Cleaning your printers?

[RimReaping]

Does anyone do anything along the lines of cleaning their printer, nozzle/extruder after printing? I always worry that I'll get a jam or cause uneeded wear and tear on my printer if I don't clean it.

[Davo]

We put a vacuum hose to our clean-out port (the "suck-hole") once in a while.

We also hit the hot end with a wire brush once in a while.

[RobH2]

That's a question I've wondered about too. I also vacuum out the area around my hobbed bolt to keep it clean and I wrap a wipe around my filament so going in any surface debris gets wiped away but I've wondered if I should clean out the actual hot end. The only way I can think of doing it though would be to use a torch to vaporize away the plastic inside so you could see if the inside of the barrel was clean. I've never had a jam so I've never worried too much about it. Is that a maintenance I need to consider, cleaning out the metal extruder barrel?

[3dkarma]

Dust and debris can work their way into your hot end, so regular maintenance should include cleaning it out. Basically, you should heat up your hot end to above the normal extrusion temperature (e.g. 270 degrees celsius) then cool it to the glass transition temperature of your filament. For PLA, this is 60-65 degrees celsius; for ABS it's about 105 degrees.

Once your hot end reaches the glass transition temperature, slowly retract the filament until you've pulled it all the way out. The filament should form what looks like a straw at the end, where it's pulled everything out of your melt chamber / nozzle. If there's any debris it should be clearly visible.

Rinse and repeat a couple of times until you're happy.

For preventative maintenance, install a dust remover.

[RobH2]

Ok, great. Time for some head cleaning. I'll certainly add that to my maintenance list.

I've been using my own technique to remove dust and I guess it's working because I've had no jams. I take a TecPad and cut a 1" strip. I wrap that around the filament a few times and then as tightly as I can secure it with some scotch tape, but not before folding the very end over to create a "courtesy tab" we call it in the photography business. That way you can just lift that small end that hasn't stuck down and pull the tape off if you want to remove it without having to slice on it. I put two of these little wraps on the filament, one in front of the other. When I pull that filament off of the machine, it travels in place on the filament to my moisture-free bucket for the next use. Every so often I replace the wraps but with two of them I'm pretty sure the first one has snagged the debris but for sure the 2nd one collects it. So far so good but I may look into a more elaborate one like what's in your link.

I am glad to see an accepted method to clean the head though. Very nice. One thing that newer users than me might need to consider though is if you have Ramps and Marlin, you may need to go in and raise the safety temperature of your head or the machine will just shut off due to excessive temperature readings. I think the default Max Temp is well below 270C.

Thanks

[broomfitting]

Dust and debris can work their way into your hot end, so regular maintenance should include cleaning it out. Basically, you should heat up your hot end to above the normal extrusion temperature (e.g. 270 degrees celsius) then cool it to the glass transition temperature of your filament. For PLA, this is 60-65 degrees celsius; for ABS it's about 105 degrees.

Once your hot end reaches the glass transition temperature, slowly retract the filament until you've pulled it all the way out. The filament should form what looks like a straw at the end, where it's pulled everything out of your melt chamber / nozzle. If there's any debris it should be clearly visible.

Rinse and repeat a couple of times until you're happy.

For preventative maintenance, install a dust remover.

This is really what i am also wondering about , Nice share.Thank you.