What’s the issue?
The nozzle is moving, but no filament is deposited on the print bed at the beginning of the printing, or no filament comes out in mid-print which results in printing failure.
—Nozzle Too Close to Print Bed
—Nozzle Not Prime
—Out of Filament
—Snapped Filament
—Grinding Filament
—Nozzle Jammed
—Overheated Extruder Motor
—Nozzle Too Close to Print Bed
At the beginning of printing, if the nozzle is too close to the build table surface, there will not be enough room for the plastic to come out of the extruder.
Z-Axis Offset
Most printers allow you to make very fine Z-axis offset in the setting. Raise the height of the nozzle slightly, for example, 0.05mm, to get away from the print bed. Be careful not to raise the nozzle too much away from the print bed, or it can cause other issues.
Lower the print bed
If your printer allows, you can lower the print bed away from the nozzle. However, it may require you to re-calibrate and level the print bed.
—Nozzle Not Primed
The extruder may leak plastic when they are sitting idle at a high temperature, which creates a void inside the nozzle. It results in a few seconds delay before the plastic comes out again when you try to start printing.
Include extra skirt outlines
Include something called a skirt, which will draw a circle around your part, and it will prime the extruder with plastic in the process. If you need extra priming, you can increase the number of skirt outlines.
Manually extrude filament
Manually extrude filament using the extrude function of the printer before beginning the print. Then the nozzle is primed.
—Out of Filament
It’s an obvious problem for most printers where the filament spool holder is in full view. However, some printers encase the filament spool, so that the issue is not immediately obvious.
Feed in fresh filament
Check the filament spool and see if there’s any filament left. If not, feed in the fresh filament.
—Snapped Filament
If the filament spool still looks full, check if the filament is snapped. For a direct feed, printer filament is hidden so that the issue is not immediately obvious.
Go to Snapped Filament section for more details on troubleshooting this issue.
—Grinding Filament
The extruder uses a driving gear to feed the filament. However, the gear is hard to grab onto the grinding filament, so no filament is fed and nothing comes out from the nozzle. Grinding filament can happen at any point of the print process with any filament.
Go to the Grinding Filament section for more details on troubleshooting this issue.
—Nozzle Jammed
The filament is set, but still, if nothing comes out of the nozzle when you start a print or manual extrusion, then it is likely that the nozzle is jammed.
Go to the Nozzle Jammed section for more details on troubleshooting this issue.
—Overheated Extruder Motor
The extruder motor has to constantly feed and retract the filament while printing. The hard work of the motor will generate heat and if the extruder doesn’t have sufficient cooling, it will become overheated and shut down that stop feeding filament.
Turn off the printer and cool down
Turn off the printer and cool down the extruder before continuing printing.
Add an extra cooling fan
You can add an extra cooling fan if the problem continues.
