To easy options:
1) A lot of PLA jamming issues have been fixed by people âseasoningâ the nozzle. This involves oil, often canola, being applied to a clean nozzle, to lubricate the filament as it passed into the nozzle. You can 3DPrint a filter to add to your filament, with a little sponge inside, and apply the oil regularly to the sponge. Search thingiverse for "filament
oil filter".
2) how old is your filament / how long has it been exposed to air? Filament, especially PLA, absorbs moisture which can cause swelling which can cause jamming. Try drying your filament. To do so, you can put it in the oven, or in an airtight box for a few days with some dessicant, like a bag of rice, or the more expensive silicon dessicant - same stuff they probably gave you with the filament in a little sachet.
3) check your extruder tension - remove the filament from the hot end, and try moving the extruder - use your software and also try bu hand. Do you get the exact extrusion amount you expected? Is the filament difficult to feed in by hand? Loosen or even increase the tension until it improves. I like a tight tension, as my springs are relatively week. A strong spring might need loosened. This is especially useful - every filament is different, they all say 1.75mm or 3mm, but thats more of a stated aim for the size - the most important size is the tolerance - some filaments will vary greatly between manufacturers, and even the same manufacturer will vary by colour. Even then the tolerances are published as averages over a certain distance, and are not guatantees of the whole roll. Basically if youâre experimenting, witj different filaments, colours etc, its not uncommon to change the extruder tension with each roll. I have black and white 1.75mm filament from eSun. The white is thicker than the black, I dont know why. I change the tension every time I change colour.
4) try increasing your temperature, forget what youve read about ideal printing temp, or what it says on the filament sticker. Use as a guideline at best. Increase in small 5 degree changes until you hit consistent extrusion. That white PLA i mentioned likes 205 degrees at 0.3 nozzle and ~50 mm/s. The black needs more, like 215 degrees.
5) print faster. If youâre too slow, the plastic has nowhere to go, so will jam up.
6) increase the layer height - do you only have this problem at low layer heights, or all layer heights? Do you have active cooling on the parts, a layer fan? This will help the plastic solidify quicker rather than melting back up into the nozzle. This will be more apparent at low layer heights like 0.1mm or smaller. If you can print fine at 0.2mm, but not 0.05mm, then youâre probably not moving quick enough.
7) check your bed is level. Use auto bed levelling if you can.
8) try increasing the z offset - effectively make your print start slightly higher.
Examples of the seasoning process:
Some other useful guides:
http://wiki.e3d-online.com/wiki/E3D-v6\_Troubleshooting#Inadequate\_cooling\_and\_Filament\_Jamming
