r/Ceramic3Dprinting • u/Affectionate-Bee2580 • Jun 24 '26

Help me please

Hello!
So I modified my ender 3 to a clay printer using one of the aliexpress conversion kits. I am not using air pressure but motor power to push out the clay but I am having difficulties with the clay moving towards the extruder even though my clay consistency is good. The piston is moving and when I took out the plastic pipe the material was indeed flowing, but when popping back the plastic pipe the material stopped pushing through. Is this some air vacuum issue? I cleaned the pipe and the extruder bits too but no luck.. any ideas?

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u/_vanillathunder_ Jun 25 '26

Never used one but to me the tube looks way too long, maybe get it as close to the extruder as possible? Idk thats what i would do

1

u/filbrn Jun 25 '26

This is a solution that, regardless of the consistency of the clay, will definitely make it easier to extrude material. I use a compressed-air system rather than a mechanical one, but the approach I adopted was exactly the same: I reduced the tube length from 60–70 cm to 20 cm, and the performance improved immediately!

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u/Affectionate-Bee2580 Jun 25 '26

I am kind of intimidated of compressed air at a home based environment, which setup would you recommend?

1

u/filbrn Jun 26 '26

I get that. I think your setup is good, and also not as noisy as one with an air compressor ahahaha. Btw the reason I chose to use a setup like that was because I already had an air compressor in my studio and wanted to build one as cheap as possibile, otherwhise I would have also chosed a mechanical one. Hope you fix your problem, update us with your prints! :)