I have two tips to share. I had a second filament retraction jam today, so I had to take the extruder apart again and learned a handy tip. This is for when you get filament that is all messed up ABOVE the extruder gears and won’t come out.
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You CAN clear a jam in the extruder without disconnecting any wire connectors. I did have to take the screws out of the filament sensor circuit board, but other than that, I was able to get everything apart without disconnecting any wire connectors.
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Once you get the back side of the extruder off and the filament sensor circuit board unscrewed (everything you’ll need to disassemble), you can pull on the PTFE fitting and you’ll create enough of a gap to slide in a spade xacto knife (shaped like the filament cutter) and cut the filament above the extruder gears. That will completely free up the extruder from the PTFE line. You can then work on the extruder jam from outside the machine, where you’ll have to press the large extruder gear out. It’s much easier to do on the desktop.
Next time this happens, I’ll make a video.
I think my problem is switching from printing PAHT to PLA and the extruder gears being hot enough to soften the PLA when it feeds it in.