The unit is one year old and had been printing fine. I know it needed to be cleaned as I had passed the 25 hour point, but I wasn’t able to attend to this in time and did not have the cleaning tools. I have cleaned it in the past as part of normal maintenance.
A banging noise started, but it still printed fine. I THINK the noise came from the extruder, but I can’t say for sure. Now it won’t extrude, but the it does load and unload the filament without any issue.
I’ve tried to clean the extruder head repeatedly. I don’t have the original tools, so I used an unbent paper clip that I’ve heated over a flame and then pushed down through the top of the head. I’ve also taken a wire brush and cut the bristles as they seem the correct size of .4mm, heated that, and inserted it up into the nozzle repeatedly. I have also taken the extruder apart but see no caked-up filament inside the head.
When loading the filament, I can see it traveling through the guide tube and entering the extruder head. Then it stops. I then tell it to print, and it goes through the motions but nothing comes out. I unload the filament and put it into cleaning mode and start again, but still nothing comes out.
Any thoughts?
