Topic: Leaking hot end?
As I sat down for a soothing evening of printing I noticed something worrying. There was a new bit on my hot end... It looks a bit like slightly overcooked plastic, and was (at the time - when the hot end was at temperature) squishy.
You can see it in the attached photo, it's the bulge between the top of the heat wrap and the PTFE tube. As the print kept running it seemed to be (very slowly) growing, so I panicked a little and killed the print.
I've seen or heard of other hot ends needing "sealing" where the user runs some plastic through it, lets it ooze, then lets it cool, and the previous ooze seals the leak. But I've had this printer for a couple months (and have maybe 175-200 hours of print time on it) and this is the first I've seen of it.
I changed from my cracked acrylic jigsaw to the replacement cold end a few days ago, but I've been printing since then and this bulge only appeared this evening.
If I let it cool down and solidify will I be safe to bring it back up to temperature and keep printing? If it keeps leaking will I have to replace the hot end entirely?
I don't feel safe running the five hour print I had planned now, which is extremely annoying. Am I overreacting by killing the print and keeping it cold for now?