How to unblock nozzle.

[curious aardvark]

Okay had a gyro thing going great - about halfways through something in the filament (believe it was some of the flashforge filament) blocked the nozzle. And while the gyro thing spins, it's only half finished.

Now Can I just unscrew the brass nozzle without dismanthling the entire print head ?
In which case I'll just drop it in aceton for 24 hours and poke it witha very small pin.

Or do i have to dismantle the entire print head to remove the brass nozzle.

I've seen the replacemtn nozzles on amazon and ebay for a couple of quid.
And they have a simple thread - so logically I should just be able to unscrew to change nozzle size and replace nozzles that can't be unblocked.

Thoughts and indeed knowlege, please :-)

[Yammerton]

Essentially yes. I had the same problem but ended up taking the entire extruder apart because not only did the nozzle clog but the drive gear (the gear that grabs the filament and pushes it through the extruder) was grinding away on the filament so the teeth were all clogged. It was all pretty straight forward to take apart clean and put back together but you may need to preheat the nozzle before trying to remove it, so wearing heatproof gloves may be needed. And holding onto the aluminum heat block will probably me necessary to keep it from spinning with the nozzle. Good luck.

[Mjolinor]

MEK is much faster and does a better job than acetone.

[Geoff]

Okay had a gyro thing going great - about halfways through something in the filament (believe it was some of the flashforge filament) blocked the nozzle. And while the gyro thing spins, it's only half finished.

Now Can I just unscrew the brass nozzle without dismanthling the entire print head ?
In which case I'll just drop it in aceton for 24 hours and poke it witha very small pin.

Or do i have to dismantle the entire print head to remove the brass nozzle.

I've seen the replacemtn nozzles on amazon and ebay for a couple of quid.
And they have a simple thread - so logically I should just be able to unscrew to change nozzle size and replace nozzles that can't be unblocked.

Thoughts and indeed knowlege, please :-)

If you play guitar, I find an 0.9 guage string can fit up there to clean it, or if you dont mind spending $10

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-5Pcs-...d83b452&_uhb=1

I got one of those kits and never looked back, flashforge wouldn't recognise their bad filament screwed my nozzle so I had to go and fix it myself, yeah it works now but sour enough taste in my mouth to change manufacturers.

[curious aardvark]

cheers and heating up will make the metal expand which would - logically - make it harder to unscrew. I'm assuming it was assembled cold in the first place.
Cheers for info - and what is MEK ?

[Mjolinor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEK

Pipe glue for plastic pipes.

[curious aardvark]

lol its bad enough breathing in acetone fumes - no way I want to be breathing in that stuff.
plus acetone does the job well enough.

[Geoff]

cheers and heating up will make the metal expand which would - logically - make it harder to unscrew. I'm assuming it was assembled cold in the first place.
Cheers for info - and what is MEK ?

I read that like the first week I got my printer on their website and just adhered to the rule ever since I don't really know the actual reason for it, I did try it cold once but found it stuck - and yeah you would imagine the heat would expand things but in this case it makes it a bit gooey.

[Yammerton]

Yes, but heating up expands all the the metal parts so it's not like the nozzle is getting wedged into the threaded hole. I'm sure the printhead assembly was put together cold, but you now have a chunk of melted plastic inside it that could make it more difficult to unthread.

[curious aardvark]

nope was a doddle, nozzle unscrewed, got unblocked I fed some filament through, removed it. screwed unblocked nozzle back on.
Job done.

Why mess about with hot metal parts if you don't have to ?