Thanks for doing a beginners video on how to unload/load filament. I had no idea that a little bit of filament was extruded before pulling. This all seems very basic to some people, but very worthwhile knowledge to have for newbies. Thanks Angus. Please do more basic videos like this one again in the future.

Best advice for avoiding kinds was from Tom: Your filament end should only ever be in 3 places: In your hand, in your printer, or tucked in your spool.

Thanks a lot! That "fixed" my problem, so I spent you a coffee (or whatever you drink). As a noob, I tried many things, to find out in this video, that I am the problem.

I like tangles. It makes me feel useful

A quick tip I have been using for some time is store your filament in the bags sold for storing clothes or for traveling.They have a zip seal and a one way valve that you attach to a vacuum cleaner to suck the air out. Reasonably cheap and fully reusable. Can add some desiccant / silica gel if required.

The ONLY video with USEFUL and good detailed explanation how to correctly remove filament. THANKS !!

Excellent video about filament management and dealing with those pesky tangles. Thumbs up for the shirt alone! Nice work Angus, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for making all these useful newbie videos

It should be noted that as the filament is driven, the hobbed gear or bolt will put small notches in the filament which act as stress points and make it more prone to snapping (this can actually be handy when you want to break the blobby end off). This may be what you are seeing.

Funny you should come out with this video today. Just this morning I was loading up some empty spools with the samples I got in my Makerbox, and I had used the winding technique you that you showed. And I love the tip you gave at the end of the video, you have inspired me to try and come up with some way of using a drill to load my blank spools when I get the samples, hmmm. 🤔

All your videos are so helpful and informative, and you present them in a really accessible, entertaining and friendly way. Plus if you don't watch them in order, you get a wildly different hairstyle with each video :) Thanks, here's to your first million subscribers.

I‘m loving your channel! I know there are several videos about lots of calibration aspects but I think there is no one like „all in one how to“ for full calibration scenarios like „new printer“, „new parts like nozzle, print head or bed, extruder“ or „new fillament“ step by step collection guide including models, examples (pass and fails), and so on... I would appreciate that kind of video or series of videos very much

Thanks for the tips. I am a good example of how not to pull the old filament. I was doing just what you said not to do and had the plug-before-the-nozzle problem you mentioned. Now I know better. BTW, you're a great youtube presenter. Fantastic delivery style.

I got one thing to add to filament runout. Most of the time it happens during a print and the print head moves up a bit when the runout sensor triggers. If you remove the rest as described and insert the new and do a little purge it is wise to cover the print with a piece of paper or something otherwise you get a blob of filament on the print and if its something that has great layer adhesion like PETG then that blob might (will) really attache to your print and then you either do some fancy knife work to remove and hope you don't dislodge the print from the build plate or the nozzle will get stuck on it the next time around and you miss some steps. Same holds true if you just change filament on purpose like stop at layer 40 and go from black to white.

Thanks you, thank you, thank you. This was the only filament change solution for my R3D mini, it does not have a de-tension button so extrude and then rectract worked perfectly. Quality explanation

This is a improvement over my self-taught ways: -Jerk the filament out so the wedge is still soft when I get it out. -Cut it with the flat side of my flush-cutters towards the end, for a sort of sharp edge. -When it unwinds, rewind it form the side, while holding the end. -When it is tangled, hold the end and unwind the spool, and push a huge coil, with the knot in it over the edge, and rewind while moving the knot to the end. -Manually rewinding. Thanks for the tips! They will definitely make my life easier.

Thanks Angus! I’m off to change my pla to abs now!

Thanks Angus from another newbie! I was doing the unloading all wrong!

I remember reading somewhere that with Taulman filaments ( more exotic materials ) that come with plastic netting that resembles the bags oranges come in, its best to leave that netting on the spool, even whilst printing, to keep the spool tangle free.

I've been printing with my homemade Rostok delta for a bit now, and had never seen the push-then-pull trick for unloading the filament. And I must admit that I've had some mysterious jams when changing filament, so I'll have to start trying it this way. A tip in return - I was forever having the filament refuse to go through the extruder into the tube, and it was extremely frustrating, especially since it's located in a hard-to-reach place. I decided to figure out what was going on the other day, and found that, at least on the extruder I got from Amazon as a Creality replacement, the fitting that connects the tubing to the extruder was completely flat on the end, with a considerably smaller inside diameter hole than the one in the extruder frame, so the filament was hitting the resulting lip and stopping. I took the fitting out and drilled the threaded end with a drill bit slightly smaller than the outside of the threaded portion, but only until the tip of the bit was fully inside the end of the fitting. This left a nice tapered opening from the extruder into the fitting, and it's smooth as silk to load new filament now.

