Improve extrusion and prevent clogs

Here are a number of ways to prevent a clog or improve extrusion.

1) Always extrude at the filament manufacturers temperature specs.

2) Always heat up the hotend to the recommended filament temps when adding or removing the filament.

3) Check the 25mm hexagon fan on the left side of the extruder to make sure it is always on and spinning.

4) Make sure the hotend isn't so close to the build plate it is not able to extrude.

5) Clean out the hobbled bolt in the filament gear carefully. Also you can inspect the teeth on the bolt to make sure they are in good shape and consistent.

6) Printing too fast can cause filament to be under extruded and could result in filament jamming. 

7) Over tightening your filament latch screws could result in complications. Make sure to adjust them correctly. Refer to Filament Latch Adjustment Guide

8) Don't let your hotend sit stationary with filament loaded.  Leaving hotend with filament loaded for longer than 15 minutes might cause the filament to carbonize and become solid carbon, making it difficult to clean.

9) Also check the filament spool.  Sometimes they can go bad if they are in a humid environment and it all differ's from brand to brand and roll to roll.  It's worth trying a different spool if you haven't already.

10) Clean or change the nozzle tip. If you've been printing for a long time, or with mixed types of filament, the small tip could be getting corroded and could benefit from cleaning or replacement. 

11) To clean it extrude some PLA filament at normal temps by hand, then let it cool to about 170 and pull it out.  This will pull out any gunk in the hotend.  You can do this as many times as you need to until the filament comes out clean. 

12) These are inexpensive and easy to change.  You will need to heat up the hotend to do this.  So use tools and gloves and be careful.  You will want to hold the square shaped heating block with channel locks and use a 7mm wrench to loosen the brass nozzle tip.  be careful of the wires going into the heating block.  More info here