Filament Nozzle Clog Event!

[xtra12]

Okay, so I’m new to 3D printing and everything had been going good. Until… This happened.

Where do I begin on cleaning this thing? Any youtube videos or instructions on it?

[MrDoggss]

Not sure about instructions or videos, but I’d start with removing all the loose material. After that you may need to heat up your hot end to peel the bulk of it off. I can’t tell what type of setup it is, and you’ll probably have to disassemble the head and clean the parts individually. Unless the material fused to the parts everything should come off fairly easy. If it is ABS, you can use some acetone on metal parts to clean them up. Not much else to it that I can see.

[MindFuLL]

Begin by heating the extruder and end by pulling all that crap off. Done.

[xtra12]

Thanks so much. What’s the best way to heat the extruder? Click on it to Load filament or or is there a heat up extruder actual setting?

[MindFuLL]

Sell it.

[xtra12]

*rolls eyes* Look, I’m a Software Developer and UX Designer so I know computers, but I am new to 3D printing and have only had this thing for about a week. I’m slowly using it and getting on some forums to learn (which, surprise, is how you learn.) So, yeah, I’m new to 3D printing. Unlike when learning software, this is hardware so I don’t really want to screw anything up that I can’t fix.

[xtra12]

Thanks, man. It was ABS and I bought some acetone, so I’ll try that.

[MindFuLL]

Your question required that I first guess what printer you have, guess what software you are using, google the manual for both and read them back to you. This isn’t troubleshooting question it’s a “how do I turn this on” question. People will be much more interested in helping if you show a little effort on your part as well.
-Jesse

[k5o52]

One more thing; all filament types have a specific sweet spot in temperature where they start to soften up and you can literally pull and get rid of all the plastic (which is blobbed together). Check the material properties of your filament. For example; I can reheat ColorFabb PLA to 100 degrees celcius and most of the time pull of the entire blob of plastic of the hotend.

I use this often to cleanup my nozzle after a failed print, preheat it to a specific degree (lower than printing temps) and pull almost all of the plastic off and rinse the nozzle with a cloth and alcohol.