Answered Hotend Leaking [Dirty Prints - Blemishes]

I don't quite know whats going on here but sometimes when I print I get random brown spots. This just started recently but happens regularly. This star for example I printed the first one in white and it turned out great. Since then I can't seem to get a long print to finish without blemishes. Short prints I seem to be able to get away with. It's a numbers game I guess.

When this happens its not discolouring the normal line that it is printing, its more like some excess PLA falls off the side as I witness just little balls/dots hanging off the edge of walls, stuff like that.

I think this might be specific to a particular bran of PLA as I can repro it with white and grey of one brand but hadn't seen it in a light blue print I did last night of another brand.

I'm not sure where to start here.


Pay no mind to the large round brown spot thats just from the print head sitting there when I stopped the print.

 

To remove the excess burnt plastic you can also carefully (quickly) wipe off the hot nozzle with a cotton cloth.

 

I like a brass bristle brush for cleaning the nozzle.

 

I heat the extruder 190-220 and wipe the outside of my extruder head with a cloth all around the metal head. Sometimes if you have a bit of gunk on the head, take an exacto knife and scrap it off.

 

I use steel wool.

CleanO2 Carbon Capture Tech

 

It turns out it's much worse than just a dirty end

 

Yes thats what appears to be happening.

 

this is post kickstarter. I got this over the summer.

This is pretty frustrating because now that I see the issue I realize it's been doing this ever since I got it, but now the unit is out of warranty. I don't understand such a limited 6 month warranty when there's a steep learning curve for the end user (me) and when they pump out such a high defect rate in the companies early stages. Which is understandable but while they're ironing out kinks it would be nice to have a longer warranty and not screw the consumer

 

I don't understand what you mean

 

no although it does look that way, the only difference between both photos is I turned the flash on in the one where you can see the plastic.

 

For for I heated it up and tried to tighen it with a pair of pliers. The heat block wasn't screwed in tight, I expected some resistance, but it turned rather effortlessly. it only starts to tighten up one its almost 45 degrees further than it's supposed to be (expecting the rectangular heat block to be perpendicular to the x axis.

 

It's no longer at a right angle