Cleaning nozzle after filament run-out
I'm looking for suggestions on how to clean out the nozzle of a Rapido UHF (0.6 mm nozzle installed) where I ran out of filament (PETG) and there's some cold filament stuck in the heat break (apparently) between the LGX lite and the Rapido. I haven't had any luck pushing it down or melting it out or cleaning it with needles. I'm hoping to avoid taking it apart, but that's going to be my next step barring any better ideas.
13 Replies
I had the exact same issue Friday. What worked for me was heating the hotend to 280, removing the nozzle, taking off the extruder then feeding piano wire in the ptfe tube that connected the extruder and rapido. Took a bit of force to push the stuck length of filament out.
Thanks. I was hoping to avoid that much disassembly but it's pretty clear there's just no way around it
Now that I have the extruder off I'm starting to think I should replace the capricorn tubing I put in between it and the hot end with some of the larger ID tubing I bought for the external feed. Yes? No?
I have a stainless rod for that purpose, slightly less then 1.75 mm. I heat the hotend up to whatever the filament calls for, disable the filament sensor and push out the remnants with the ss rod, without any removal or disassembly of the hotend. As Vitamin G said, sometimesit takes a bit of force. If that wouldn't work then I would disaaamble.
good idea. I'd considered doing that for previous clogs but don't have any the right size 🙂
As to the larger ID tubing, it was not recommended on here, allegedly it creates more of a chance for the filament to get stuck being loose.
in that case I just need to put it all back together and try again 🙂 Thanks to you both.
I hear Capricorn is too narrow. I started using 3mm ID 4 mm OD ptfe tubing
But what @snrr also makes sense
Where did you get the stainless rod you mention? Looking on amazon I could only find them in 1.5mm and 2mm
Amazon, I just miked mine and it is the 1.5mm version. I think there were 5 or 10 in a package, don't remember exactly it was 2 years ago.
ok, cool. Thanks for the info.
flat-fuchsia•10mo ago
I have acupunture needle for that purpose. It is around 0.25mm in size.
optimistic-gold•10mo ago
Another way (use at your own risk): heat up the hotend and take off the cooling Fan. Simultaneously push with some filament from the top.
I've used micro sized drill bits to do this...