The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

The New Hotness

  • M2 Nozzle Clog: FOD

    This happened while switching from natural to black PETG:

    M2 nozzle clog - exterior
    M2 nozzle clog – exterior

    A closer look:

    M2 nozzle clog - exterior detail
    M2 nozzle clog – exterior detail

    Those pix happened after trying to extract whatever-it-is with tweezers, so it’s definitely something with a higher melting point than PETG.

    Removing the (warm) nozzle with the block held in a vise reveals a tuft of something:

    M2 nozzle clog - interior
    M2 nozzle clog – interior

    The tuft accumulated several turns while unthreading the nozzle from the hot end.

    Heating the nozzle a bit more released the tuft:

    M2 nozzle clog - extracted tuft
    M2 nozzle clog – extracted tuft

    The black-to-clear transition tailing off at the bottom came from the PETG around the tuft in the cone-shaped end of the nozzle above the aperture. The 100 mil squares suggest the tuft was a distinct entity, rather than a collection of threads, and might have been over 5 mm long.

    Perhaps a fragment of PTFE or another high-melting-point plastic?

    Reassemble in reverse order, reset the nozzle to Z=0 on the platform, and it’s all good.