Okay, this is a long story but I'm going to try and summarize it as much as possible.

  • Got a 3D printer. Stock MKV-BV Jhead, MK7 extruder gear. Successfully printed with MG Chemicals 1.75mm ABS at 230c and very slow speeds (5-15mm/s). Prints had oozing symptoms but filament was extruding/flowing well.
  • Started speeding up prints. 20mm/s barely worked with the stock extruder, but 30mm/s was too much to ask. The stock MK7 extruder popped/clicked at 30mm/s and filament barely flowed. I ended up buying a Greg Wade Geared extruder and modified the J-Head mount to hold a Bowden insert. Torque through the roof.
  • *Coincidence - Installed Greg Wades extruder during heat wave. Apartment is easily 90+ F and 95+ is normal.
  • After installation I calibrated my E-Steps/mm so that the Wade Extruder would consistently output 100mm of filament when sent through pronterface.
  • After calibration, verified that setup could extrude 100mm of filament in 1 minute.
  • Tried to print. Extruder immediately stripped (ground away) filament on first filament retract.
  • Turned off filament retract.
  • Tried to print. Filament stripped after ~10mm of extrusion. Overextruding despite calibration?
  • Dropped E-Steps/mm by nearly 1000%.
  • Tried to print. Didn't strip filament, but this time just broke it. Has to be a jam. Sure enough, Filament inspection looks like heat creep causing ABS expansion and jam.


I guess my question is: has anyone ever seen an ABS jam due to heat creep? I currently do not have a HotEnd fan (am getting one today to test) but was under the impression ABS didn't require it. Is it possible that my 90+ F apartment is messing up my hot-end behavior?