Hotend & Nozzle Need Help

Hi everyone, I hope you and your loved ones are all fine.


I think my nozzle is clogged. I dissambled the extruder and check that gear and pulley can freely rotate. But it is not able to exture any material.

So I connect the hotend without extruder and try to push and pull the filament. Unfortunately none of them worked.

I'm waiting for your suggestions and helps.
The clogged filament is 3dSystems' PLA.

Lastly if I buy an hotend with 100k thermistor, is it possible to use it with the stock electronics?

Thanks for your help. :o

Attachment 3876Attachment 3877

I so dread having to do that. I don't have any advice over and above what 3DS has posted. I know that isn't much help. My take is normally to get the spare and then mess with the failed unit.

Thank you for reply TD.

I'm not sure to totally understand you, do you suggest me to disassemble the hotend and nozzle assembly to fix the issue?

Sorry, no. If this were me, which it will be one day, I would source and purchase a new nozzle and get the printer back up and functioning and then see what could be done with the clogged nozzle while it was in my hands to study.

Once in my hands, I would have to figure out how to heat it to temp or not overdo it. There is a Teflon sleeve in side if I'm not mistaken so excess temperature could be an issue. But let's say I can heat it with its own heater and make sure I can manage the temperature by limiting the power level. Once there, I can test the temperature by melting PLA on the outside of the Nozzle. From here I would run a wire back through the nozzle in reverse. I now have the minimal bits attached to the nozzle and the tube is carefully clamped to a vice so I don't worry about the hot device. Feeding the wire through the nozzle in reverse should attach the pla to the wire to have it draw out the far end. Once the aperture is known to be cleared by the wire, you might try dip-cleaning the nozzle by feeding filament manually and pulling it back out to see if gunk comes with it. The best solution at this point is to finish the process with a cold pull. You might need to look that up but basically it a short piece of some special filament used to form in the tip, let cool, and pull the filament along with whatever it can capture. This is the best way to ensure a clean nozzle.

So, even lacking a spare nozzle, I would see what I can do with the nozzle in place. You have some pretty good commands on-screen to get you through this. You could even try a cold-pull with the nozzle in place (it sounds like this is needed since you cannot manually feed).

Good luck.

I heated an paperclip and used it to remove the clogged filament. I'm not sure its working well but now at least it can extrude filament :).



Maybe there exist some particles in the nozzle or I damaged it. The filament is not flowing straight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2PxAK59AMI
I have attached video of the current situation. If anything changes, I will put here to further help:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2PxAK59AMI

Being PLA, it should be more consistent. It looks like it is "frothing". How does it print?

Actually it was the original ABS. I change the filament with an ordinary PLA. Now flow issue is solved but clogging problem is not solved. Beginning of the print there is no problem but after half an hour nozzle clogged and gives filament error. I'm using simplify3d profile and I'm not sure that problem could be caused by s3d

The frothiness of the ABS may be pointing to a need to do a cold pull. I suspect you have some carbon buildup at the small aperture.

A cold pull is a method where you melt a specific material into the nozzle, let it cool, and pull hard to remove any attached contaminants.

I'll let you do the research.

I have tried it many times.
I have connected Abs chip to reader and printing Pla with s3d profile. I'm not sure but maybe profile can cause the problem. Since I tired to cleaning the extruder and nozzle, try other configurations later. :)

Aha, yes, you need to go back to a known profile. I highly recommend tuning with CubePro. That way you know it is right for the printer. Use the PLA setting for PLA prints obviously.

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Do you have a PLA chip?