Your Centauri Carbon TL4980 printer has many moving parts and they will need to be adjusted & cleaned from time to time – unlike a home appliance, printers require manual adjustments and cleaning from their owners as they are used. Even a brand-new printer should be checked over to make sure everything is tight and level, so your prints will be successful.
Clean the PEI build plate
Filament will stick better to a clean plate - oils from your fingers, and left-over filament residue, will prevent prints from sticking, and you'll risk making spaghetti or a blob of death.
Take the plate off the printer and wash it regularly with soapy water. If you've got hard-to-remove filament residue on the plate, avoid scraping it with an edged tool, or you will damage the plate - use a drill brush or bristle brush to get it off - a steam scrubber also works well for hard-to-remove residue. Plates are consumable, like car tyres, so they will eventually wear, and are available to buy separately.
Set the nozzle Z-Offset, and level the bed
The Level Bed option appears on the screen when you load a file to print - make sure this is selected, as it will make sure the nozzle is the right height from the bed for great prints.
Filament is not coming out smoothly, or coming out crooked
The nozzle may be partially or completely blocked, and the extruder gear-wheels might be making a clicking sound. This happens if there is a clog in your nozzle causing too much resistance for the extruder to overcome.
Clear the nozzle by pushing filament through by hand, or use a needle, or do a cold pull (Google). Like PEI plates, nozzles will need to be replaced from time to time.
If you can't clear the nozzle, here's how to replace it (Elegoo).
You can also buy the entire hot end as a spare part if you do not want to unscrew hot nozzles. (Elegoo)
Check your extruder spring tension
The extruder is a boxy part of the print head located above the silver heat brake. It has two motor-driven wheels which grip the filament and feed it into the nozzle. If the wheels are not pushed firmly against each other, the filament will not feed into the nozzle with enough pressure, and the printer will appear to be "printing air", or the filament will come out very thin and sparse. It may also make a clicking sound if the wheels slip.
A user-adjustable spring keeps tension on the wheels, and a screw that's accessible from the right-side of the print head can be used to adjust the tension. Follow the steps below to check and adjust it.
Switch off the printer, pop the front cover off the print head & unplug the fan cable
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Undo the two screws on each side of the shroud next to the slide bars
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Slide the shroud off - you can see the tension adjustment screw on the right
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Check that the silver metal nut to the right of the spring is not loose or rattling
Unscrewing the screw (turn it anti-clockwise) makes the extruder grip the filament more firmly
Reassemble the shroud to the print head, plug the cable together, and clip the fan back on
If your filament can't pass through the extruder at all, it may have a blockage caused by broken filament. You can remove the extruder from the print head, and separate it into two halves to clear the blockage, by following the instructions here.
Filament storage
Filament absorbs water from the air, and will extrude as stringy if saturated. Keep filament in a cool dry sealed box with silica sachets when it is not being used, and consider drying it before use (Google), or look into buying a dryer box.
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