It had to happen eventually

I had my first-ever extruder clog with the BullDog XL and E3D V6 combo after a year of almost daily operation.

It looks like a piece of metal found its way into the hot end. Your guess is as good as mine regarding the source of this bit of crud.



Photo made with Droid Turbo phone, 3D printed camera adapter, and surgical microscope.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Most often it is from the filament itself. At least that has been my experience. Every once in a while there is a piece of grit or something that makes its way into the filament at time of manufacture. Other than that of course it could have come from anywhere.

... looks like the head of a small cross-head screw

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

VDX: That's exactly what I was thinking!

the_digital_denitst: How fast do you print? What materials and settings?

I typically print under 50mm/sec. That filament was ABS which I normally print at 235C. I have printed a little PLA and I'm just starting to play with TPU.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Quote
VDX
... looks like the head of a small cross-head screw

My eyes were seeing something but i couldnt make sense of it and you know, i think you hit the nail on the head there it sure does look like the head of a real small phillips screw

That filament is 1.75mm diameter which would make that "screw" about 0.3 mm across.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

You need to consult a doctor, he might have some pills that will clear it up, but it doesnt look very healthy at the moment...
ahh its green filament, with a little amalgam in there

I lost a hot end when one of the metal teeth from a pneumatic connector broke off and found its way in wit the filament. I found and removed it, but the hot end kept jamming after that.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Quote
the_digital_dentist
I'm just starting to play with TPU.

I've been trying TPU and TPE. The TPU is great, it prints easily and has useful flex. I printed some vibration absorbing feet for my printer which really cut down the noise transferred to the desk it's standing on. The TPE is much softer and I haven't had any success feeding it yet. Both my TPE and TPU are 3mm and I made a fairly crude conversion of my extruder to switch from 1.75mm, so I'm hopeful that when the parts and tools I've ordered arrive I can make a more capable 3mm system that will handle the TPE. Mostly I need a 3.2mm reamer so that I can make a decent bore for the heat-break.

Quote
the_digital_dentist
That filament is 1.75mm diameter which would make that "screw" about 0.3 mm across.

... so what? - I have some watchmaker screws with 0.5mm head and have seen even smaller, used for clocks, microtech and such.

Have you extracted the metallic part to look what it's like?

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Here is a blow up using Vuepro. Not a screw.

Beware!!! it now looks a lot like the pellet containing the poison ricin that was used to assassinate Georgi Markov.