Feeding roller cleaning
Usually this job must be performed when one or more of following situation is happening:
•
Printing speed is too high
•
Extrusion temperature is too low
•
First layer thickness is too low or nozzle is touching tray
•
Nozzle is jammed with dirt
Therefore something has to be done to avoid repeating the nozzle jam (i.e.: slow down, increase temperature,...).
Cleaning must be performed following those steps:
1. Lock open the filament feeder handle
2. Using the front panel or Repetier Host program, rotate the feeding roller until the locking grain is exposed. If you
don't have easy access to the feeding roller, consider turning off the printer, unplugging the feeder motor and
detaching the feeder assembly from the printer.
3. Release the grain, remove the feeding roller.
4. Using a needle and/or a small brush clean the feeding roller teeth
5. Put back on the roller, taking care to maintain alignment with previous position
Extruder cleaning
In case of extruder jam, the best remedy is nozzle change and feeding roller cleaning.
After nozzle change, you may try to recover jammed nozzle using two different approaches:
•
Solvent cleaning: put the nozzle in a small glass jar with selected solvent. Process may be slow (hours or days).
Not all polymer can be diluted with solvents or need very aggressive chemicals. We don't recommend this
approach, except with ABS (tha can be cleaned with acetone)
•
Heat cleaning: using a hot air gun, gently warm up the nozzle and use compressed air to blow in the nozzle (from
small opening) to remove the jam. If correctly performed, this may recover 90% of jammed nozzles. WARNING:
this procedure may develop toxic fumes – perform this duty outdoor or with appropriate smoke suction device
An alternative method can be tried if nozzle is not completely jammed:
1. Remove filament from the extruder
2. Insert PA6 filament (available on 3ntr web store) whose tip will be appropriately pointed
3. Feed the filament into extruder
4. Heat up the extruder up to 250°C
5. Feed filament (by hand or using front LCD panel / Repetier) until you don't see the PA6 flowing outside the nozzle
6. Turn off heating (leave machine ON)
7. Keep feeding filament/extruding: push until you don't reach 165°C – DON'T STOP PUSHING
8. As soon as you reach 165°C, pull out the filament
9. If the filament tip is clean and cone-like (therefore “copying” the inner nozzle surfaces) then you have a clean
extruder. If not, restart from step #2
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