So I was cleaning the nozzles of my H2D with a brass brush after setting the temps to like 140c to remove any gunk on the nozzle tip before replacing the silicon socks when all of a sudden I thought I noticed a spark and the machine powered off and then after a few seconds powered itself back on. Did I make a mistake by cleaning the nozzles with the machine powered up? I printed since it reset and there do not appear to be any lasting effects but it’s concerning none the less. Is this possibly some static or electric build up with the eddy sensor or something at the nozzle tip?
Jep. You probably hit the wires of the heating assembly and caused a short. Look at the blank wires below your nozzle (not just the thermistor).
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Yes, never do any matinence with the machine on. If you need to heat up a nozzle do it with a lighter or something. That was very dangerous and may have damaged the printer. Be careful.
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Well good to know. Never even considered I could cause damage when the heaters were off. I didn’t even think about the thermistor. I will remove the nozzles to clean them in the future and use a torch or heatgun.
Also super glad that I didn’t brick my machine or cause some serious damage (or at least it’s not yet apparent)
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Why even use a brass brush? if I turn the nozzle temp up to 240. Everything literally wipes off with a paper towel in 2 seconds.
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I clean my nozzles with one of these,
Lol, cleaning a nozzle tip should not require the printer to be turned off, nozzle removed and using a lighter.
The fact that those wires are exposed is jank AF if we are being honest here.
This is how it’s supposed to look, you can see the ball of epoxy where the wires attach. So someone is missing a step in the factory. Those other two skinny wires are the thermistor which use ceramic coated wires (and also pass basically 0 current) and would have no issue even if they were shorted (temp reading would just go to 0 for a split second lol)
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Stuff gets caked on from time to time, just the nature of the beast. While wiping it down can get most of the still fluid filament, it doesn’t do anything for the caked on stuff, especially considering the paper towel burns after not even a few seconds after being touched at 250C
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To be honest I didn’t even think to try a paper towel. I just always use brass brushes to clean metal objects assuming they are steel or something hard enough. I had a bunch of burned on PLA/PLA Support stuck to the nozzles since the 0.2mm nozzle profiles leave a bunch of boogers behind.
I wipe everything off including PPS-CF, PAHT CF, PETG HF, ABS, PLA, PA12, PET CF. Never had an issue. On higher temp stuff I just increase the nozzle to the print temp +10*. If its caked on it takes me 5-20 seconds of wiping at the most. Each quick wipe is on a new piece of the paper towel. IF its in a tiny crack where the nozzle cone meets the flat surface I use the paper towel like you would use dental floss. I grip it with two hands (2 fingers each hand) and and pull back and forth in a flossing motion. The paper towel is never in contact long enough to burn up.
Thats what I used to do on my old school printer. But I tried this as I was afraid of getting tiny micro scratches in the coating that would then make it harder to remove filament. I know brass shouldn’t damage anything, but I found it was not necessary.
I will try using (blue paper) shop towels next time based on your suggestion since taking the nozzles out to clean them seems a bit cumbersome.
It works well with the blue paper towel shop towels but not an actual rag. Depending on the material of the rag it can melt.