Feeder Spring Losing Strength

I'm not sure if this is the problem or not, but the extruder on the Rep 2 we have at school has stopped working.

I tried a number of things until I noticed that the little tab you push down to feed and remove filament was a bit loose. Upon further inspection, the printer works mostly fine when I apply a bit of upwards pressure on the tab. Not sure if that means the spring is going bad and losing tension or whatever you would call it.


Anyone else have similar problems or know what the issue I'm having really is?

What kind of extruder? If a Wade, I had what I thought was the same issue. Then I looked below where the arm hinges with the bolt and noticed the hole was cracked. I have black parts so it was really hard to notice. So, the bottom was moving out a bit. No matter how much I turned the screws (with the springs around them) in the hobbed bolt would not grip the filament. Once I saw the crack and reprinted the arm, I was OK. Luckily I was a able to get it tight enough to get a print done.

Not saying you need this advice. It's mostly for others who might read this post. I almost learned this the hard way, but when you buy a printer, and you only have one, it's important to immediately print extruder and other replacement parts first. Because, if your printer is down because one broke, you'll be stuck ordering something that you can print for pennies.

It's the extruder that the Makerbot Rep 2 comes with now.

I've tried printing alternate versions but they all produce the same result.

I seem to have fixed my problem using nothing but a rubber band.

Attachment 1042

It seems like I was right with my thinking, as soon as I added a bit more tension to the little bar and it works fine.
I'll look into a more permanent fix, but for now I think I'm good!

Nothing can take the place of good old ingenuity...