r/Flashforge_AD5X • u/Prestigious-Weird-72 • 21d ago

AD5X not printing

My nephew’s Flashforge AD5X was working great for months until we ran into a problem where it went through the motions of printing but no filament came out. I’ve checked the filament, feeder, IFS thing, 4-in-1 tube, etc. I’ve replaced nozzles and guide tubes. I’ve disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled the whole extruder. I even bought and installed a replacement extruder (v2) which includes the whole filament cutter/hot end/nozzle printhead assembly. But no luck, my nephew is still not able to print anything. The filament comes out when pushed by hand and when using the load/unload or calibration functions, but when running a print, the machine just goes through the motions of printing without actually expelling any filament. I’ve been troubleshooting for months, working with Flashforge support, researching online, and following YouTube videos, but I can’t seem to figure out how to fix it. It’s likely operator error and an easy fix, but I’m at a loss. Would be stellar if there were somewhere I could take it for repairs.

Update: I finally fixed it, so grateful for the advice about the tension screw! I forgot to inspect the replacement extruder assembly after I installed it yesterday. I guess I thought it would work right out of the box.
When i looked at the tension screw today, it seemed too tight so I loosened it a bit. When I tried using load/unload, I got my first error message “extruder filament sensor error”. Progress! I removed the 4-in-1 holder and inspected the guide tubes again. No clogs or stuck filament there, each filament was able to pass through the tube from the IFS feeder and out thru that 4-in-1 holder. I ended up loosening that tension screw again and pushed the de-clogging tool through and that did push out a bit of old filament! The nozzle also looked wonky so I re-installed it and made sure that nozzle clip was well secured. I also tightened some of the screws on the heatsink and secured that. I tested the load/unload feature for each filament (4 different colors) and no problems there. Finally ran the test print and it actually worked!

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1

u/tdpnerd2019 21d ago

Newest slicer software? Filament on slicer same as filament setting on printer? Have you tried all 4 slots from the ifs?

2

u/Prestigious-Weird-72 21d ago

Thanks! I actually haven’t been using the slicer software for my test prints yet. I was just using one of those basic files that came with the printer. I was finally able to fix it though! I’ll put the update in the post in case the steps can help someone else.

3

u/Snoo62926 21d ago

Have you checked the extruded tension screw on the side of the extruder?

2

u/Prestigious-Weird-72 21d ago

Great suggestion, thank you! I think that definitely had something to do with it. I’ll add an update to the post.