Quickly Clearing a Heat Creep Jam
I recently figured out how to quickly clear a heat creep jam without disassembling your extruder.
This method works best with a hotend that is easy to remove nozzles from, like the Sliceengineering Mosquito.
- Heat up your hotend to printing temperatures for the jammed filament.
- While waiting for the hotend to heat up, you may want to release your extruder tension.
- Remove the nozzle from your hotend.
- Insert a 1.5mm hex key into the hole where the nozzle was.
- Wait a few seconds for the hex key to heat up.
- Push up with the hex key to push the clog upwards.1. Repeat the previous two steps until the clog is cleared.
- Keeping the hex key in the hotend, reach into the extruder with pliers and pull the filament out.
- Restore extruder tension.
- Reinstall your nozzle.
- If necessary, re-calibrate your Z offset.
This guide is also on my website.
I hope this helps!
RE: Quickly Clearing a Heat Creep Jam
Pushing the filament back up into the guide tube is a little counter intuitive, but I'll give it a try. I would note if you push the molten filament too far up into the guide tube that some 0f melted filament could deposit on the tube interior and restrict the normal pathway of filament. I can offer that caution because I've (using a different method) gunched up the guide tube above the hot zone twice requiring a drill bit to recover the nozzle. Twice, because I'm stupid, but what can I say.
I will add that if the filament in broken off low in the guide tube inadvertently before trying your procedure, the risk of depositing filament in the the path above the hot zone is increased.
But as I said I will certainly try it.