A nozzle of my printhead got clogged

A nozzle of my printhead got clogged during my second print - is there anywhere a repair manual / instructions how to fix that issue on a dual print head ?
Thanks in advance

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heat it up 20 to 30 degrees Celcius higher than you were printing. Try to unload the filament from there. If it doesnā€™t work, Iā€™ve been taking a pair of clippers, and snipping the filament just above the entrance to the removable hot end piece. In the cases where the filament does not unload properly I have had to take that hot end piece out, disassemble it, and torch the heat zone/nozzle area in order the melt the filament out. Is this an officially supported method? No. Could it damage your part if you arenā€™t careful? Yes.

Unfortunately clogging in the dual extruder head has been extremely prevalent for me, and it appears others have had the same issue. So far, Iā€™ve gathered that playing with; retraction distance, nozzle switch retraction distance, and standby temperature, are the settings that will help somewhat minimize the issue.

On longer prints, Iā€™m still getting the issue, and have no way of completely solving it. It always results in the same issue. If I catch it when it happens, it has an expanded, hardened end that is stuck in the end of the heat zone. If I donā€™t catch it, it will continuously grind the filament between the gears. If this is your issue, stay tuned to the forums and look out for official word from SM, hopefully weā€™ll get a fix soonā€¦

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Hi Spark - thanks for the hint but unfortunately it did not work. With disassembling I am little bit hesitant - i might lose warranty. Are there any instructions anywhere available?
I never had clogging on my a250 but Artisan seems to be special here ā€¦
Actually I am frustrated ā€¦ having an expansive printer with a non working print head ā€¦

Unfortunately I have not run into any official instructions on resolving this issue yet. I have had my fair share of frustrations when dealing with this new print head as well. The first time was the worst. Snapmaker has not responded yet to these issues as far as I know, but I feel like theyā€™ll be responding sooner or later. Until then the only advice I can offer is to remove that hotend. After removing the heating element, temp sensor, and silicone shroud on that heating block, you should be able to melt the filament out with a lighter or torch. Thatā€™s all I got unfortunately :frowning: I think it only requires one or two tiny screws to get to that point, but I understand your hesitance to dissemble itā€¦ I was extremely worried I was going to mess something up when I did that.

Sorry to hear youā€™re having issues with the Artisan, it does look like a very sleek machine from the advertising. Best of luck resolving the clog. To keep this from happening in the future, I would experiment with lowering retraction values during a nozzle switch. It seemed to help me a bit. My clog could have been caused by something else though.

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so I canā€™t simply unscrew the nozzle? (sounds like a facepalm)

Wellā€¦ I never went about it that way, but yeah you could try that! Just remove that little silicone shroud on there and remove the nozzle! I know there is official documentation on that! Hereā€™s a post with a video link!

ok - that worked for me ā€¦ was rather simple ā€¦ nozzle is free now but the area above the nozzle is still clogged ā€¦ I give it a try without the nozzle and use the needle

Dang. My apologies if I gave a solution that wasnā€™t the simplest. I was just using my own experience on how I was able to solve the issue. Glad you got the nozzle unclogged! Best of luck getting it out of the area above the nozzle!

Spark - thanks anyway - I learned a lot today :slight_smile:
actually the needle comes out on the other side of the hot end but its to small to move the clogged material - might need a thicker needle which pushes the pla through the

Sweet! Glad to know there is another way of going about this that could be a bit simpler than what I did!

final solution: bought a drill with1,8 mm and removed the clogged material in the upper section with the drill.

Wowā€¦ thatā€™s a big-gun solution.
Any advise so this doesnā€™t happen to you again or to anyone else?

a350 with all the upgrades and snapmaker enclosure. i received my dual extruder and was impressed with the engineering involved. calibrations went smoothly. i then loaded snapmaker plaā€™s white and black. Iā€™m using the provided gimbal model in the library.

Iā€™m on my 7 try to get a gimbal and every attempt fails with the nozzle jamming. the good news is the consistent fail. so far, every fail has had the filament jam specifically in the ptfe tube in the hotend.

this is what i do to fix it.

