Blob covering entire hotend heating assembly

Bambu Lab A Series Bambu Lab A1 mini
1

I’ve owned a Bambu Labs A1 mini for about 18 months and after leaving a print unattended overnight, I came back to a huge blob that invaded and hardened within my extruder unit.

I began following this disassembly guide, but I’m stuck on this step:

Release the hotend latch, then hold the heat sink with your hands and remove the hotend.

I’m stuck because the entire latch is coated in hardened PLA.

I have a Pinecil soldering iron, and I also have a heat gun, and I have spudgers and metal picks. What I need to know is the best way to proceed from here. What components should I remove, how should I remove them, and what replacement parts do I need to buy?

Judging from the damage shown in the attached image, it looks like I will need to buy these:

The biggest two questions are:

  1. How the heck do I remove these parts?
  2. Do I also need a new Extruder Unit, or will that not be answered until I can get further in the disassembly?

Thanks for reading! Love the printer and looking forward to getting back in action!

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2

Hey, can’t help here (not owning a A1 mini) but I had in my first week of H2D ownership a Polycarbonate blob covering big parts of my hotend and PC is simply a pain in the backside to remove.

Not sure if the A1 mini also has “clumping detection by probing” but I enable it since my lovely experience for certain materials in advance.

Seeing that picture I can only say I feel you and… good luck!

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3

Solved! It cost me $46.17 in parts after shipping and tax.

Here’s what I purchased:

$19.99: 1 x Hotend Heating Assembly - A1 Series

$2.99: 1 x Toolhead Rear Housing - A1 Series (only because I didn’t remove right cable channel before using my heat gun, and that small piece of plastic warped)

$2.99: Hotend Silicon Sock - A1 Series

$9.99: Part Cooling Fan - A1 Series

There was no exact tutorial that encompassed all that I had to remove and replace, but I used the following instructions, images, and videos as a guide:

When I finished, I washed my Bambu Lab Textured PEI Plate with soap and water to help avoid future issues: Bambu Lab Textured PEI Plate Cleaning Guide | Bambu Lab Wiki

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4

I’ve had this issue before. If it happens again heat up your nozzel to 220 or hotter and the blob will start to melt off. then you can carefully start removing the plastic with tweezers

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