I got a new Biqu H2V2 for my Ender 3 pro , since myold hotend started getting unreliable and that was a great excuse for yet another upgrade.
I wasn't happy with the carriage holder I printed, so I wanted to print a new one. After afew hours of printing, I needed to abandon one part, since it was incredibly messy with blobs of PLA gooped on the print. Since I needed the new carriage mount, I didn't think anything off it and simply abandoned that part and continued the other ones.
Today, I saw that the heating block is completely gooped up with PLA (see pictures). So now, I got two questions:
- How should I remove that gunk? I was thinking o| carefully peeling of everything without the silicone sleeve while the hotend is at a low PLA-bending temp, like 150°C, or 175°C.
- What caused this? Flowrate too high (the prints look the part)? Too fast extrusion? Heatcreep?
Thanks in advance. (:
Most nozzles and heat breaks have M6x1mm threads, so they’re pretty standard (double check yours specifically). Lightly chasing the heater block threads with a tap should clean out any gunk and ensure that your heatbreak and nozzle threads engage properly when you reassemble everything again, and that things get torqued together correctly.
If your heatbreak tube and nozzle don’t have any ptfe liners or anything, using a propane/butane torch to cook the PLA to carbon and wire-brushing it off is a fast way to get those threads clean.
If it’s all super gunked up, and you don’t wanna buy tools, you can generally buy just the heat break, heater block, and nozzle together pretty cheaply for most common hot end designs
Sorry, not an english native speaker, so I didn't know what a tap was. Good thing that context made me not google myself to death with that non-SEO friendly term (it's the drill thing that cuts threads inno holes).
A new heating block is a bit cheaper and I got no use for a tap, so I just ordered a new one. Maybe I give the torching method a try, too before it arrives.
Anywho: I understand the hotend way better now. I guess the 4,50€ for a new heating block is worth it. (:
I see. I probably should have been more specific, sorry. If you do try torching the parts, be very careful with the heater block. They are usually aluminum, and can melt much more easily than the steel and brass parts.
Nah, don't worry about it. You used the correct term, which happens to have an amiguous name (you'd translate the German term to "thread-cutting drill").
Thanks for the heads up. Is it very unadvisable to leave the PLA in the threading if nozzle and heatbreak have proper contact?
I think if you can ensure they all thread together without a problem, it doesn’t need to be perfectly clean, but I suspect that will be difficult if there is melted filament in the threads at all
The new heating block is in transit. I'll do some checks.