I looked through the article and I think I have a direct printer head. I tried changing the temperature even 20deg, and nothing changed. The wheel would spin properly when I tried it without filament. I unfortunately don’t have a thermometer. I will try and change the nozzle if I have to, but it looks like a complex procedure and I don’t want to mess anything up.
I don’t know exactly how it works or your printer, but with my direct drive Artillery printer (Volcano style hotend) you just heat it up and then loosen the nozzle with a 7mm socket. When reassembling, screw the new nozzle in and tighten it while hot to make a good seal. You’re apprehensive about doing something new but nozzle changes are going to be a fairly regular thing for you in the future so you might as well learn the procedure now. Definitely Google around and look for guides/videos specifically for your printer or your style of hotend.
Try a socket as it’ll be less fiddly than a wrench and also has a lot of thermal mass so it won’t get too hot as you loosen the nozzle. I crack it loose with a 1/4" ratchet, then remove the ratchet from the socket and spin the socket and nozzle out by hand. You also don’t need to be super hot, maybe 180C or 190C and you can shut the heater off once it’s cracked loose (then turn it on when threading it back in). Gloves aren’t a bad idea either.
I got a socket just now, but when I unscrewed the nozzle and tried to extrude some filament, the wheel turned but no filament was extruded. I saw a faint strand of unmelted filament in the hole for the nozzle. Here is a video.
You’ll probably want to strip the whole hotend apart and see what the deal is. Without a nozzle, you should be able to just push the filament through by hand (after loosening the tension arm). I wonder if your PTFE tube is bad. Not sure how your extruder is setup, by my direct drive Volcano clone’s filament path is extruder gear > plastic filament guide > PTFE tube > heat break > nozzle. One of those things is bad. Tear it apart and inspect each part for damage and ensure you can easily feed filament through each part.
Changing the nozzle isn’t hard, you just have to be careful. All you have to do is heat up the hotend, hold the heater block with a wrench, and use another wrench to unscrew the nozzle (you might’ve gotten one with your printer for this). Holding the heater block is mostly just important imo so that the torque doesn’t misalign other parts in your hotend. Remember that if you’re facing down, then screwing directions are reversed. So you would unscrew the nozzle clockwise (righty loosey).
After you get the nozzle off, I would push some filament through the top to get your clog out. Then you can put the same nozzle back on. The main time you would need to replace it is if you’re consistently having issues even after that or you’ve been using it for a while (the hole gets worn through bigger over time). You can also look into doing a ‘cold pull’ to get out clogs.
Of course your extruder would still work fine if you didn’t have anything in it because it’s only jamming due to trying to push something through a clog :p You have 2 zones in a hotend: the cold end (radiator) and hot end (heater block). Sometimes a clog can happen because of heat creep, where a bit of hot melted filament gets retracted up into the cold zone and resolidifies there, blocking the passage.
I looked through the article and I think I have a direct printer head. I tried changing the temperature even 20deg, and nothing changed. The wheel would spin properly when I tried it without filament. I unfortunately don’t have a thermometer. I will try and change the nozzle if I have to, but it looks like a complex procedure and I don’t want to mess anything up.
I don’t know exactly how it works or your printer, but with my direct drive Artillery printer (Volcano style hotend) you just heat it up and then loosen the nozzle with a 7mm socket. When reassembling, screw the new nozzle in and tighten it while hot to make a good seal. You’re apprehensive about doing something new but nozzle changes are going to be a fairly regular thing for you in the future so you might as well learn the procedure now. Definitely Google around and look for guides/videos specifically for your printer or your style of hotend.
I apparently need hot gloves, I tried without them but burnt my finger and possibly graunched the spanner.
Try a socket as it’ll be less fiddly than a wrench and also has a lot of thermal mass so it won’t get too hot as you loosen the nozzle. I crack it loose with a 1/4" ratchet, then remove the ratchet from the socket and spin the socket and nozzle out by hand. You also don’t need to be super hot, maybe 180C or 190C and you can shut the heater off once it’s cracked loose (then turn it on when threading it back in). Gloves aren’t a bad idea either.
A socket? I will consider buying one along with gloves, thanks.
Not sure what you call them across the pond:
Socket
I got a socket just now, but when I unscrewed the nozzle and tried to extrude some filament, the wheel turned but no filament was extruded. I saw a faint strand of unmelted filament in the hole for the nozzle. Here is a video.
You’ll probably want to strip the whole hotend apart and see what the deal is. Without a nozzle, you should be able to just push the filament through by hand (after loosening the tension arm). I wonder if your PTFE tube is bad. Not sure how your extruder is setup, by my direct drive Volcano clone’s filament path is extruder gear > plastic filament guide > PTFE tube > heat break > nozzle. One of those things is bad. Tear it apart and inspect each part for damage and ensure you can easily feed filament through each part.
I’ll have to contact the manafacturers, it shouldn’t be breaking this often when I use it normally.
Changing the nozzle isn’t hard, you just have to be careful. All you have to do is heat up the hotend, hold the heater block with a wrench, and use another wrench to unscrew the nozzle (you might’ve gotten one with your printer for this). Holding the heater block is mostly just important imo so that the torque doesn’t misalign other parts in your hotend. Remember that if you’re facing down, then screwing directions are reversed. So you would unscrew the nozzle clockwise (righty loosey).
After you get the nozzle off, I would push some filament through the top to get your clog out. Then you can put the same nozzle back on. The main time you would need to replace it is if you’re consistently having issues even after that or you’ve been using it for a while (the hole gets worn through bigger over time). You can also look into doing a ‘cold pull’ to get out clogs.
Of course your extruder would still work fine if you didn’t have anything in it because it’s only jamming due to trying to push something through a clog :p You have 2 zones in a hotend: the cold end (radiator) and hot end (heater block). Sometimes a clog can happen because of heat creep, where a bit of hot melted filament gets retracted up into the cold zone and resolidifies there, blocking the passage.