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My print popped out from the bed and glued to the nozzle. As the printer was printing next hour or so, a lot of pla was extruded and formed on the nozzle.

I'm wondering what will be the best way to remove pla from the nozzle without overheating wires?

a remark: was trying to heat the nozzle over 180, but I am getting a thermal runout. The pla is hard, I don't want to broke the throat.

enter image description here

profesor79
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  • If it doesn't heat up to printing temperature, will it when you removed all the goo? Personally I bought several heating blocks, throats, thermistors and heater elements. When I see this I instantly replace the extruder. – 0scar May 10 '18 at 17:30

2 Answers2

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If you grab the blob with a pliers and twist, all or most of it may pop off. If not, heat the extruder up perhaps 10 degrees higher than usual, and wait for the external gunk to soften up and then pull it off.

edit :

Well, if it won't get hot enough, then try using an external source such as a soldering iron tip to cut off most of the mess, then it may be time for exacto knife blades and small files to remove the remainder.

Unless you're a clean freak :-) a little residue around the nozzle doesn't matter - it won't touch your prints and at some time in the future it'll be "cooked" enough to fall off.

Community
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Carl Witthoft
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  • thanks for that, but I was unable to heat it over 170... and more fun is that this is a volcano nozzle. – profesor79 May 10 '18 at 15:33
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    @profesor79 Disconnect your heater from the main board then apply 12V to make it work alone and wait the result that Carl describes. – Fernando Baltazar May 11 '18 at 15:56
  • @FernandoBaltazar that will fry the inner layers and could burst as per Horitsu answer – profesor79 May 17 '18 at 09:26
  • @profesor79 No my friend, nothing will be fried. The iron technique will be a little smoky, but the heater will be disconected from your board, so applying 12v will make to heat your melted pla like normally does, but this way you can reach a higher temperature that your board allows. If you doubt about 12V then just apply 10 or 9v but it will heat slower. This disconnection it will be like you are changing the whole E3D V6. – Fernando Baltazar May 17 '18 at 15:23
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I would suggests to use a heat gun and carefully warm up the PLA to be soft and remove it carefully like a big piece of Play-Doh. Using the extruder to heat up the PLA don't sound like the best idea, for me, because the inner PLA will be fluid and it could be a bigger mess than it is up to now.

Horitsu
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  • that was said in Carl's answer as external heat source – profesor79 May 17 '18 at 07:27
  • He suggests a soldering iron tip, which I don't think to be a good idea, because you probably ruin the soldering iron, produces maybe toxic smoke/gases and would only heat up small parts at once. I instead mean to head up the whole blob to a soft enough point to be similar to play-doh. – Horitsu May 17 '18 at 08:00
  • So let see that from other perspective: soldering iron is external or internal heat source? – profesor79 May 17 '18 at 08:39
  • I never said, that a soldering iron is not an external heat source... Pls don't be rude, I just want to help you by making a suggestion. I explained my idea and explained why I think the other (specific) one is not a good idea in my opinion. – Horitsu May 17 '18 at 09:11
  • Thanks for your response - I rather want to be on the same level of understanding, so most people when they imagine soldering iron, they see the small device used to join electronics components - but this is a wider area of devices. Using a heat gun will add a lot of risk to get a burn or to fry a closed object. – profesor79 May 17 '18 at 09:29