My cat tangled up my filament and this video helped me fix it. Thank you.

Thanks for these great tips. I'm new to 3D Printing and I had this happen already on my sample spool.

Angus, the reason I have found why PLA gets brittle within the PTFE tube has nothing to do with the tube, but more so that the filament has been past the extruder and it has been indented with tooth marks, by the gears. Those tooth marks tend to somehow, dry out or air out the PLA within, making it brittle. Or somehow let moisture in.... Either way, the tooth mark indentations are the reason.

Fantastic advice about extruding first before just heating Nozzle and ripping the Filament out!

One of the best basic videos in a long time.

Thanks for this video. Such simple practices but easy to get caught out if not followed. Pulling some filament out caused a nasty blockage and now thanks to this video shouldn't have that problem anymore

Thank you so much for creating this video Angus! We get customers from time to time convinced we've put the knot in and it's hard to explain how it actually happened.

Angus you best 3d printing channel out there, love your content, keep it up P.s. I'm on the other side of the world to you (England)

Really glad I stayed till the end! Great tips 👍

Hey Angus, you mentioned PLA sometimes becoming brittle when stored inside a bowden tube feed between the spool and the hotend. Fascinatingly I experienced pretty much the same effect altough I run a direct extruder setup with no bowden tube between the extruder and the spool. I figuered that the filament probably is under a constant stress when sitting there for weeks with a significantly larger radius than it has right on the spool. It would then develop small fractures under that stress that become weak spots when later bending that part of the filament and it cracks there. While on the spool in otherwise the same conditions, the filament is not noticably harmed by open storage. So I guess that, ultimately, the tension inside the filament causes the brittleness which would also apply to filament resting inside a bowden tube which forces it into an "uncomfortable" bend radius. Best regards and keep your high quality content coming! :thumbsup:

This is the most amazing tutorial ever about filament management, thank you so much

Final tip was very helpful, thank you Angus.

Great video, info and tips Angus. It's upsetting to see people continually blaming the manufacturer for tangled filament. Especially when they leave negative reviews that can mislead and misinform someone new to 3D printing. Hopefully your video will help with that.

The filament snaps after being in the tube because the extruder gears leave a mark on the filament that makes it easier to Crack

Very nice explained! Thanks!

Great video, just bwhat I was looking for, Thank you !!

Thanks Angus. The cordless drill trick was awesome. Cheers, JAYTEE

I'm here because I made all these mistakes and came here to learn how to fix it 👀

Nice. Catching up on your videos, one at a time. In the year I have been printing, I only had 1 knot. It was a loose wound roll. The tip at the end is a way to move filament from a clunky roll. I have spools (The loose wound) that are way different sized to the spool holders that come with the printers. So the drill is a way to transfere the filament to a standard size spool. Thanks.

Once again, solid video

Great video thanks for sharing.

Your hair is my spirit animal, Angus! :) Great video as always, mate. Always learn something new from you

I've done that exact thing to wind fillement onto another spool, you have to be careful about the speed though, it can get really messy real quick if you lose control.

i do a lot of work with physics and an interesting fact a lot of people dont know is that strings/flexible cables naturally knot themselves when agitated. an easy example most people know is that if you put your ear buds in your pocket and walk around a while they'll be all knotted when they come out. you can recreate this before your eyes by putting the ear buds between your hands and rubs your hands together. filament is just like this and it is just as easily agitated.

I've been 3D printing for over 3 years and yet I still watched this... why?

Great video... Got my first printer today.. Sidewinder X1. Wish me luck🤓🤜🏼🤛🏼🇦🇺🍀

Just one more tip: store spools vertically, not on their side. If the end comes loose, the rings are less likely to fall over each other, thus creating the knot.

Thank you , it's my first 3D printer and you always help me very much 👌👍😉

Thanks, you helped me a lot. This is my first 3D printer that I am ¨playing¨ with, but I should never have used the filament that came with it (BIQU B1), since it snapped by itself after a few hours of printing. It was within the filament sensor, and I did not know what to do. Got it out thanks to you :D

Great trick with the drill.

HA! I learned something. I always learn something from your videos. That's why I subscribed. That unloading sequence. Mt Tevo Tornado doesn't have a load/unload sequence that I know of but....I can extrude + and -. Normally I unload the filament but yes, heating the nozzle (200/210) then pulling it out. Never thought to push it in some. (manually) Anyway when I load the new filament I'll then extrude 50-100mm to flush the old color out. Thanks for your videos

I found one roll of PLA I had was brittle every 20cm or so and would snap so easily like you showed. Throughout the entire roll. I returned it. Changed brand so far no problems again.

