I have an issue where i appears as though there is heat creep in my x1c. I can print with any type of filament for hours on end with no issue then at some point the printer will stop pushing out filament and air print. This happens most often with PETG but has also happened with ASA and PLA. When I pull the hotend and inspect it, there is melted filament above the heat break and then re-solidified in the area of the heat sink.
I always print with the top open and door open unless printing with ASA.
Filament is dry (dried 24+ hours out of box, humidity reading at <15%), settings dialed in (prints area always good until they just stop altogether). Filament feeds normally with no evidence of moisture (straight stream no popping or blistering that can be heard or seen). No blobbing or stringing, nozzle is cleaned every few prints just to make sure no PETG (or other filmanet types) builds up and I use the slice engineering plastic repellant every few prints to make sure. I just replaced the hotend a few weeks ago after this problem began happening and have had to pull it to remove clogs roughly every 20 hours of printing or so.
Is this a bad hotend? Is there something in the tool head assembly that could be malfunctioning to cause this? Any ideas on how to troubleshoot it?
Thanks in advance if anyone has experienced this and has any ideas for how I can fix it.
Have you checked the cooling fan on the hotend.
Probably a cooling fan issue
I forgot to mention that piece. I was worried it might not be working so I pulled the cover and heated up the hotend and the fan was blowing. But it does make me wonder if it is not working well enough. Is there any way to see if the fan stops working other than watching the print all the way through?
I have ordered a replacement and will see if that fixes it. Thanks for the suggestion. Hopefully this fixes the issue because I never used to have this issue.
Hey! Welcome to the forum! That really sounds like it could be a partial nozzle clog. Have you tried checking that?
Try turning the fan on in control settings, leave it running for an hour
I thought the same originally but I regularly run cleaning filament through and the clogging happens above the heat break. When the heat sink area is clear, filament runs through without issues. I have had partial clogs before where I see issues like curling of the filament as it comes out, non-uniform flow out of the nozzle, etc…this isn’t happening here. All flows normally, great layers, great adhesion, no over or under extruding from what I can detect, then it just air prints and when I stop it and pull the hotend, the clog is in the area of where the heat sink is above the heat break.
I am will do some testing with the new fan I get today and see if that helps. I am also getting a new hotend so it will be interesting to see which fixes it.
Okay! Tell me how it goes!!
What temp are you printing the petg at?
Hi @Lassic77 did you figure this out? I’ve been having the same issue.
I’ve done cold pulls and hot pulls. Dried filament, tried different filament brand, filament profiles, etc. Then I changed extruder gears, extruder body , lidar cover, etc. and still have the same issue.
The irony is it’s for a project that would conclusively prove the utility of a 3d printer to my fiance. And this is when I struggle 