. When I fed in the filament using the instructions in the PDF manual sent by Tang at Amazon Flashforge support using the LCD screen on the printer I was pushing it in and it felt like it kept on going in, I felt the motors and hear clicking. It did grab the filament and I could not pull it out. I had to do unload to remove it.

The settings I used were the default settings which I think was around 230C? That may have been too hot for PLA and scorched some and I may have a clog. But, it didn't look like anything happened. The end of the PLA didn't show anything obvious it still looked the same. Still when I emailed Tang he said I may have a clog in the teflon tube and will need to remove the nozzle to replace it with one of the spares. Is it really difficult to remove the nozzle? I don't have the tools right now but I ordered a 9mm wrench, but I am not sure. Are there any other easier ways to safely clean the nozzle or any clogs?

Is it normal to get a clog this easy with just loading it in the first time? I knew it needs maintenance and may need some tinkering and taking apart, but I didn't expect it before I could even get a drop of filament to come through let alone before my first 3D Print....

Note: I have not tried the right extruder yet.. The hatchbox filament doesn't fit on the spool holders so I had a local 3D hubs print a spool holder because I didn't want to use the ABS filament that came with the printer due to the toxic nature of the fumes and not having the proper ventilation setup.

Oh shoot, that is a bummer. It could be that they didn't get the tube properly seated at the factory and you've got a really challenging clog. You might try the techniques Geoff proposes in the sticky threads at the top.

Hopefully it's just some small charred PLA. You might be able to get it back out by doing a cold pull. http://bukobot.com/nozzle-cleaning. Or you could break it up with a small drill bit poked up from the nozzle end (be careful not to break it off, use up and down motion). Or both. You could also try heating it up to the same 230 and jamming some ABS through and hope it breaks the stuff and takes it with it. And then follow up with a cold pull.

When you try your other nozzle, try quite a bit cooler to start with the PLA (say 190). Cut the end off clean (I cut it at an angle to make a point, but I don't know if it matters because I've always done it that way) and make sure its going through nice clean and straight.

There is really no seating of the tube, it is a little shorter than the space it sits in. I just took apart a hot end that was straight from the factory, even it had a piece of filament lodged in the PTFE. It wasn't really stuck bad as it pushed right out with the metal rod I have. What it looks like happens is they test the machines/extruders at the factory. Then they use the unload program and it partially breaks off when pulling the filament. But maybe it doesn't always do it. In my opinion the unload option should never be used. It is too slow to be effective. By the time the filament gets to the point it can be pulled out it has already hardened enough that it gets partially stuck. You should always "load" filament to unload. Just let it start extruding then lift up the guide tube and yank it out. You should see the end of the filament still being soft. That means you pulled the filament from the bottom of the extruder up all the way past the PTFE.

I usually don't even do that to "unload", I just cut it off and push it out by loading the new stuff right behind it.

So, I tried using the ABS filament that came with the printer today and I actually got it to extrude through the nozzle at 230C. I have taken some screenshots showing how it extruded. The only issue I have now is that it wants to curl up a bit near the nozzle. The first time it extruded it did this a lot it looks like a tangled string at the end. I did get it to come out straight a few times, but whenever I try to print something, while it is heating up a little bit of filament comes out of the nozzle a bit curled up like a hook. I tried printed today, but I had bed leveling issues after leveling the bed and will have to go back to try to level it again. Not sure if that has to do with the filament extruding but it didn't seem to extrude only but a little bit when printing. Its like it only wants to extrude when I am forcing it in by hand.

Note though that I was printing with the "test left" file on the SDCard. This set the extruder temperature to 220C with a bed temperature of 110C.

However, the bed was too close to the nozzles and slightly rubbed the nozzles. Luckily it wasn't enough to scrape the bed or the tape that is on it and I stopped the print immediately after I saw the nozzles and bed make contact. It may have been enough for the bed to block the filament though, but I am not sure if that's why it didn't extrude properly when printing.

Also note that I haven't finished putting the acrylic cover and door on. Not sure if that has to do with it but I know its recommend to use the door and top cover for ABS printing and I am not sure if I can "test" print with ABS without it.

I am not sure if I somehow cleared the blockage with the ABS because I haven't tried the PLA again yet.

Attachment 7567

Attachment 7568

Attachment 7569

The enclosure helps with ABS by reducing the warping that happens when parts of the model cool all the way when some of the model is still hot (abs shrinks as it cools). No harm in trying it out without the enclosure.

ABS drool often curls for me as well. It's good to have a wipe in the star gcode to leave it on the bed away from the print.

If the nozzle is right against the bed, it often can't extrude and clicks instead. The first layer of the print is greater than zero so if it is still touching, you're tramming more than a layer height negative. The bed levelling script positions it at 0 so where you set those screws defines where zero is. The reason people still leave a papers width at zero is that if you set it against the bed you don't know how far negative you are because the nozzle is holding it down.

My abs always curls, creating a loop when I extrude it in thin air, but it's fine when printing. Filament can't curl if it's sticking to something, curl typically happens when you're having bed adhesion issues.