  1. cut the filament above the nozzle (right above where it identifies the nozzle NI0.4) and below the feeder lock.
  2. take out the hotend
  3. take your 1.5mm driver and loosen the set screw above the hotend nozzle
  4. disconnect the hotend nozzle wiring and grip the nozzle and pull. you may have to twist the nozzle to get it to break loose.
  5. most times the nozzle came out clean. once it came out with the jammed ptfe tube.
  6. get a pair of pliers and grip the filament without crushing or bending and pull hard. the filament will come out wrapped tightly in the ptfe tube.
  7. now pull the ptfe tube off the filament.
  8. reassemble hotend
  9. reinsert hotend
  10. do a z offset calibration
  11. do a xy calibration
    you are done and ready to go

notes: none of my fails point to the feeder. in every case of filament stuck in the ptfe the effect is the same. the filament is thickened to 2.1mm. using a magnifier you can see that the filament is trying to accordion. essentially the filament appears to be soft enough to distort as its being fed pushing it to the side of the tube as far as it can go then it starts heading to the other side of the tube producing a sawtooth pattern. this continues. finally, the jammed filament then swells to completely fill the ptfe tube. no idea how much this constant jamming is distorting the tube. however i have a spool of 2mm id x 3mm od ptfe that i have been cutting 32.7 mm pieces to replace when needed.

although i can repair. i have had no luck preventing it at this time. i have been playing with standby temp at 100 with no help. i also think i will stop trying to use the gimbal as a test it really appears to be causing some issues with the timing of the nozzles and helping the fail

just had another fail. this one was different. trying another gimbal

took the hotend apart as described above. this time the ptfe tube and filament came out with the hotend. stuck. the filament just didnā€™t pull out at all and the ptfe tube was ā€œlooseā€. magnifier says that the previous accordion condition DIDNT occur and the filament looked rather pristine.

soā€¦i now have a first fail of the filament actually being stuck specifically in the nozzle end as the only issue.

the fix here is to put the ptfe tube back on the filament to protect the sides from melt and to heat the inlet tube of the nozzle with a heat gun at 250c. hold the ptfe tube in place and slowly pull the filament

finally there was a mention of using a drill to clear the clog. yes this sort of works. However, in the process the internal ptfe tube gets severely damaged and may or may not work in the future.

if you are drilling to clear the nozzle you will still need to detach the nozzle and replace the ptfe tube
2mm id x 3mm od x 32.7mm

Similar to other posts in this thread, my initial reaction on getting the dual extruder was extremely positive, but having had three clogs in the right nozzle and one in the left, and seeing that many others are having this problem, Iā€™m getting more and more disappointed with it. My clogs are just above where the hot end is hottest and if that is where others are experiencing this problem, maybe this part of the hot end is getting too hot and prematurely melting the filament?

My first few clogs were successfully unclogged by manually using a drill bit so as to minimize damage, but my current clog has failed with that approach. Iā€™m now going to follow the other suggestions in this thread.

I will post an update after I do that.

The problem with printing the gimbal could be due to a bug that is preventing the heated bed from heating. See my post in this thread for a simple step that forces the heated bed to warm up: Dual Extruder problems? - #9 by JonnieCache

thanks for the reply. so far in all my servicing of the stuck nozzles. they have all been heat creeped and stuck in the ptfe tube. after servicing and calibrations all of the prints delivered perfect first layers and adhesionsā€¦

my issue has turned out to maybe be about a fan. somehow i got in my mind that a fan runs when a nozzle runs. so my right side fan not running didnā€™t click. but after getting my engineering hat on and wanting to help solve the problem. i used luban to watch the temps and movement of the nozzles. only then did i notice that the right side fan NEVER turns on. awesome snapmaker support is helping me resolve. its been an interesting week with the delivery of the dual.

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you know. taping a small piece of paper over each fan exhaust port is an interesting indicator. especially in my case with an orange acrylic enclosure restricting the view