Prusa i3, Broken stepper motor?

[Perry]

Hi all,
I was nearing the end of my prusa i3 build and attempting to make its first extrusion and calibrate the extruder. I heated the nozzle and fed in the filament then hit extrude. The filament jammed and the motor clicked for a while, i reset and tried again. I realized the filament jammed because it was curved and didn't go all the way to the extruder tip. I straightened the filament and this time it went to the tip and when i hit extrude a small amount came out before the motor started to click again. I unscrewed the idler screws halfway to see if that helped, but upon trying to extrude the motor clicked and wouldn't rotate. Every time I try now the motor just clicks and doesn't move, even with no filament in the extruder just turning the gears it clicks and wont rotate. I'm fairly sure I have Fu**ed my extruder stepper motor, sound about right? its hard to turn by hand and wont rotate just clicks. Anyway to fix this?

I didn't have my fan on the hot end when trying to extrude for the first time. Is this a problem will not cooling the upper part of the hot end cause the filament to jam?

Thanks in advance.

[old man emu]

Don't Panic!

The simplest reason for the stepper to click is that is that the stepper Vref is not set correctly. Too low and the steppers will not work.

Look at this thread for starters: http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...river-voltages

and this one: http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...-Motor-Voltage

and this one: http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?158,117616

Then there is this, which takes the problem from another angle: http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...ent-or-Print!/

Your steppers will be hard to turn by hand if you have the power to them. Turn off your power and you will be able to turn them easily.

Old Man Emu