I've sorted out a few issues with my Prusa i3 and have it printing ABS pretty well. There are a few jams here and there but overall ABS seems to be a known quantity.
Now I've circled back to trying to get PLA to print with my 0.40 Magma hot end and I'm having a lot of trouble. There are a few problems:
1. The PLA 3mm filament is softer than ABS and tends to get chewed up by the extruder hobbed bolt more easily. Still trying to verify that I have the right temperature setting.
2. Heat seems to travel up despite the use of thin walled stainless steel tubing and a large aluminum block. I've tried mounting aluminum sheet stock on the cooling block but it still jams sometimes, particular when the hobbed bolt has chewed into the filament enough that it goes into the top of the hot end with some additional roughness. THis is more sensitive to expansion even with a small amount of heat.
3. I'm suspicious the slic3r is not generating the right code for my Marlin / RAMPS 1.4 - when it reverses (on layer change and for longer moves) it sometimes moves the extruder gear MUCH more quickly than seems prudent. It's almost as if the feed rate specified for extruder reversal is getting overridden by some other feed rate setting. This jerky reversal (which happens more on smaller scale objects) seems to contribute to extruder jams (on ABS as well but more on PLA).
I'm wondering if ANYONE has had sucess printing PLA with a Magma hot end???
Now I've circled back to trying to get PLA to print with my 0.40 Magma hot end and I'm having a lot of trouble. There are a few problems:
1. The PLA 3mm filament is softer than ABS and tends to get chewed up by the extruder hobbed bolt more easily. Still trying to verify that I have the right temperature setting.
2. Heat seems to travel up despite the use of thin walled stainless steel tubing and a large aluminum block. I've tried mounting aluminum sheet stock on the cooling block but it still jams sometimes, particular when the hobbed bolt has chewed into the filament enough that it goes into the top of the hot end with some additional roughness. THis is more sensitive to expansion even with a small amount of heat.
3. I'm suspicious the slic3r is not generating the right code for my Marlin / RAMPS 1.4 - when it reverses (on layer change and for longer moves) it sometimes moves the extruder gear MUCH more quickly than seems prudent. It's almost as if the feed rate specified for extruder reversal is getting overridden by some other feed rate setting. This jerky reversal (which happens more on smaller scale objects) seems to contribute to extruder jams (on ABS as well but more on PLA).
I'm wondering if ANYONE has had sucess printing PLA with a Magma hot end???