jr cleaning tip

This might be old news, but maybe it will help some of the new users out there (such as myself).  A couple weeks ago I purchased a Jr and during the first week I encountered a clog that required a cold pull to clear.  Since then, it had had difficulty feeding (often making the thump noise indicating the wheels were slipping) and it showed in my print quality.  I followed XYZ's cleaning procedure using the large wire and it helped some, but I still had some problems.  I was to the point where I was considering replacing the extruder.

This past weekend I tried an experiment.  I ordered some esun cleaning filament from amazon and then fed it manually through the extruder (using the clean utility so that I wouldn't be running the odometer on my filament).  After running about 6 inches or so of filament, I loaded a roll of natural pla (I had been using black pla) and let it extrude for a bit to help purge the cleaning filament. 

Following this, I could immediately see the difference...filament fed much more smoothly and print quality improved.  My cleaning wasn't perfect, as there were still bits of black here and there in that first print (but only rarely), but it proved the technique as effective.

Just thought I'd share this tip with the community.  If anyone from XYZ is reading this, perhaps it could be an idea for another product to offer (spools of cleaning filament that could be used as part of a clean cycle).