Well I woke up to quite the surprise this morning! Holy cow what a mess. I’m going to assume the problem started with bed adhesion. How the heck do I go about fixing this though? Can I just get it up to temperature and most of it just slide off possibly? Am I replacing parts at this point? I don’t know if it just looks worse than it is or if I have a complete disaster on my hands at this point.
Here’s the info on the print I was doing if that helps
I was trying to do a hue forge print. It appears it failed pretty early in the print. Print was going to be Bambu Matte Black & Inland White.
If I left something unanswered just let me know! Thanks in advance you guys have been so awesome in helping me out so far already. As a newbie it’s great knowing I have an awesome community to turn to when I need someone to lean on!
Well, this happens more often than you would think. However, if there were prizes being given out for the most jammed up nozzle? Well… this certainly would be a contender for first prize. I don’t think I’ve seen a nozzle this messed up in a while.
But fear not. This is an easy fix that should only take a few minutes and if you’re luck, it won’t require dissemble. If you’re unlucky, add another 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.
TL;DR version : just by a complete $15 hotend and call it a day.
You already did the hard part, now all you need to do is remove two screws and replace the hotend. The video walks you through this. Mean time to repair? Maybe 15 minutes.
Step #1, manually cleaning.
So let’s say you don’t want to wait for the new hotend to arrive(you still will want a spare on hand anyway)
First thing is to let the nozzle reach room temp. Your should be able to crumble off most of the exterior plastic without damaging the nozzle tip. If you have to twist too hard, don’t.
After you get the nozzle unencumbered from the plastic, you’ll want to inspect the nozzle for any damage to the wire. You will definitely want to replace the silicone sock.
Pick up a few of them, they are consumables and are cheap.
Step 2, really manual cleaning and dissassembly.
Now if you can’t “easily” get all of the crusted filament off, then you are in the unlucky category. For that you will have to remove the nozzle. It’s not hard and just follow the video for replacing the nozzle.
I probably can’t explain it better than this guy already did.
Hey thanks! Super helpful & great info. When I got home today I dove in & I for once landed in the lucky category. It took me about 5 minutes to heat up the nozzle & get it cleaned up. Washed my plate & printed a benchy to test & make sure I was ok. It came out successfully.
I restarted my print that failed last night & it’s been running for a few hours problem free. I did go ahead and get some spare parts ordered up today including a few spare hotends.
So what I did notice when I was getting everything cleaned up was my flow line at the start of the print last night was definitely not right. I watched the print for a few minutes when I started it but I was definitely not watching closely enough or I would have noticed this. What causes the flow line to look like that?
There are a number of reasons why it is like that. But basically the nozzle was not close enough to the bed. Say, the gap between nozzle and the bed was over 0.4mm
That makes sense! I wonder why it would have possibly been to far from the plate though. I downloaded the file from maker world & didn’t change any of the settings other than select the correct printer. Interesting. It printed perfect the second time around last night. Thanks again!
@Mike_Strahl did you perform a bed leveling before your printed? Also, I’d look at doing a temp tower too, not because I’m suspecting the wrong temperatures are being used but because it will tell you at what temp the filament isn’t performing. If your little accident caused the thermistor to gap away from the nozzle, then you may be getting incorrect nozzle temp readings and the controller is computing nozzle temps with incorrect data.
This image here is an example of what one would find if you let’s say operated the extruder manually with the bed a few centimeters away from the nozzle and allowed it to drip and solidify in mid air.
Try this experiment on your printer—it’s fun and will help you understand the properties of your machine firsthand. While this can be done from the slicer’s control panel, it’s easier to use the printer’s onboard controls.
First, manually raise the nozzle temperature to around 220°C.
Then, lower the bed by a few centimeters so you can observe the process clearly.
once the nozzle reaches 220°C, use the extrude button to let the filament ooze out and collect on the plate. The extrusion will stop automatically after about 30mm, so don’t worry if it piles up.
Once the filament cools, pick it up and examine it—it will look exactly like your photo. That’s because the filament cooled before it had a chance to reach the plate.
Don’t heat it up with the control
Take out the hotend put it on something and use a heat gun
If you heat it up with the heating element the thermistor might be broken
I have a lot of experience because I have a a1 mini and a ender
I don’t think I’ve seen a nozzle this messed up in a while.
and let us know how you make out.
