Ender 3 Extruder First Layer Perfect But Then Starts Clicking Afterwards

Question

All of a sudden I seem to be having a lot of issues with under extruding on my Ender 3. The bottom layer (of height 0.1 mm) prints perfectly fine. This is done at 15 mm/s speed. However, The moment the print moves to layer 2 and above (at the default speed of 60 mm/s), I start hearing a lot of clicking noise on the extruder.

So far I have tried the following

• Replace nozzle to eliminate clogs
• Cleaned the inside of the hot end assembly
• Calibrated extruder steps/mm
• Reduced the layer height from 0.3 mm to 0.2 mm
• Reduced feed rate to as low at 50 %
• Cleaned the filament feeder assembly and verified that it is able to push the filament properly (Extruding when the print is not happening works just fine with no clicking)

Even with all the above, the issue is still persisting. I am not what else could be causing this.

I am printing with PLA at 200 C

Answer 1

Not allowed to comment, so have to answer:

1. The temperature sensor is a thermally sensitive resistor. Unfortunately, the temperature is near the high limit of that sensor, and the manufacturing tolerances are very significant. That is why a temperature tower is important for each printer, as well as each filament. (I have 4 printers and each requires a different temperature for the same filament. My worst-case is out by 25 degrees! - it's the one I bought second-hand because the original purchaser couldn't get it to work. I could replace the NTC, but it is easier just to have settings to suit that printer.)

2. Filament does change over time. Lots of theories about why, but the practical response is to tune settings to suit the filament. The alternative is to modify the filament (eg drying, adding oil to surface, etc.), but even with really old filament, I've found adjusting settings (in the slicer, like Cura) to be the most generally workable solution.

Bottom line is to test, adjust settings and repeat until the system achieves the result you need. Treat most recommendations as serving suggestions, so use them as clues (but not rules) for the puzzles presented as 3D printing.

Answer 2

I also had the extruder drive slipping backwards (clicking sound) as well and narrowed it down to a Cura update that had changed my Ender 3 machine settings from Marlin to Marlin (volume metric).

Once changed back to Marlin, all is well now. No over extruding. Before reversing the change, I had to reduce the flow rate to 53 %. Now, I’m back to 100 % and very good prints.

Printing with eSun PETG, with the following settings:

• temperature: 235 °C,
• retraction 6 mm @ 25 mm/sec,
• initial height 2 mm,
• all others 1.8 mm,
• speed 30 mm/sec,
• fan on 50 % at layer 3 - no stringing.

Answer 3

I bought an Ender 3 and I had the same problem.

I was changing few things and finally got success when I changed the nozzle to the second one (I had two in the set). At the end changing the nozzle was the primary step, but in my opinion more important was reduce speed printing, from 100 % to 80 %.

Since this simple modification (till now) all prints are fine now.

Answer 4

I too had this problem recently. I followed all the many hundreds of steps people suggested and nothing helped. I unistalled Cura 4.4 restarted my computer, installed Cura 4.1 problem fixed. Cura was the problem in my case.

Answer 5

A temperature of 200 °C is fine. You probably have heat creep from a Bowden style extruder. The filament starts getting softer due to heat creeping up from the hot nozzle. Filament expands and clogs the tube causing gear clicking. Usually there is a heat sink at the the Bowden tube connection. You need to cool that immediately. Which is, to set your fan to 100 % speed at layer height = 0. That should do the trick!