Filament stuck in the hot end?!  

Filament stuck in the hot end?!

Hi guys!

Another problem after another haha Built my mk3 recently and it's been working fantastic the past 2 weeks until last weekend. Had a splat of printing a job and it clogged up the nozzle area but I was able to clear it up via heating it up, swearing and carefully picking around the cables. It worked fine for another 2 days until this fine weekend. Smells like something died/burned/melted, so I started the process of unloading the filament. And at the end, I had to yank out (with alot of struggle/heating/MUCH patience) what PLA filament out of my extruder. BUT I was able to figure that something still seemed stuck in the hot end area when my extruder wasn't even "loading/letting out" any filament. Is this normal and does it happen often? 😐

I've followed the "replacing nozzle" instructions in the manual/booklet to dissemble the extruder for visible inspection. And here's a photo of how far I was able to test a needle going in from bottom up the nozzle before feeling it getting stuck around the mid area with the multiple lined cylinder (Obviously a techhead who knows the language...) = so around 3cm upwards.

I've heated this up to 250/270 degrees (and waited 5mins to see if it'll melt like cheese) and poked/prodded it to try unblock it. But it keeps bending the needles (0.3 acupuncture ones, yes. I went to buy some ruddy acupuncture ones like the booklet said.) I have and remain clogged.

Just wondering if there's anything else I can do to figure out what is this evil? Or if it's at the point where I'll have to consider getting a replacement part? OR is this how it's supposed to be and I've been trying to fix the wrong part!?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers,
Christie