Recovering from loose heatsink/nozzle
I received my MK3 kit 3 weeks ago and started printing 24/7. Not perfect prints, but sufficient to satisfy my cravings for printing 3D dungeons for my roleplaying games. Two weeks in I got back home to find a 82 grams ball of PLA around nozzle, heatsink and cabling. I managed to get the ball off the printer by preheating to PET temperature, a bit of brute force some pliers and the blade of a hacksaw.
The printer prints and does a decent job at it. But anything that requires a lot of irregular tiny movements causes the printer to fail. Why? My best guess is because the heatsink is loose once preheated. I can move the nozzle a bit both horizontally, vertically and rotate it. I can't remember if the nozzle was loose before the incident or during assembly, but I don't think so.
I've managed to print the nozzle-fan.stl (broken off by the ball of plastic), extruder-body.stl and extruder-cover.stl in PETG. Will this be sufficient it I want to see if I can tighten the plastic around the heatsink? And is PETG the right material. It would seem to me as if I needed a material, that could withstand higher tempratures as the printer will obviously have to print at the same temperature as the plastic I made it from. Or maybe it is only the nozzle that gets to so high temperatures? I don't have an enclosure for ABS and haven't tried working with it yet.
Does this sound like I am on the right track?
Re: Recovering from loose heatsink/nozzle
I guess your Z level is too high. If the filament does not stick to the bed, it will "roll up" against the nozzle and form a ball of filament on the nozzle.
Secondly, you should not be able to move the heat sink with your hand. It should be firmly seated, otherwise it will cause very bad prints.
Bear MK3 with Bondtech extruder
Re: Recovering from loose heatsink/nozzle
PETG should be ok for those parts.
as long as you are not printing high temperature parts.
I print mainly PLA, PETG and TPU.
my part cooling shroud is printed in PLA and works OK
the extruder parts wrap around the cold end heatsink which is air cooled, so PETG should not be a problem (it's what Prusa use)
I believe the original part cooling shroud is printed in ABS, by Prusa
regards Joan
I try to make safe suggestions,You should understand the context and ensure you are happy that they are safe before attempting to apply my suggestions, what you do, is YOUR responsibility. Location Halifax UK
Re: Recovering from loose heatsink/nozzle
@RHDreambox Before the gumball incident, the Z-layer seemed to be just right. Had done several calibrations with the Prusa filament that came with the printer. The Das Filament I subsequently changed to didn't have the same adhesion. I've upped the bed temperature and it has improved the adhesion.
@Joan Thanks. Guess I'll take a leap of faith and do my first disassembly of the printer.