Do you’all have any pro tips to avoid CF and GF infused filaments from breaking off or clogging nozzles?
I’ve had to unclog two nozzles now, super glad I have backups but I’m running the .6 as recommended…however it seems like when I stop printing with say ABS GF, everything goes fine and then come back the next day to do a new print.
The filament will retract fine but as I print with petg or something, click click click. Extruder error, then I replace the hot end and boom everything works…then I get to heat up hex tool and focus on making sure I don’t burn myself on anything hot while pulling out a small segment of the infused filament.
It’s a barrier that can be overcome, but it’s getting old.
I’ve had to unclog two nozzles now, super glad I have backups but
Do you run something like non CF or GF ASA or ABS after to clean out the particles when everything is still warm?
Maybe manually heat up the nozzle to melt it all out…
I’ve cleared clogs that cold pulls couldn’t fix. I start at 300 °C and gradually step down to 170 °C, extruding continuously to catch any remaining blockage. As long as there’s even the slightest flow, this method works.
When switching back to low temp filaments after using high temp filaments, use the cold pull function in the toolbox menu. It’s quick, easy, and will help avoid the situation you’re running into.
I was reading through reddit and someone posted that the left nozzle is better for rigid filaments, like CF and GF I assume due to the way it’s engineered.
With no other information I figure I’ll preferentially put filament in the left nozzle…which to me makes sense if the right side is where I put soft tpu, might as well keep them separated as much as I can.
ABS and ASA sure are dirty, the infused filaments even more so. Bambu says cleaning is needed after 5 rolls but I’ll be cleaning far more often than that…and it sure makes the nozzles look crappy as well.
I had this problem and found that the quickest way to clear a CF clog is to remove the nozzle, head for the kitchen gas stove and heat the nozzle in the flame. At the same time get a length of your next filament and manually push it through. This gets very hot and volatile but has been an instant fix. Oh you also need to rapidly run from the kitchen before your other half arrives to give you hell over the burning plastic smell…
I have recently invested in some cleaner filament and run a length of that through the extruder when swapping out the CF and so far it seems to be doing the trick at much lower risk to my marriage.
You can use separate nozzles for each filament types. Not the cheapest option, but between filaments you frequently switch between, will save a lot of unnecessary (as in: when the nozzle wasn’t filled with burnt residues yet) cold pulls.
I’ve printed a few dozen projects of varying sizes with CF filament. While I haven’t experienced a clog during a print, I’ve had to do cold pulls to get things back right again. Sometimes I’ll do a cold pull when I go back to normal filament just to keep things going. Regardless of what I’ve done, I have noticed that little pieces of CF will be in my first project when changing over. I feel like that’s just the nature of the beast when dealing with these specialized filaments.
When using cleaning filament, there is no residue left from the carbon fiber filament after switching to a new material — which is precisely the purpose of cleaning filament: to clean the nozzle
With cold pulls, on the other hand, the process usually needs to be repeated several times, and there’s no reliable way to confirm that all residue has actually been removed.
Can’t speak to the H2D as I’m fully satisfied with the X1E for printing engineering grade filaments, which is 90% of what I print with.
That said, I do find a modest amount of uses for PETG, and when I switch from say, PAHT-CF to PETG, I have found the trick to avoid nozzle clogs is to purge the PAHT-CF with manual extrusions of PETG at the SAME TEMP that the PAHT-CF prints at, which is 290 deg C.
Interestingly, the only, really bad nozzle clogs I have ever gotten are from printing black PLA-CF and clear PLA. The clear PLA is a non-Bambu Lab brand, but the stuff prints clearer than any brand of clear PETG and is extremely stiff and is always snapping apart in the AMS. I use it to print clear “windows” and shapes into the black PLA-CF, which I then back-light with LEDs.
That clear PLA and the PLA-CF doesn’t always play well together through the same nozzle and I would get these huge blobs (as large as a coin roll of quarters) in these fantastic shapes that have particles of CF mixed into the clear PLA. The huge blobs would encase the nozzle and freeze the entire hot in place.
I once accidentally homed the hot end while trying to free it from one of these blobs, and the servo motors were powerful enough to rip the hot end out of the glass-like blob of frozen PLA + CF … but at the cost of ripping off the print-head cover and all the wires in the print-head, and badly bending the nozzle.
It is funny now to reflect on, but was very not pleasant to experience at the time. Fortunately, none of the guide rods were bent.
Since i got a No Clogger, i dont have problems dislodging fliament that has broken off. I have been using the same nozzles for two years on a X1C and several months on the H2D as opposed to getting a new nozzle after i was done printing. It was like a piece always got lodged whenever cf was unloaded. But with the No Clogger i have been able to keep using my nozzles without having to take them out and it only took a few minutes to clear once i recognized the problem.
ZIRO brand filament (used to | still does) come with a small roll of cleaning filament packaged in with their 1kg spools. I can’t speak to the H2D specifically, but that stuff works awesome on every hotend I’ve put it thru [P1S, E3V3SE, ECC, and A1.] I would send thru 50cm, then do a cold pull on what remained. Usually the cold pull came out clean. Absolute champion of cleaning out the crusties.
I print lots of ABS-GF on my HF nozzle and standard nozzles, and some PETG-CFs as well. There was also a time I printed PPA-CF with it. For ABS-GF I usually don’t care too much unless I’m about to print something cosmetic or soft as I personally never had any issue with it all this time.
When I know that I need to do the cold pull I just do it with the menu on the machine before the next print. You don’t want to have high temp residues mixed with low temp filaments,
Best to directly after printing to replace the filament with PLA and push it through the nozzle and that’s it nothing will happen this is what I am doing
Once you have your new filament in there, crank up the temp and just manually advance the extruder. Basically the filament purging and flow calibration temps for the new filament aren’t high enough for the previous filament that remains. This has solved this issue every single time for me.
Never had an issue yet to GF or CF.
Been running PA6-GF and PA6-CF for some time now. Using the 0.6mm Harden steel tip. It sounds like if it does get stuck its a right pain to sort out. Glad I havn’t experienced that yet.
I dont run these filiments through the AMS, but rather direct from a drying box. I have only used Bambu filament so far. Room humidity is kept between 50 and 55% humidity but I still like to dry filiments before printing. The CF filaments become brittle with moisture.
