PLA solidying in E3D Volcano Hotend

[singhm29]

Hey everyone

Yesterday after a jam that required me to dissemble my extruder end I decided to "season" my PLA for my next attempt. In doing so I heated up the nozzle to 195 manually pushed filament dipped in a bit of vegetable oil through my hotend and it came out smoothly. I then lowered the temp back to room temperature (When i was lowering back to room temperature I decided to turn on my print cooling fans instead of just having the dedicated extruder fan on thinking it would cool things alot faster (was this a bad idea?)) and then turned it back on while slightly tuggin back on the filament so that as it would heat up it would release all as one piece. This didn't end up happening and it literally stayed rock solid to the point that both hands could not pull it out. Increasing the temperature to 230 also didn't help it budge. After again dissembling it I found that the PLA had fully solidified in the heat brake and the nozzle itself. Im in the process of trying to remove the PLA using Weldon4 but really want to figure out what misstep I took to cause something like that.

Additional notes
-Previous to setting the temp to 195 I had the hotend at 285 so that I could tigthen the new nozzle I put on after thermal expansion (no filament was sitting in any part of the extruder at this point)

-I have not repositioned my print fans that were originally setup for a Jhead and the E3D volcano which I am currently having issues with is longer than the Jhead..could it be that my print cooling fans are hitting more of the extruder then the print causing PLA to solidify in the chamber?

Im starting to get confused as to how this doesnt always happen when you turn your printer off after a print...how does the filament not just gum up in the hotend and solidify?

[3dkarma]

I decided to turn on my print cooling fans instead of just having the dedicated extruder fan on thinking it would cool things alot faster (was this a bad idea?))

Yes, it was. The fan on the volcano's heat sink needs to be on all the time, or heat from the hot end will creep up, cause the filament in the cold end to expand and create a blockage.

After the end of a print, you need to leave your printer powered on for a while so everything has a chance to cool down properly.

[dbregman]

When seasoning I do so after having thoroughly cleaned the extruder. I use 230c to run some filament through with the Canola oil and then let some without run through.