How would you all clean this nozzle after a particularly bad fail print?
I wipe our schools printer nozzle with small pieces of plain photocopy paper, with the nozzle at printing temperature.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:30454 - obviously this is a bukobot, so you’ll need to modify things for your machine. Short of it is you print that object, heat up your hot end, slowly drive it into the printed object, let it cool down to about 80C, and then pull it straight down; it’ll remove the gunk. I’ve tested it personally. Be careful not to torque on your hot ends though, the heat breaks are somewhat fragile and can break. If you have trouble getting it off, raise the temp by like 5C and retry until it comes off.
I’ve wiped the nozzle while at temp with a cloth that had rubbing alcohol on it. Probably totally the wrong thing to do but it worked.
Like @ThantiK , I have seen the gunk pull off after letting the hot part sink into a block of plastic and then pulling it off. But you do need to do it carefully. The other possibility is a stiff wire brush on most of the metal surfaces - again, work carefully - avoid the nozzle area itself, as a stray strand entering the hole could tug and damage the nozzle.
Brass wire brush if you can find one. Brass will minimize the scratching on the nozzle while also pulling off the gunk. You can do that hot or cold.
I just use an old cloth/rag when its up to temp and wipe it.
Disassemble and use a torch to burn it clean.
Kill it with fire!
Heat it or freeze it… those are your two options. Heating it is easy but can leave some plastic behind. Freezing is more dangerous but it should just crack/pop right off.
Heating: Heat the print head to print temp or higher. DO NOT hit the smoke point of the plastic! Once warmed use a porous cloth to wipe the heads and clean up anything missed with qtips or tweezers.
Freezing: Can damage printer if you not careful! Recommended: Take print heads off of the printer. To freeze the plastic you can place it in the freezer or use a can of compressed air upside-down. Once the plastic freezes you can then knock it off with ease.
Hm, i just leave all the gunk that eventually gets stuck to the hotend on it - the worst that could happen is that a tiny black spot in a a print could appear, but other than that, i find that it really doesn’t make a difference.
@Thomas_Sanladerer - “the worst that could happen is that a tiny black spot in a a print could appear” - the worst part about that is our customers demand reprints!
Why, oh why does no one read my Post?
tetrahydrofuran
I do appreciate it Lukas, but it was just a link to a blog about PLA smoothing. You literally gave no advice outside a chemical name. Do you use a cloth or dunk it in a small container? Can it effect your machine, & what caution do you take with it?
Its far more valuable to comment rather than a hyperlink, especially when the link indirectly touches the subject.
guys, it’s a solvent for PLA like acetone for ABS. What do you expect? An tutorial, how to open the bottle? Aluminium and (in most cases) brass are not that chem. reactive. Use tetrahydrofuran and dip your stuff in.
@Lukas_Merz Or just head the tip and whip it without the use of chemicals. And its free!
@Ralph_Apgar sure, larger blobs of PLA are no problem, but what about that tiny little peaces that glue betwen nozle and heater or on the heater itself? Maybe I’m Monk, but I like my shiny printerhead.
I have a flashforge creator (makerbot rep 1 dual) and I use Thingiverse user jetty’s nossle cleaning script. Essentialy , it’s a g code file that prints a cube with a little room for the nozzel. Then it dips it’s nozzle into the cube and then cools the extruder and bed. Then you pull the cube off and it is perfect!!!