how to clean teeth on bond tech
Hi there,
that seems to be a stupid question, what I actually want to know is if there is a clever way of cleaning filament rubbish from the gear teeth without disassembling the whole carriage. Would cotton bud and IPA be good enough?
Also I am looking for any smart ideas why what happened happened.
Did a second print of the same object with the same filament from the same spool (opened for about 20 hours). The first on came out flawless but I was to stupid to properly measure some things. So the second attempt with some adjustments went on.
I left it alone after the first layer (which looked not perfect but acceptable) and 3 hours later I noticed some serious under extrusion and a madly clicking extruder. Opening the idler door for a cold pull revealed a drive gear almost completely covered in PLA. No material coming out between heater and sink and I haven't done any mechanical things in a while having done at least 40 hours of printing since the last time I touched the extruder.
Room was around 22 degrees celsius and the sheet freshly scrubbed. Filament is PLA from a local manufacturer, and printed successfully before.
Thanks for any ideas.
Cheers
Hansjoerg
RE: how to clean teeth on bond tech
May sound a bit wacky but I use an old electric toothbrush. Had an old oral-b with the spinning end and it reaches the feed gears. Clean a bit, advance e manually using the lcd to move them, clean a bit more, repeat until it’s all been done. I also put a bit of masking tape over the ptfe tube to make sure anything I’m cleaning off doesn’t fall down into the feed path. Once done I blow out the inside with my airbrush a few times and then remove the tape and it’s good to go.
RE: how to clean teeth on bond tech
I usually use a q-tip, canned air, and a dental explorer, and rubbing alcohol.
The dental explorer is when filament residue gets impacted in the gear teeth.
RE:
Tooth Brush and canned air for me, also I made a little cover thingy for the filament path so stuff I'm cleaning off doesn't accidentally fall into the hot end.
The Filament Whisperer
RE: how to clean teeth on bond tech
Thanks so far, looks like I'm in for some interesting times 🙂
How far do you dismantle the carriage? I assume that at least the idler door has to go?
RE: how to clean teeth on bond tech
Just release and remove the idler.
You can advance the E axis to rotate.
RE: how to clean teeth on bond tech
@hawai
It's super easy to get clean, it's so easy you could do it in the morning over coffee, If in fact you do drink coffee, it may potentially be more difficult over tea, I say this having been married to an English woman for 25 years, but never while eating cereal, you'll have a problem for sure 😉.
Hope this helps
Swiss_Cheese
The Filament Whisperer
RE: how to clean teeth on bond tech
One cup of coffee and the otherwise useless narrow brush head for the electric toothbrush did the trick. After I found out that the printer wants the nozzle to be heated before it agreed to rotate the gears. Every day is a school day 😉
The question remains however why the grinding of the filament happened in the first place. While there I checked the grub screw and it is smack in the center of the flat part and well tightened. The filament measured reasonably well within the tolerance of the cheap calipers (1.72 - 1.76 over about a meter).
Is it more likely a filament issue or do those teeth loose "grippiness" over time and may need replacing?
RE: how to clean teeth on bond tech
@hawai
Loose Grub screws would cause under extrusion, not grinding, and it sounds like your filament tolerances are ok. The teeth can and do wear, but normally not quickly. If you have been running a bunch of hard filament types, example PC or carbon fiber / fiberglass impregnated products, that can cause them to wear faster but even then it takes awhile. I'm betting you have or have had one of the problems listed below. Regular cleaning is needed, it's just part of good maintenance.
Filament grinding can happen for a number of reasons. It can be a fully or partially blocked filament path (Nozzle most likely) but any obstruction can cause it. It could be from trying to print filament with the temp to low for that filament, another way saying of that would be, trying to push the filament out faster then it can melt properly, nozzle to close to the bed, layer heights to low can create a back pressure that can cause it. the idler screw might have been a bit loose for whatever filament / temp and it lost grip and ground a bit, etc,,.
The reasons are many, you are the most qualified to diagnose this since you spend the most time with your machine.
Enjoy
Swiss_Cheese
The Filament Whisperer
RE: how to clean teeth on bond tech
To report the overdue conclusion to this thread:
It was a partial obstruction of the nozzle, the cold pulls I did looked ok but weren't, the acupuncture needle yielded a significant amount of gunk and no more issues since...