I recently found my 2016 Lulzbot Mini 3D printer wasn’t printing the sides of models accurately: when I tried to print a box and lid pair, the lid was too small to fit the box. This error worried me, because the last time that problem happened it was the fault of stress fractures in the Y carriage supports, which took a lot of time and money to repair.
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Extruder gear tension: the overlooked adjustment
I used to think that 3D Printer extruder tension – how much pressure the extruder hobbed gear exerts on the filament to move it forward – was a pretty forgiving thing. At one extreme, there’s “so loose the filament doesn’t feed” and on the other, there’s “so tight the extruder motor binds”. I thought everything in between was ok.
My assumption was confirmed each time I read advice on how to tune a misbehaving printer: people rarely mentioned extruder tension.
My recent fight to fix a bad print taught me that incorrect extruder tension can make a huge difference in your print quality after all.
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