<p>I don't know how to say this but during the print, the printer will randomly have difficulty extruding the filament. I will have to give the filament a <em>boost</em> for it to keep going. Once I done the <em>boost</em>, the extruder keeps going perfectly fine for a while.</p>

<p>I am using a Prusa I3 clone bought second hand. I am using the settings that the previous owner gave me (I personally know him). He previously printed a lot of stuff with those settings and they seem to work well. I also bought the brand of same filament as he did for my first roll.</p>

<p>My question is:</p>

<p><strong>Has anyone had this problem or anything similar and if they did, how did they resolve it?</strong></p>

<p>If anymore precision or clarification is needed, please ask.</p>

<p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>

<p>When I say <code>boost</code> I mean that I have to push it down a bit more for it to countinue extruding.</p>

<p>I am using 3D branche filament (it's a local store in Montreal).</p>

<p>I do sometime hear it click before the print. When it does that. I stop the print and restart it.</p>

[{'answer_id': 6047, 'author': '0scar', 'author_id': 5740, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/5740', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Typically you would install a (free) 3D model program as Fusion 360, FreeCAD, or many more options to choose from. Once installed, import the STL file and use menu options to export a picture of your STL.</p>\n\n<p>Alternatively, if you have some programming skills, you could <a href="https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Importing_Geometry" rel="nofollow noreferrer">import the STL file</a> in OpenSCAD and render and export a picture from there. Simply create an OpenSCAD file with the code line below and it will import your <code>example.stl</code>. </p>\n\n<pre><code>import("example.stl", convexity=10);\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Through the menu you can then export the view to an image. Note that you can do that also from the <a href="https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Using_OpenSCAD_in_a_command_line_environment" rel="nofollow noreferrer">command line</a> as shown by the OP\'s own answer (nice example of command line usage of OpenSCAD).</p>\n\n<p>These are not the only options, there are many more. E.g. <a href="http://dangerousprototypes.com/blog/2015/05/13/3d-model-stl-to-png-preview/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> is a nice example. It also describes how Thingiverse.com does STL to web image.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 6048, 'author': 'Mark Harrison', 'author_id': 6851, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/6851', 'pm_score': 5, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>If you have <a href="http://www.openscad.org" rel="noreferrer">OpenSCAD</a> installed, this shell script will generate 100x100 pixel PNG images for each STL file in your current directory.</p>\n\n<pre><code>for i in *.stl; do\n  T=__tmp__<span class="math-container">$i\n  b=`basename $</span>i`\n  echo import\\(\\"<span class="math-container">$i\\"\\)\\; &gt;$</span>T\n  /Applications/OpenSCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/OpenSCAD -o <span class="math-container">$b.png --imgsize=100,100 $</span>T\n  rm $T\ndone\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Credit to <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/5740/0scar">0scar</a> for pointing out STL files can be imported into OpenSCAD.</p>\n\n<p>Update: This code does the same, and generates an html file with annotated images of the files rendered.  When I printed a batch of spare parts for my 3D printer I made a hardcopy and stuck it in the box so I could identify the parts later.</p>\n\n<pre><code>n=-1\nH=00-catalog.html\necho &gt;<span class="math-container">$H \'&lt;table&gt;\'\necho &gt;&gt;$</span>H \'  &lt;tr&gt;\'\nfor i in <span class="math-container">$*; do\n  n=`expr $</span>n + 1`\n  if test $n = 4; then\n      n=0\n      echo &gt;&gt;$H \'  &lt;/tr&gt;\'\n      echo &gt;&gt;$H \'  &lt;tr&gt;\'\n  fi\n  echo $i\n  T=__tmp__$i\n  B=`basename <span class="math-container">$i .stl`\n  echo import\\(\\"$</span>i\\"\\)\\; &gt;<span class="math-container">$T\n  /Applications/OpenSCAD.app//Contents/MacOS/OpenSCAD -o $</span>B.png --imgsize=200,200 <span class="math-container">$T\n  echo &gt;&gt;$</span>H\n  echo &gt;&gt;<span class="math-container">$H \'    &lt;td&gt;\'$</span>i\'&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src="\'$B\'.png"&gt;&lt;/td&gt;\'\n\n  rm <span class="math-container">$T\ndone\necho &gt;&gt;$</span>H \'  &lt;/tr&gt;\'\necho &gt;&gt;$H \'&lt;/table&gt;\'\n</code></pre>\n'}, {'answer_id': 6054, 'author': 'Carl Witthoft', 'author_id': 2191, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/2191', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>If you don't mind using screen grabs,  you could use AppleScript or whatever it's called in the latest MacOS versions to build an automated script to open each file, grab screen, save, etc.  </p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 10802, 'author': 'Paul', 'author_id': 17236, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/17236', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>You can use OpenSCAD, as stated in the accepted answer. \nHere is a version of that script that works for Windows for anyone who needs it, as I did.</p>\n\n<pre><code># Change height and width to the desired output image dimensions, in pixels.\n# The path to openscad.exe may also have to be adjusted based on your installation.\n\nheight=1080\nwidth=1080\n\nfor i in *.stl; do\n  T=__tmp__<span class="math-container">$i\n  b=`basename "$</span>i"`\n  echo import\\(\\"./<span class="math-container">$i\\"\\)\\; &gt; "$</span>T"\n  C:/\'Program Files\'/OpenSCAD/openscad.exe -o "<span class="math-container">$b".png --autocenter --viewall --imgsize=$</span>width,<span class="math-container">$height "$</span>T"\n  rm "$T"\ndone\n</code></pre>\n'}]
['https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6050', 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com', 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/10816/']