Thanks! Just avoided a failed print!

Thank you so much for this. I got a new 3D printer (an Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro) the other evening and had a wonderful time printing with the tiny loop of PLA provided. I then used most of that and switched over to the Elegoo roll I'd also ordered. It's been an extreme hassle of trying to figure out: Do I thread through the holes? One hole? Both holes? Neither (as I've seen some people do), since the PLA being pulled through the holes seems to make my filament-breakage sensor go click-click-click like it's trying to move with a neck brace? The roll seems to barely be holding itself together, so the tip about tension seems extremely useful and I'll try to get that wound back up as soon as possible.

Unbelievable, I always learn something new from your videos or at least enhance my routines... Thank you so much!!! :)

It's call straw moisture trap, either caused by wet filament beforehand or the high amount of moisture in the air. Plus the heat creep can slow cure the filament with moisture.

Great video! Subscribed!

I liked the idea of using the drill to transfer filament between spools. I thought that you were going to whip out some fancy 3d-printed part to hook the drill up to. Was disappointed that it was just a piece of foam. LOL

Good advice for hot swapping filaments. Tangled rolls I would think most users should instinctively know how to avoid and correct, however, I guess there are some that may not know proper use and handeling.

Good video, almost a year with my 3D printer and not had a tangle yet, I've been very careful about handling the reels. Could you do a video on sharing your 3D designs online? The basic details of making sure your object can actually print (evident by adding a picture of a print), the optimal print settings etc. I've not had any issues but it would be great to have more people's creations 'out there' in useable / editable form.

Aha! Tangles travel. You've solved the mystery of how there can be a tangle after printing for an hour. It would be nearly impossible for a spool to be manufactured that way.

Awesome! Now I gotta rewind my sunlu pla+ rolls

wouldnt you be able to make a filament sensor that detects jammed filament by using a gear setup similar to direct drive extruders, but have a gear right at the feeder that is hooked up to a movement sensor of sorts? like as the direct drive is pulling the filament in that will turn the sensor gear. if that sensor gear ever stops when its supposed to be moving then there is likely a jam or a lack of filament. in this way it would work as both a filament sensor and a jam detector. could be wrong though i only just thought of this like 2 min into this video so i decided to mention it

I tend to find with on-spool tangles that pushing the filament in to loosen some of the tension makes it far easier to slip the knot off the spool without pushing it down farther in. Since it's just a light letting of the tension, it doesn't wonk up the entire roll and it's much faster to rewind (and also limits the chance of the pushed down knot kinking the filament.)

12:00 - same applies to cables. Cables should never be rolled onto something while holding the loose end tightly... That's what causes the "wiggly" look you see on things like barrel vacuums (without self-retracting leads) and extension cords used by tradies.

Mine cracks in mid-air between the spool and the extruder where it essentially straight, and I think it's because the spool diameter is so small. It looks like it gets rolled on warm and tight, and gets a set curvature that compresses one side of the filament. Then when the filament straightens that compressed side stretches making it more prone to cracks because the filament is now cold and not flexible.

I like keeping a binder clip on frame for threading filament... It will catch it as you pull back

Great advice as always Angus.

What can I say, Great lesson thank you so much for this video, AND now i know what keeps going wrong. All things that i was doing wrong, especially the extracting and replacing filament. I have been following your fusion360 video since December when i got my IIIP. I only wish this had been the first videos that I watched, So many failures. Again i appreciate all the time you spend teaching us Newbs. I wish you had an alternative to Patreon. I will never use them.

Mine sometimes breaks off on my i3 MK3 head when trying to pull it out and then it's screwdriver time once again...

I have noticed PLA cracking inside the PTFE tube as well. Especially 3mm diameter filament. If you look closely on the inside of the natural curve of the filament, you will notice little cracks. This is caused (I think) by the filament being held relatively straight inside the tube, forming stress cracks on the inside curve where the plastic is being stretched. This is especially bad with old filament that has formed to the tight curve of the spool.

PLA gets brittle inside the bowden tube because the extruder gear cuts into the filament thus it can break easily at every cut line.

I like the mast min the most! Creative!

Prusament has the best windings omg the business

great! u save mind filament now!

Hi Angus. I'm new to 3d printing and looking for a bigger printer than my Monoprice Select Mini. The Ender 3 at sub $200 seemed like just the thing, but you don't seem to keen on it.ould you let me know if that observation is true, and what printer you would recommend in that class? Thanks - you have taught me a ton...

