3D Printer Troubleshooting Guide: Clogged Nozzles

hey Malik and today on 3d printing troubleshooting guide we're going to talk about clogged nozzles if you're curious motor is grinding up filament or making a clicking sound then you may have a jammed or a clogged nozzle there's a couple different things that can cause this so if you're printing PLA you may actually be experiencing heat creep which is where the filament is heating up and the heat isn't being dissipated among the heat sink but is instead traveling up the filament path causing it to balloon out and become just a clog where it can't be pushed further down through the nozzle there's a couple different things that can cause this - if you have an all-metal hotend which is where you have only metal within the hot end and no PTFE lining the filament path that does lend itself to have feit creep a little more often because the PTFE does allow the PLA to just slide through a lot easier so if you have an all-metal hotend make sure that the cooling fan for that hot end is also running really well because if it's not pushing enough air in it's not cooling the heatsink well enough and that's how you can get that ballooning effect on the filament you're also gonna want to make sure that if you're using an enclosure for your 3d printer to make sure to leave the door open or the lid off or something else because if the hot air stays inside with the printer then the cooling fan is just blowing more hot air onto the heatsink which is what lends itself to the heat creep problem so just make sure to leave the door open or leave the lid off and that should help alleviate some of these problems if you also notice that heat creep is still a problem after you've left the door open do a quick touch test with the heat sink of your hot end to see if that part is hot because that shouldn't be hot that should be warm to cool so if it's still warm leave your printer for a little bit for that to cool down and then try again and that should give you a better chance of it actually succeeding another potential cause is that the extruder motor for your 3d printer just doesn't have a torque to push filament through if you have a standard zero point four millimeter nozzle and print at about 45 millimeters per second you shouldn't really have issues but if you're printing with something like a volcano at the same speeds that may just be too much filament melting at once if you're extreme in order to be able to keep up so you may need to upgrade that if you're also upgrading your nozzle or just slow down and you should see better results this can also be a problem if you're using a Titan arrow with a pancake motor which is really thin those don't usually have enough torque if you're printing really fast but they can print flexible is really well so with that one there is that trade-off another potential problem is when you're switching different printing materials so if you go from something like PLA to ABS which is a 200 degree printing temperature to about 240 you shouldn't really notice issue because that higher printing temperature will melt out most of the PLA and then the rest will come out as you're changing material whereas if you do the opposite going from ABS to PLA you may notice that it's just not extruding as cleanly as it did before because you need to make sure that all of the ABS is out of the hot end before the PLA starts coming out so you can do that by just printing PLA at 240 for a little bit just pushing it through until it comes out clean or you may have to take out the nozzle and do a whole cleaning procedure which we have another video about that too now another potential thing isn't just from switching different materials like PLA to abs or vice versa it can also happen when you're printing with some filled filaments like wood fill or metal fills because the small particulate of metal and wood that's in there that helps give it its look and being able to actually polish those metal fills well those are particulate so those are going to potentially jam up the nozzle so if you're using a 0.25 millimeter nozzle that's gonna have more issues than say a one point two millimeter nozzle so if you're printing particulates you may just want to put on a larger nozzle to help avoid having that clog or print slower print hotter there's a couple different things you could do there just be wary when you're printing with those particulates because they may clog the nozzle it won't cause damage it'll just give you a little headache a quick recap of how to unclog your nozzle is use an acupuncture needle to just poke through and break up whatever blockage you have make sure you don't use some of those 0.4 millimeter drill bits if you have a point four millimeter nozzle because those could potentially wear your nozzle diameter to be a little too large or I've seen it happen plenty where that just breaks off within the nozzle and then you're left with that in there instead now an acupuncture needle is designed to go in human skin so it's a lot less prone to breaking than the drill bit you may also want to use a nylon cold pole which is where you push it through until you see some nylon come out cool it down then heat it back up and as it's heating up pull up an island and that should take all of the gunk that's with the filament with it or you can use a cold pole with your same printing filament so if you have PLA loaded in heat it up push PLA through pull it down and then as it's heating up pull that out too or worst case scenario you have to take out the entire nozzle maybe even the hot end take it out melt it out with a blowtorch or even dissolve out the material if it's something like abs just soak it in some acetone and see how that goes there's a couple different ways you can troubleshoot it and in more detail like I said is in the other video so if your 3d printer is having issues pushing filament through the nozzle hopefully this guy with its tips and tricks that I provided will help you get your 3d printer up and running again now if that still doesn't do it feel free to email us at support at mana hackers com or check out our 3d printing troubleshooting guide for other different areas that your 3d printer may be encountering I'm Alec from matter hackers thanks for watching thanks for watching if you like that give us a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe to stay up-to-date with all the big builds how-tos and troubleshooting guides I'll be working on and don't forget check out madder hackers com2 explore everything 3d printing and to join the community

Channel: MatterHackers

Views: 141,086

Keywords: nozzle, 3d print, 3d printer, 3d printing, hotend, bed adhesion, clog, unclog, clogged, unclogged, filament, cleaning, nozzle symptoms, nozzle pla, printing problems and solutions, printing first layer problems, nozzle jam, clean hot end, nozzle cleaning kit, unjam, unjam hot end, abs, petg, thomas sanladerer, dave wirth, ultimaker create education project, SAN TUBE

Id: gNXca6k2n1I

Length: 5min 49sec (349 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 30 2018