Solved Filament stuck in extruder

So I have finally done it,I have finally gotten filament stuck in the extruder. Good news the extruder is out and was fairly easy,Bad news is I cant figure out how to get it out or what to do next. Its PLA and I was just loading it then it got stuck. Whats the best steps to proceed to get this jam out?

Sorry guys,I quickly searched but am just flustered.

 

Heat it up (170+) and pull.

Don't burn yourself.

 

I did,I heated it up all the way to 220 just in case as this was a new filament.

I finally got it,I had to take a heat gun and heat up the top of the heat sink and pulled it right out.

After closer inspection the filament isn't true 1.75 MM I had some parts up to 2.35MM and the filament is not straight. I believe what happend is the filament heated just enough to melt in the hot end then get stuck. All is good now. Thanks for the help!

 

Be sure your hot end fan is running otherwise it can bulge and expand

 

Can you help someone new as yourself learn how to take off the extruder? I'm afraid I'm in a jam myself.

(Apoligizing for posting in a thread probably already in the Solved bucket.)

 

There's 2 screws on the side of the wade extruder that hold the hot end in place. Remove them and it'll drop out

 

Put something under the extruder to protect your glass.

 

Thank you for the advice. Are we talking about two screws right above a fan? They come out quite a ways. I wanted to make sure I was removing the right ones.

 

Those are the ones. Mike has a nice CAD rendering somewhere.

 

Yeah the one's that stick out.

They're not sticking out in this render but they usually are in real life

 

I'm having the same issue, but my R1 doesn't have those screws in the image you posted, Mike. There are holes where they should be, haha. Am I crazy?

 

I really wish Robo would add this to their getting started video already: http://imgur.com/a/W2kPl

 

I actually did some digging and found a previous post regarding this, Mike. Thank you for your help! A few small burns later and I'm up and running again

 

The picture is very helpful and matches the setup on my R1plus, but one question: What screw? The text in the picture says "once screw is loose", but it doesn't say which screw and it's not obvious to me. So before I go loosening/removing something that I shouldn't I'd like to make sure I get the right one.

My stock extruder seems to be very gummed-up at the moment, I guess there was some contaminant in the filament I'm using right now, it's blue filament but some white/clear-ish stuff oozed out of the head and now it seems to be totally blocked, so I wanted to yank the extruder and see what's going on. Thanks. - Will

 

No, and I wouldn't call that filament "junk" at all. I got excellent prints from the starter spool. This stuff is from Shaxon, it was the only 1kg spools of filament sold at my local Fry's. I won't be buying that brand again. But I just want my printer back, still unclear on just what screw I'm supposed to loosen to pull the tab shown in that picture, so I could still use help.

I ran the extruder up to 280C and pulled a bristle from a wire brush and worked it around the inside, I could get it more than an inch into the nozzle and kept doing so until no more of the clear/white crap came out, but I still can't feed the filament in and get anything to extrude, so there must still be a blockage higher-up or something. But nothing I can see with the extruder still attached to the carriage, so I really think I need to remove it from the printer to inspect it more thoroughly. Thanks. - Will

 

I really haven't touched the extruder at all, I'm trying to proceed cautiously as I don't want to break anything. I see what I guess are 3 separate pieces, the 'hexagon" upper part with the fins, the block that has the thermistor in it, and the brass nozzle. How are these 3 parts connected? Does the nozzle thread into the lower block? Are the thermistor block and hexagon part permanently attached, there seems to just be a small metal tube between the two, so I'm really afraid to break that (I think I've seen others mention breaking that on this forum).

I tried loosening the screw underneath in front of the hotend (one of the two screws for the plastic bracket that surrounds the hexagon and that the 40mm rear fan and the 25mm(?) extruder fan attaches to), and that allowed the plate with the tab to rotate and the hotend to come loose. I found a piece of filament extending about 3/4" beyond the top of the hexagon part, I guess it snapped off inside and the other filament I was trying to feed in must have been passing this and bottoming-out on the top of the hexagon part. But I can't get this piece to come out. With the whole assembly still dangling below the carriage I heated the extruder up to 230C and tried grabbing the ring at the top of the hexagon (how the Robo holds this part in place with that rotating bracket) with one pair of pliers while I tried to pull the PLA out and it just snapped off at the very top of the hexagon part, so that there's now nothing to grab on to.

Any thoughts on what to do next? I can try removing the nozzle but want to make sure I know how to do that properly first. Thanks.

 

CRAP! Well, exactly what I was hoping to avoid happened. I carefully unscrewed the nozzle (wasn't easy, it was very tight) and found that it was clean, as well as the lower ~1 5/8" of the heater block and hexagon part. So the blockage was limited to the top ~1/4" of the hexagon piece. Had a 1/64" drill bit just long enough to reach in there, tapped it once with a rubber mallet and it got enough of the filament out that I could grab it with needle-nose pliers and get the piece out. Looking through there was still a bunch of crap at the top-end of the hexagon part, between blowing and feeding some fresh filament through from the bottom (first piece broke off again, but there was a wide enough opening at the bottom of the heater block where the nozzle threads in that I could grab it and pull it out) it eventually came clean.

So great, problem finally solved, now put it back together. Well, putting the nozzle back in it snapped off. So I guess my printer is down until I get a new hotend. Sounds like the E3D v6 is the one to go for? *sigh*

So, in pictures, here's what I saw when I first removed the hotend.


And after I tried pulling this piece out.


And after removing the nozzle, this is how far the drill bit could go in before it was obstructed.


Here was the offending piece, pushed out by gently tapping on the end of the drill-bit then pulling with pliers.


And upon trying to put things back together, my now-broken nozzle.