Another Cloggage Post
Noob here, and after my first successful and quality print I have managed to utterly clog my printer more than a fraternity toilet.
I got overconfident by printing an EXCELLENT benchy, then bit off more than I could chew. I tried printing something that was designed for the other Prusa printer (Not sure if that is the cause), but ended up clogging the printer and now nothing comes out. There was a clicking sound, but after following some instructions to heat the nozzle up and then poke it with the acupuncture needle, that noise is gone, but the problem still remains.
I've tried unloading and reloading, but nothing seems to be happening. I"m guessing I will now need to open things up, but that scares me and I don't know where to start.
RE: Another Cloggage Post
Is the extruder chewing your filament?
RE: Another Cloggage Post
I recently had the same symptoms over the last few days. I took the extruder apart and cleaned it but it didn't fix the problem. I took the PTFE tube out and tried some cold pulls without the tube in but that didn't work. I took the nozzle off and cleaned it but that didn't help. What I found was that there had been some filament leakage, which managed to creep its way up the heatbreak around the PTFE tube but this is missed by the cold pull method (without the PTFE tube) because the filament isn't thick enough to grab it. What eventually fixed it was pushing a ptfe tube into it the hot end, from above (no brass connector or PTFE tube), with the nozzle temp set to 280˚C (as required for the start of the cold pull method). This forced some of the gunk that was stuck to the sides out of the nozzle, and the rest got pushed up into the PTFE tube. The tube was wasted but worth the sacrifice since I bought a bunch of them. It seems that this kind of leakage is a common problem if the PTFE tube isn't compressed very well during the assembly, but may be something that happens over time anyway.
RE: Another Cloggage Post
I am not a fan of the cold pull method. I have seen/heard too many stories of other problems caused by cold pulls. Maybe they were not done perfectly, or maybe it is just not the best method.My preferred method is to heat the nozzle and use the wire that looks like an acupuncture needle to clean out the inside. I have found this to be much more effective. Anyways, I just performed surgery on my friend's mini a few days ago. His attempt of clearing a jam snapped the filament inside the extruder requiring a partial disassembly to get everything cleaned out. The amount of chewed filament in there made me think it was the original culprit in the jam.