I think my two nozzles on my H2D might be leaking. I went to remove them today to swap on 0.6 and found them both stuck solid. I had to heat them up to get them out. Then I noticed ooze coming from what looks like where the tip meets the body. I’ve only printed PLA in the machine. It doesn’t look like typical ooze, especially because it was under the silicone boot and looked normal with the boots on. One looks worse because I started to clean it but then realized I should take some pics first.
I’ve got tons of hours on the factory nozzles on my work H2D printing nothing but ABS and they’re still clean.
Has anyone experienced this before?
How are your reheating them when they are off the printer?
When did they say they were heating them up when removed?
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Could it just be creeping inside the sock? Are you ironing any? I have seen pretty nasty nozzles after very long ABS prints. (I know you are doing PLA).
Once you clean them up can you look under magnification to see if there is a crack there or just a place where it settled during use?
Edit to add: I’ve been brutally rough on my .4 factories and at 1500 hours I’ve decided to change them. They aren’t failed, but the heat sinks are bent some and I figured it was time. When I say rough, I use a plumbing torch on them with a pair of needle nose pliers holding them and a brass brush to clean them (I recently changed to just using a soldering sponge). They are pretty darn strong in my experience with just about every filament.
Also, PLA is such a wide field now there are so many different kinds that flow differently that could be important information too.
I print a lot of abs and petg, I see that now and again under the sock. I just use a brass wire brush with the nozzle hot and gently scrub it clean. If it builds up it will affect prints at some point. Never noticed a crack or anything, just gets stuck there. If it sits to long it will almost turn into a glass looking consistency and its a pain to get off.
Just out of curiosity, after heating, did you anneal them or quench them?
Nah, but I dont think I got them that hot they never gave any visual indications of overheating like you see on metal thats gotten real hot.
I never put it in the flame just near it - its one of those bottles with the valve on the end. It took a good 15 seconds to warm up enough to knock the crud off with the brush.
I actually have a solder station and a solder heat gun with adjustable temp, no idea why I didn’t think to the use the heat gun at first. Now I just leave in the printer, turn it to 220 on each nozzle and hit with a nylon brush that was in the kit with all the brass ones, and also hit it with the sponge - very little moisture in it though. I only clean when I see things on them or things stick to them (usually Support for PLA new).
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Remove sock, heat nozzle to 250° and clean with a brass brush. It’s just normal build-up
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No ironing, also as you can see the tip itself is clean, the only residue is where the tip meets the body.
Unless maybe the nozzle wiper cleaned the tip but pushed it up into the sock?
That’s exactly what happens. The nozzle can’t “leak.”
I began having issues with support for pla/petg not sticking to my prime tower or model (Support material is in the left nozzle of my H2C) so I watched the nozzle laying down the support interface and saw that it was dropping large blobs which, when cooled, were bumped into by the nozzle knocking off the support interface material. After replacing the left nozzle there were no issues. Here is what the problem nozzle looks like
I assume the tip is press fit into the hot end and started leaking at that juncture
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That’s a possibility and I’ve had that happen before but I would only suspect this if, after cleaning the nozzle with a brush, it happens immediately afterwards. Otherwise, it’s just normal build-up.
Yeah, I just swapped another one in but will clean this one and see if it happens again
Looks like the nozzle wasn’t leaking, I cleaned it off and put it back on and it still didn’t work with the interface material but I did not see any leaks. I was hoping it was leaking because I’m struggling with my support for PLA/PETG clumping up and don’t know why it’s happening but evidently it’s not the nozzle
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I have that issue from time to time with support filament. I put in a brand new nozzle with new sock the last time and it still did it so it wasn’t the nozzle being “tacky” from scratches or anything. It’s never repeatable in the same place and it was a 12 plate print with lots of supports so it drove me kind of crazy. I just kept skipping the failed objects then reprinting and skipping the successful ones. Eventually got through it.
@Esquare Just out of curiosity.
The PLA that you are using….
Can you give us some details on it?
Dried Bambu PLA Basic Black with Dried Bambu Support for PLA/PETG
I’ll assume since you know to dry, then you know about storage, UV, and repeated cycles of heat drying for PLA.
So, filament is off the list of trouble makers.
I would think so.
It is the same support roll I have been using with no problems and suddenly started blobbing up on me. I redried it and tried several different max volumetric flows and interface speeds to no avail.
