My Gooood! How to avoid failure printing due to cross tangle 3D filament?

I bought a 3D printer and learned a lot in the past 3 months. It is really a good thing that I can make some fun models and share with my friends. But sometimes I can not print the model successfully.
Yesterday I wanted to print an owl for my niece Joyce. It had printed for about 7 hours with smooth surface, then the printer head was moving with no filament coming out. The filament jammed on the spool due to cross tangle. What a nightmare! 7 hours for nothing! I confronted this issue last month but I thought it was a random issue. So I didn’t care that much. But now this happens again. Does anybody can help me to solve this issue?

Yes that happened to me once as well, just pull the "under" out. I think that can happen by accident when you have a new spool, and it spools of a bit in the beginning.

and if you manage to measure where you failed you might print only the top half and continue.

I've only had that issue with one manufacturer of material. It was on too small of a spool. Yours look like it should have been OK? Which brand is it? I ended up unspooling the material so it wouldn't jam up on me again. I would buy from someone else.

1. Find yourself a new vendor.
2. re-spool on an empty one.
3. stay awake....... Just a bad joke.

I have a couple of those while I was testing different vendors, once I found the good one, I stick to that vendor.

Thanks for the tip. It's just when we continue printing where we stop, the printing job is not that satisfying. e.g. a little crack on the surface.

The coils got crossed with each other. You may not see it clearly cause the picture is a little blurry (sorry for that). I did unspool the filament to rewind. It's just several spools I bought from the Internet. Maybe I should try more other brands.

Thanks for the three tips. I should try some more brands to find the right one.

I don't like to promote any vendors, but Gizmo and IRULU are good vendors with decent quality products and huge variety of materials. they might not be the cheapest around but they are on the low side.

Thx~ I will google these brands later.

I have found on occasion that the free end of the filament can get under a loop on the spool. With PLA it can often feed without a problem with theis knot lurking until it decides to bite. I take near paranoid care that the end never gets away having lost a good 150mm bust of Pallas Athena to this exact cause. Surplus ends of spools and samples need to be unspooled and respooled with care to avoid this.

Having said that, I have had one of my early reels from one of the most respected suppliers that had a from-the-factory cross over on the last 20M of the spool.

[forums.reprap.org]

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Waitaki 3D Printer

Hi leadinglights,

Thanks for the share.

With tangle issue being a random thing, we really need to pay more attention when printing models especially complicated ones.

Hi waitaki,

Thanks, I've seen your tips.

Also see that tangle issue happens from time to time. A little improvement on the spool may be a solution.

Its funny, I had this happen last night. I was 3d printing some Christmas tree decorations and the tangle was started due to the reel being too loose on my spool holder. I cleared it up before it started to bite but I thought about this for a moment and remembered that I had solved this issue early on. This issue cropped up due to my carelessness when I mounted my new spool.

Most people it seems prefer to have a spool mounted with as little friction as possible. I believe this is wrong. I add some preload to my spools and keep a small 4mm ID tube to guide the filament from the spool to the fitting with the sponge, overall about 18 inches between the extruder and the spool, this gives me enough slack for proper retract (4.5mm in my case) without kinking or feeding the spool backwards. Having a small amount of friction on the spool especially when printing smaller finer objects is essential. When feeding a large volume nozzle the preload does not matter as much as the spool is basically constantly spinning.

I don't think the manufacturers are to blame, we need to analyze our own setups. I believe the ideal solution would involve a proper clutch style rubbing surface, preferably some sort of high wear fabric like alcantera or a wool pad.

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[engineerd3d.ddns.net]

Modicum V1 sold on e-bay user jaguarking11

Thanks, jaguarking11,

Maybe you'are right, we should not blame the manufacturer for tangle issue as this filament industry is still in early stage.
But I believe that filament manufacturers will notice this little defect someday and work it out.
Before then, I guess I just need to make some adjustment just like what you did so that the printing can be smooth.

Two reasons for this issue. First is improper use of filament during 3d printing. The filament should not be loose during printing, so we need to tighten the coils after using. Second is that knots emerge without manufacturer’s notice during winding process. Regarding this issue, our company has found a solution. See more at [www.reprappertech.com]

Glad to see that a manufacturer has noticed the issue and come out with a solution.
As for us - the endusers, it's good news that we can print out things smoothly with such well coiled filament from now on.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2014 11:00PM by William.T.