Thanks Angus! Great Tips!

NICE Video bro....Thank you for your valuable information.....Coimbatore, India

So the trick to re-winding a spool is: Hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly, you're gonna lose control.

Naomi's photo are the first things pops into my eye LOL.

when i used marlin I had a special routine that was extremely fast, it purged 5-10mm or so and pulled back the 540mm of length at 120mm/s with a relatively low acceleration, so it spooled up to speed causing no filament grinding, it was pretty cool and very fast, but the quickest way is still to do it manually, although if you have some printers running 24/7 constantly doing that is a pain, so I get why there's the routine, and optimising it is very important

PTFE is pretty translucent. Alex Kenis ran a bunch of experiments to see why his PLA that was left on the printer was getting brittle, and the deciding influence turned out to be UV light.

Great video! Cool hair!!

"I pretangled this filament." Loled at that :D

4:51 it's X3D Pro branded filament for anyone interested. (they're an Australian company)

Wow lots of discussion regarding snapping filament. I have a direct drive and a Bowden tube system and they both get brittle. So that eliminates the gear tooth theory. Personally, I think it’s heat creep from the hot end. It “bakes” the filament. It’s more pronounced in the Bowden tube because heat travels through the tube more effectively.

I'm tempted to borrow a trick from fishing... and re-spool the filament to the same kind of spool. I've bought several spools from inland. (OK filament, might be the cheapest you can get) and thus I have the identical spools. Keep one variable constant. Then I'll make a ball bearing spool holder to minimize the spool resistance to feeding.

I frequently have mine snap in a similar way with PLA but I do not have any Bowden style setups. I've actually been between prints messing with Cura and out of nowhere, the PLA filament snaps about a half inch from where the filament enters the feed mechanism.

Nice drill spool winding. With a 4000 rpm drill this must be fun. I should try it.

While in the vacuum sealed bag, the desiccant inside the hub of the spool is sealed against any water vapor that might otherwise exit the filament. Yes? No?

Good advice as per usual mate.

Love the 80s Ah-ha haircut and highlight. Morten Harket would be proud!

Some (not all) PLAs have volatile plasticizers. If they stay in an open environment (I suppose the PTFE of the Bowden tube is permeable o the volatiles) then the PLA-filament becomes brittle, and snaps.

I was printing a lithoplane (printer settings count) and my Anycubic X detected a flow issue and paused, I had no real damage to print after cleaning nozzle and restarting. Cheaper filament can have built in tangles too. Filament near hot end may become brittle from heat treating.

Nice trick at the end. I will definitely use that.

@Tim_lennard (below) made a very good observation which brings up a good point about the gear marks making marks on the PLA. I read the other comments about "light" making it brittle but I too am with you, Angus. I'm not sure these truly explain why it snaps. Disclaimer, I'm not a material scientist. I too have had the same experience with brittle PLA and have had the filament snap while coming off the reel, before going into the feed system! In that case, it was "starter spool" from the printer manufacturer when it was delivered. Plain white PLA in a vacuum sealed bag with a descant, After making a number of prints the majority of this reel was exhausted and just as I was changing reels after unloading, it snapped, almost exactly as it did in this video. My observations were, the point where it broke had not been into the feed yet, the spool was near the end down towards the smallest diameter and the spool had been out for some time (a couple weeks) and had been kept relatively dry as it was housed inside the build chamber of my FF Dreamer printer. My first thought was the wheel diameter had such a tight radius when wound fresh onto the spool from the factory, once exposed to moisture it was never going to be as pliable without bringing it back up to hot room temperature and rewinding onto a larger diameter spool. That said, there wasn't enough material left of the brittle stuff to worry about so I chucked it into my excess plastic bin and simply stopped using the manufacturer supplied reels. I simply made an external reel system to hold much larger reels and feed the filament through a side vent and have been happily printing along since them. The avoid tangles my new spool holder system has a friction brake by simply twisting a wing nut. Thanks for this episode!

As it's printing, you come back to check and see it tangled (but still printing, since it's dragging the tangle). Now show us how to untangle it without stopping the print! I did that yesterday, and I was amazed it worked. Just find the coils like you did, drop them all off the roll (while printing), and then laboriously turn the spool again and again until it all feeds straight again.

I don't see very many videos on buying the new "spool-less" filaments and using a "master spool" yet.

I've been printing with eSun's PLA+ lately and that stuff loves to sproing off the spool as I'm loading it. I'll have the free end and be trying to get behind my CR-10s and the filament is just twanging off the spool. Royal pain in the ass. But it prints nice. 😁 Good video.

Danke!