The drive gear is the part of your 3D printer that pushes the filament through to its destination on the print bed. It’s located on your printer head, next the the stepper motor.
How to Clean the Drive Gear
- To start, unload your filament.
- Remove any hardware in front of the drive gear. On most printers this is the fan guard, fan, heat sink, and spacers. Remove these all as one piece so it’s easier to reassemble.
- Unhook your motor wires and remove the motor from the larger extruder assembly.
- The drive gear is located on the shaft of your stepper motor.
- We recommend using something like a dental pick to remove the hardened plastic from around the gear, but you can use any small tool, like a toothpick.
- Carefully reassemble and load new filament.
Why You Need to Clean the Drive Gear
Check if you need to clean your drive gear if you are having any issues extruding. Melted plastic may have hardened on the gear and caused a jam.
This guide was written with the MakerBot Replicator 2/2X in mind, but will work if you own most any 3D printer brand, including Wanhao, Flashforge, CTC,
