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SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → Help/Repair/Maintenance → Plastic coming from...somewhere...
Fired up my solidoodle 2, heated up my red PLA to print a part...when I noticed this.
(See attachment)
That's PLA plastic coming from under the tape on the extruder.
ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA?!
The only thing I changed since printing last was I loaded up a new 0.1 slic3r profile. I doubt that would cause this.
Still getting a handle on my new Solidoodle 2.
That's a leak... means that you may have a gap in the barrel/PEEK assembly, or the barrel threads are slightly stripped allowing plastic to come out... either way, you can still print, but inevitably it will cause a clog as the plastic will sit there and burn as opposed to flowing out of the barrel.
Tough one to troubleshoot... some recommend teflon tape on the threads to stop the leak, but I never could get it to work.
Check that... The leak is actually coming from the top of the nozzle. Means that it wasn't tight enough.
Barrel leak would show up at the PEEK/Barrel junction.
This one is easy. Remove the nozzle, clean it and re-attach making it a little tighter. Sometime we don't get all the plastic out of the nozzle and it interferes with the fit on the barrel, causing a gap. This allows plastic to flow up the threads and leak. It happens, but it's not a game changer. Once again, you can print, but you'll end up having to clean it up at some point.
I'm trying to disassemble my extruder assembly to get at the nozzle but the carriage bolts that hold the whole thing to the carriage are spinning with the nut. Where is the other end of that bolt?
The back end should be on the underside of the carriage about mid-way. It's a little tricky since the black head blends with teh black carriage. I'd check there.
Disassembled (partly) the extruder, Here is what i've found.
See attachments
I'm super paranoid about either snapping the barrel or stripping one of the wires on the heater block clean off...
Any suggestions?
Unfortunately, you have to heat the unit to remove the nozzle. Technically you don't have to even remove it from the machine, but it's better that you do. plug the thermistor and heater back in, bring it up to temp for a minute then drop heat and turn off the unit... completely. You should now be able to remove the nozzle from the barrel. You may have to cut the kapton holding the thermistor (you probably will) but you should be able to remove the nozzle and then clean it as best you can. Use something that will dissolve the plastic (you're using PLA... I use ABS... you can see why I don't have a useful suggestion here 
) then reattach the nozzle finger tight. Tighten it gently with a pair of pliers but not too much or you'll shear the barrel. Then you should be good to go.
Invest in another hot-end if you have the money. This does happen to the best of us, but knowing how to do this and having a spare is the best way to keep you printing.
Good Luck!
I print PLA exclusively and have had 3 (!!!!!!!) clogs just in the last month with my stock hot-end. After disassembling, I hit it with a butane torch and heat a poker red hot then ram it through the barrel until clear.
Since acetone does next to nothing to PLA, your only options are fire or a (expensive) chemical called THF which is NOT recommended by nearly everyone. It is highly toxic and is reputed to cause cancer.
Buy some 1/4" Kapton to tape up you thermistor and be patient until you can buy an E3D from filastruder.com
You will need Lawys's mk5 extruder for the new hot-end, so if you cannot or prefer not to print ABS, they sell them for $5.
Just out of curiosity, what is your heat set at?
Heat is set to 180 hot end, 110 print bed for PLA.
I emailed Solidoodle support and they are offering to swap out my hot end for a new one.
SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → Help/Repair/Maintenance → Plastic coming from...somewhere...
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