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Does anyone know the best way to clean the printer, especially the nozzle?

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by lugofletes, Oct 26, 2013.

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  1. lugofletes

    lugofletes New Member

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    After a few prints notice that the nozzle gets full of dried plastic, which then affects later prints. What is the best way to clean the printer without damaging it?
     
    #1 lugofletes, Oct 26, 2013
  2. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    I use a tweezer and at the start of every print when the nozzle is heated up I simply pinch off and grab what I can this seems to work pretty well
     
    #2 tesseract, Oct 26, 2013
  3. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    I've been using a soft brass brush. Since the hot end and nozzle are both brass it shouldn't scratch the surface as they're similar materials

    The hot pla also prefers to stick to the cold brass brush so that makes cleaning relatively easy. Can be difficult to remove the plastic from the bristles afterwards, but it gets my hot end nice and clean.

    Though honestly it's probably a little overkill to even bother with it.
     
    #3 Mike Kelly, Oct 29, 2013
  4. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    Yeah Mike you are doing cosmetic cleanings really the main thing that needs to remain clean is the nozzle tip and just inside it. My cleaning process is to before each print I extrude a bit of filament with the z raised about 5mm and I place the tips of my tweezers on each side of the nozzle with the filament in between but I leave the filament in place then just as I hear the axis begin to move to start the print I quickly pinch the tweezers shut and scrape across the nozzle grabbing the just extruded filament and removing it. This keeps the nozzle filled with fairly fresh untainted filament until the last possible moment before printing occurs.

    The brass block on mine does not look the best but the nozzle tip is pretty clean though
     
    #4 tesseract, Oct 29, 2013
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