Stringly and brittle
Re: Stringly and brittle
The PLA didn't budge at 220. Tried several different rolls. This is my second brand new nozzle.
Re: Stringly and brittle
If you took it up to 260 with the PLA in the machine, you might have clogged it again. Did you take the temp up to 260 with that 2nd new nozzle?
Re: Stringly and brittle
Okay a little more discussion, since I have a brief moment here.....
1. Make sure you clean any remnants of PLA out of the nozzle before you take the temperature up too high for it. That means using cleaning filament BEFORE you raise the temperature.
The reason why:
PLA is just sugar, and at high temperatures, it melts, burns and turns into a hardened coating that has to be pried off (or burned off). [If you've ever spilled sugar on a baking sheet and accidentally run it through the oven without cleaning it off first you know exactly how hard it is to get that back off again.]
The burnt PLA will eventually build up in a carbon coating on the inside of the nozzle, reducing the diameter of the opening, and making the "melting zone" smaller. Since the opening is so perishing small to begin with, you don't have a lot of leeway to work with. And making the melting-zone smaller means you are pushing the filament in faster than it can melt. So it jams, (even though it worked just fine for six months), the filament now has no where to go.
2. The second thing you have to do is adjust the Filament Drive Screw tension when you switch from one type of filament to another. If you are not using the Tension Guide that I linked to, start doing that. It's the main reason that filaments jam....you have to get just the right type of tension on the filament, and it changes for every kind of filament. You cannot shove filament through a hole that is too small for it, the gear will strip the filament out first. So by simply reversing out the filament and looking at the end that ran through the extruder gear, you can identify a lot of problems. Before purchasing a new hotend (overkill) just post a close-up of the teeth marks on the end of the filament and let someone take a look at it, to see if your tension is set correctly. It's a simple thing to adjust that, you might have to extrude a few mm and retract a few times, but it's a great diagnostic tool for us.
3. You need to use the correct settings for the type of filament that you are printing. PLA cannot be printed over 220° without developing problems over time. On the other hand, ABS does not start to print well until it hits about 240° to 245°. So you have to modify your settings. I'm kind of surprised that the nozzle lasted through six months of never changing the settings, but I'm guessing you mostly printed PLA for that time, and that there were not many actual switches of filament. (You could have probably bought the $10 nozzle without the $75 hot end, so keep the old one, you now have a spare.)
And by the correct settings, that means temperatures, and fan, and printing speeds, and retraction amounts. All of the settings change with different filaments. Before you switch, check out the Filaments forum and get some starting points. Insta's Filaments that Work with the M2 thread has most of them listed in one place. (Or just ask, some of the folks here have printed most of the filaments.)
Okay, so where you are now.....
You can try to clean the nozzle that you have, by using a blow torch on it.
Or you can buy a couple of new nozzles.
1. When you put the new/cleaned nozzle on, you will need to re-set your Z-Offset (you likely don't need to mess with the Z-Stop with just a new nozzle, but your Z-Offset is going to change.)
2. Stick with one filament for the time being, either PLA or ABS, through that nozzle, and get the temperatures set correctly for whichever filament you have chosen to use. (Make sure you have read and understood the settings, including default printing speed, which should be at about 3600-4200 mm/min for PLA.)
3. Adjust your Filament Drive Screw Tension....run through the test a couple of times.
You can keep those clogged nozzles and clean them with a torch, so you'll have some spares. Or you can dedicate one of the spares as an ABS nozzle, and then you can change to that nozzle when you switch to printing ABS, if you do not want to mess with the cleaning filament. (That actually was more work than using the cleaning filament, and I hated the cleaning filament, but I switched between low-temp and high-temp filaments dozens of times.....as long as you follow the procedure above to get the PLA remnants out, you shouldn't get another clog down the road.
Over six months time, as long as you stick to printing the same kind of filament (always PLA for example) you can get away with that. But when you start mixing your filaments, like switching to ABS, you have to do just three things, but you have to do them religiously:I have switched between ABS and PLA with no problem. Prior to this, I have barely checked or changed my setting.....
1. Make sure you clean any remnants of PLA out of the nozzle before you take the temperature up too high for it. That means using cleaning filament BEFORE you raise the temperature.
The reason why:
PLA is just sugar, and at high temperatures, it melts, burns and turns into a hardened coating that has to be pried off (or burned off). [If you've ever spilled sugar on a baking sheet and accidentally run it through the oven without cleaning it off first you know exactly how hard it is to get that back off again.]
The burnt PLA will eventually build up in a carbon coating on the inside of the nozzle, reducing the diameter of the opening, and making the "melting zone" smaller. Since the opening is so perishing small to begin with, you don't have a lot of leeway to work with. And making the melting-zone smaller means you are pushing the filament in faster than it can melt. So it jams, (even though it worked just fine for six months), the filament now has no where to go.
2. The second thing you have to do is adjust the Filament Drive Screw tension when you switch from one type of filament to another. If you are not using the Tension Guide that I linked to, start doing that. It's the main reason that filaments jam....you have to get just the right type of tension on the filament, and it changes for every kind of filament. You cannot shove filament through a hole that is too small for it, the gear will strip the filament out first. So by simply reversing out the filament and looking at the end that ran through the extruder gear, you can identify a lot of problems. Before purchasing a new hotend (overkill) just post a close-up of the teeth marks on the end of the filament and let someone take a look at it, to see if your tension is set correctly. It's a simple thing to adjust that, you might have to extrude a few mm and retract a few times, but it's a great diagnostic tool for us.
3. You need to use the correct settings for the type of filament that you are printing. PLA cannot be printed over 220° without developing problems over time. On the other hand, ABS does not start to print well until it hits about 240° to 245°. So you have to modify your settings. I'm kind of surprised that the nozzle lasted through six months of never changing the settings, but I'm guessing you mostly printed PLA for that time, and that there were not many actual switches of filament. (You could have probably bought the $10 nozzle without the $75 hot end, so keep the old one, you now have a spare.)
And by the correct settings, that means temperatures, and fan, and printing speeds, and retraction amounts. All of the settings change with different filaments. Before you switch, check out the Filaments forum and get some starting points. Insta's Filaments that Work with the M2 thread has most of them listed in one place. (Or just ask, some of the folks here have printed most of the filaments.)
Okay, so where you are now.....
You can try to clean the nozzle that you have, by using a blow torch on it.
Or you can buy a couple of new nozzles.
1. When you put the new/cleaned nozzle on, you will need to re-set your Z-Offset (you likely don't need to mess with the Z-Stop with just a new nozzle, but your Z-Offset is going to change.)
2. Stick with one filament for the time being, either PLA or ABS, through that nozzle, and get the temperatures set correctly for whichever filament you have chosen to use. (Make sure you have read and understood the settings, including default printing speed, which should be at about 3600-4200 mm/min for PLA.)
3. Adjust your Filament Drive Screw Tension....run through the test a couple of times.
You can keep those clogged nozzles and clean them with a torch, so you'll have some spares. Or you can dedicate one of the spares as an ABS nozzle, and then you can change to that nozzle when you switch to printing ABS, if you do not want to mess with the cleaning filament. (That actually was more work than using the cleaning filament, and I hated the cleaning filament, but I switched between low-temp and high-temp filaments dozens of times.....as long as you follow the procedure above to get the PLA remnants out, you shouldn't get another clog down the road.