I’m not too sure how or why at some point training stopped including “remove the filament from the machine when you are finished using it” but it really needs to be part of it. I have had several people actualy fight me in whether they should remove the filament when done with the machine, and I’ve had to dig out a broken piece of filament from the machine at least 2 times. This break was high enough I can grab the piece but it could have easily been further inside. This also means the filament roll is now tangled.
Please remove the filament when you are done with the Tinkerine, no exceptions.
So this is what I’m talking about. I tried pulling that piece out and it snapped at the feed wheel. Filament gets brittle when it’s left out in the open air, it gather moisture and looses its strength. That’s fine when it’s on the roll or being used, but when you leave it in the machine over night it is under stress inside the printer head.
Don’t assume that this will be done at the end of the night, or that someone else will be using the printer after you. The small amount of lost plastic when changing filament is nothing compared to the potential damage to the feed system going in there with needle nose pliers can cause. Please remove the filament when you are done using the machine.
Second issue I noticed was all 3of these spools of filament were left loose, there was no attempt at keeping them untangled. When you’ve removed a filament from the machine you should find the small double holes on the spool and feed it through as shown, this will hold on the to filament until someone else needs it. Some brands of filament don’t have these holes, a piece of tape works well in that case.
I’ve seen some 3d printed clips to help with this issue in the past, but I find these holes to do the trick most of the time.
Without this a roll of filament WILL get tangled which can harm your print or the machine, especially on longer prints.
Has PLA filament changed or is the printer being used less now? Removing the filament was not mentioned during training a few years ago and as far as I recall, it wasn’t a problem at that time. Maybe the printer was getting more use so the problem never came up.
I had noticed the same behavior with PLA filament on my home printer but assumed it was because they were small tightly-coiled rolls, which put more stress on the filament. When I used ABS filament, it never broke off like that.
When I was trained by @jon a couple of years ago I believe he taught it to me, since I’ve always had it in my head that was the norm. If it isn’t currently in the list of things that should be taught during training it should be. I’ve had to dig filament out of the nozzle 3 times in the last year or so, and I know a few others that have done the same. Getting pliers in that area is a bad idea for the machanics but necessary to get the filament out.
