If you start a 3d Print & nothing is coming out, there are a few things you can check:

  1. Stop the 3d print. Ensure the temperature you had set it to was adequate for the material
  2. Heat the 3d printer to the temperature of the material
  3. Remove the existing plastic filament out of the 3d printer
  4. Check to see if it is obvious that the filament has broken & not all of it has come out of the tube
  5. Check to see if the end that has come out is very badly bulged. Regardless of how bulged it is, cut some of the end off. Ensure the filament has a nice clean round appearance before it is ready to insert again.
  6. If the end coming out has a ring followed by a bulged section of the filament that is significantly larger, then it is likely you are getting ‘heat creep’. Heat Creep means the heat from the hot end is making its way all the way to top where the filament should be solid, & not yet fluid. Heat creep is most commonly found with badly designed heads on entry level 3d printers, however, it can be if you use fundamentally wrong settings.
  7. If its not settings related, the most common thing is to replace the nozzle. Yes you can clean them, but it is often not worth the effort as nozzles are quite cheap now a days.
  8. Once the nozzle is clean, you can consider replacing parts higher up the chain. The most common of these is called something like a ‘throat’, or a liner, or heat brake. This is the part that essentially should have solid filament in it as it is led to the hot end block where the heaters sit & nozzle mounts onto.
  9. Try extruding filament first by just pushing it with your hand. If it doesnt work, the 3d print is definitely not going to work. This is important because it also helps identify if the issue is with the heating & passage, or its the motor that is unable to push the filament down.
  10. If you have established all of these settings are ok, now might be a good time to contact 3D Printing Services :)