Under certain circumstances, the Filament Maker might start emitting loud squeaky noises. The noise typically becomes cyclic, as the screw spins.
1 - What does it mean ?
When the Filament Maker emits a cyclic, loud, squeaky noise, it indicates that the screw is touching the barrel. Beside being quite annoying for the user, this phenomenon often indicates that the Filament Maker is operating sub-optimally, and that the extrusion results are being disturbed. This issue must be fixed before you can achieve good, reliable extrusion results again.
2 - Cause
The screw can be disaligned when a particle is too large to travel through the barrel. The minor diameter of the screw increasing along the barrel, in order to apply a compression ratio and build pressure. For that reason, it is possible for particles to enter the barrel, but not necessarily come out. Sometimes, when a particle gets stuck and the pressure is sufficient, said particle can essentially push the screw away from the barrel, resulting in a contact on the other side of the screw.
The following particles can cause this issue :
- unmelted particles from previous extrusion runs (in case the hopper wasn't empty or the transition was incomplete)
- partially melted particles
- debris dropped accidentally in the hopper
- other contaminants (unpurged residue, degraded/burnt material...)
Please note that a particle can remain stuck for a long time, sometimes disturbing the flow.
3 - Solution
The objective is to free the barrel from the stuck particle. Unless the item is huge and unfracturable (e.g. a metal bolt), you might be able to push it out by purging the Filament Maker. We recommend a high level purge, followed by a Quality Check. Please check out paragraphs 3&4 of our Maintenance Guide.