The dreaded clog
Dec. 7th, 2012 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rbandrewsPrinters sometimes have their nozzles clog. I have been astoundingly lucky in that it has never happened to me. Until last night it did.
I was printing Adam's christmas present (which won't actually work; I need to revise the design) and changing colors, when the orange filament wouldn't go in. Bugger. The red filament had snapped a little when I pulled it out too fast and it was clogging the nozzle.
So, okay. Took the whole thing apart, stuck a bit of wire in there to fish around and push the burned chunk of red out. I actually took it way more apart than I needed to, so I decided to try and remove one of the extruders while I was at it (I never use it, and a lighter print head will print better because it can accelerate faster). I got it off but then had problems with the firmware (that I later solved), and I wasn't able to remove the fan so it was just kinda hanging there. I decided it wasn't worth the effort, so I put it back on.
Unfortunately I put it back on backwards.
It apparently matters which motor goes on which side. I spent an annoying hour trying to figure out why the motors weren't grabbing the filament right, and then figured this out and had to take it completely apart, again, and reassemble it, again, only this time while playing the fun side game of "don't touch the heater block". Which I lost. Ow.
And then it worked again, but it was 9:00, so too late to start another print. I printed a boat (two colors, red and green, the S. S. Christmas) to test it and went to bed.
On the plus side I now understand a lot better how the print head works, probably enough to modify it later if I want to. And I'm convinced that pretty much no matter what goes wrong with it I can fix it.
I was printing Adam's christmas present (which won't actually work; I need to revise the design) and changing colors, when the orange filament wouldn't go in. Bugger. The red filament had snapped a little when I pulled it out too fast and it was clogging the nozzle.
So, okay. Took the whole thing apart, stuck a bit of wire in there to fish around and push the burned chunk of red out. I actually took it way more apart than I needed to, so I decided to try and remove one of the extruders while I was at it (I never use it, and a lighter print head will print better because it can accelerate faster). I got it off but then had problems with the firmware (that I later solved), and I wasn't able to remove the fan so it was just kinda hanging there. I decided it wasn't worth the effort, so I put it back on.
Unfortunately I put it back on backwards.
It apparently matters which motor goes on which side. I spent an annoying hour trying to figure out why the motors weren't grabbing the filament right, and then figured this out and had to take it completely apart, again, and reassemble it, again, only this time while playing the fun side game of "don't touch the heater block". Which I lost. Ow.
And then it worked again, but it was 9:00, so too late to start another print. I printed a boat (two colors, red and green, the S. S. Christmas) to test it and went to bed.
On the plus side I now understand a lot better how the print head works, probably enough to modify it later if I want to. And I'm convinced that pretty much no matter what goes wrong with it I can fix it.
