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Topic: Cleaning wire stuck in extruder!

Hi--   I'm new here, so please forgive any faux pas-  I searched but could not find something like this already posted.

So..    this started when I finally bit the bullet and bought 3rd party filament-  I didn't go cheap (I dont think anyway)- I printed a spool holder that hangs off of the side of the Da Vinci and I set up a few prints. Around the 3rd print the spool came unwound and got stuck- which caused the filament to break off inside the extruder.    I found the instructions for taking apart the head, and attempted to remove the filament from the nozzle from the back size with needle nose pliers (per the instructional video with the horrible music at XYZ's site) -  but it broke off further into the nozzle than I could grab.

That led me to research- which led me to this forum- which led me to the suggestion of getting a small torch, heating it up and cleaning out with the wire.   I unfortunately could not find my wire anywhere, so I went down to home depot, bought a tiny pen-sized adjustable butane torch and a set of torch tip cleaning wires.  I then unscrewed the nozzle and using a pair of big pliers as a base, heated the nozzle up until it was bubbling ABS-  I then used a larger nozzle cleaning wire from the bigger end to get out as much as I could- and then turned it over and used the smallest to clean from the small side-   when I pushed the wire in, it snapped- inside the extruder.

Am I screwed?    Are there any suggestions of how to get this out?   


Thank you in advance for any suggestions or advice...

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Re: Cleaning wire stuck in extruder!

So you have 2 wires stuck in there ? Someone's having a pretty shitty day.. Lol is the 2nd wire thin enough to come out the end of the extruder? If so I would heat the extruder (hopefully you're running repetier, if not, go into load filament mode) . And this is the tricky part. Take the nozzle out of the chamber, but leave the wires plugged in, then, with the nozzle hot, manually feed a large amount of filament thru the hot end. (I would do this over a bowl so you can check to see if the filament comes out with a piece of wire in it)

(I would take the print head out first  before you heat the nozzle)

Just try not to burn any wires with the nozzle, it's kind of tricky with that stupid rope attatched.

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Re: Cleaning wire stuck in extruder!

I agree about the stupid rope-  I 'tinged one of the wires with the nozzle but not bad enough to expose anything.   And no-  I only have 1 wire stuck in there- on the bigger end I used a bigger rod to collect abs and pull it out, and that didn't get stuck... just the tiny wire on the small end of the extruder

I'm not running repetier- I'm running the stock software (crappy I know)  - I havent gotten to the point of flashing the firmware to use Repetier yet..   I do have a 'clean nozzle' option which moves everything to the center and heats the extruder- but I should be able to try this with that..   hopefully without screwing anything else up.   

Thanks for the suggestion- I'll report back soon.

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Re: Cleaning wire stuck in extruder!

WHEW.  Thank you.   That worked- ish.       I was able to heat up the nozzle, and push ABS through it- which then got stuck again and broke off again..  but I used the much larger rod that I used before with pressure to push it until the rod came out enough that I could grab it with needle nose pliers and pull it out.   

Now-   I still am left with gunk inside the nozzle.    I have been hesitant to do any kind of acetone soak because of the superglue of the other wires-  is it safe to soak it in acetone for a bit to try to get some of this gunk out?   

Thank you so much in advance....!   That suggestion saved the day.

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Re: Cleaning wire stuck in extruder!

this is what you do: feedyour filament manually again. after some comes out, turn the printer off. you want the nozzle to cool down a little to the point where it doesn't melt the filament. when it does, pull on the filament, you should get a nice cone shaped plug. other than that, whatever gunk lodged in your nozzle should not affect the quality of your prints. its when the gunk tries to go thru the extruder is when it can do that. don't worry tho. thats never happened to me. just keep the exterior and hole of the extruder clean.