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Filament
Load filament, unload it, change colour, and understand what the printer does when filament runs out mid-print.
- Filament.
- A printer that is not printing, for loading and unloading.
The nozzle reaches 200 °C and above during all of this. It does not look hot. Do not touch the nozzle or the metal around it, and keep the front of the printer clear while filament feeds.
Loading and unloading both heat the nozzle and both cool it down again by themselves afterwards.
Home → Extrude opens the filament panel.
Six buttons - Load, Unload, Cooldown on the left; Spoolman, Extrude, Retract, Back on the right - and three selectors in the middle: hotend target, extrude/retract length, and extrude/retract speed.
The hotend target here is a fixed list: 180, 200, 220, 240, 260, 280 and 300 °C. If you need an exact value like 215 °C, set it from the Home tab by tapping the temperature instead - that opens a numpad. This selector only offers those seven.
- Cut the filament end at a clean angle. A squashed or stringy end jams.
- Feed it into the extruder inlet until it will not go further easily. Do this before you tap Load - Load expects the filament to be in the throat already.
- Home → Extrude.
- Choose the hotend target for your filament - 200 °C suits most PLA, 240 °C most PETG.
- Tap Load.
- The nozzle heats, then filament feeds forward. If Spoolman is set up, it asks "Use this filament?" first.
- Watch the nozzle. When the plastic coming out runs clean and consistent in your new colour, tap Cooldown.
There is no separate Stop button during Load. The on-screen message tells you to tap Cooldown to stop, and Cooldown is the only button that stays active while loading. That is the normal control, not an emergency exit.
The nozzle cools by itself once loading finishes.
- Home → Extrude.
- Choose the hotend target for the filament currently loaded.
- Tap Unload.
- The nozzle heats, retracts the filament back out of the throat, then cools down.
- Pull the filament out from the top of the extruder by hand once it stops.
That last step is manual on purpose: the printer pulls the filament clear of the hot end but does not eject the whole length.
Unload, then load. Expect to waste some filament - the new colour has to push the old one out of the nozzle completely, which is exactly why you wait for the extrusion to run clean before tapping Cooldown.
For small, precise movements when the nozzle is already hot:
- Extrude/Retract length - how far each press moves: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 or 35 mm.
- Extrude/Retract speed - 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 35 or 50 mm/s.
- Extrude and Retract each move that amount once, at that speed.
The nozzle must be hot, and Klipper enforces it. If you tap Extrude while it is cold, the printer heats up first and then does the move, cooling again afterwards.
Sets the hotend target to 0 immediately. It is also how you stop a Load in progress, and it stays tappable while the nozzle is heating toward a pending Extrude or Retract, so you can cancel that too.
If your printer has a filament sensor configured, the print pauses when filament runs out rather than carrying on printing nothing.
To continue: load the new filament as above, then Resume on the print status screen.
If you use Spoolman, the Spoolman button opens the spool list, and loading asks which filament you are using so it can track what you have left. The server is set under Settings → Connections → Spoolman. Spoolman is optional - everything else works without it.
| Action | What you should see |
|---|---|
| Load | Nozzle heats, filament feeds, plastic comes out in the new colour, then cools |
| Unload | Nozzle heats, filament retracts, then cools; you pull it out by hand |
| Extrude / Retract | One movement of the length you selected |
| Cooldown | The target drops to 0 and the nozzle starts cooling |
| What happens | What to do |
|---|---|
| Filament will not feed | Cut a fresh clean end, and make sure it is in the throat before tapping Load. |
| Nothing comes out, motor clicking | Nozzle not hot enough, or a blockage. Raise the target and try again. |
| The old colour keeps coming | Normal - keep going until it runs clean, then Cooldown. |
| Filament snapped inside | Unload; if nothing comes out you will need to clear it by hand. |
| Load will not stop | Cooldown is the stop control during Load. |
| It extrudes while cold and nothing happens | Klipper heats first, then moves. Wait. |
Loading and unloading are repeatable and harmless - if a load goes wrong, unload and start again. Nothing here changes your configuration or calibration.
- Printing
- Calibration guide - E-steps calibration affects how much filament is fed