Makergear hot end woes

Since April I've been using a Makergear hot end and pushed a lot of plastic through it without any problems. It was my second one, the first one never let me put any plastic through it and clogged immediately, and the folks there were great about sending a replacement.

Since then I've probably pushed about 7 pounds of PLA through between then and November and with what I consider heavy usage (I don't have anyone to compare to so maybe it isn't heavy usage) so I wrote it off and figured I would stick with what worked. And why not, with the inline connectors making swapping a snap. I got a second one (third if you count the DOA one) and it worked just as well as expected. I printed another 3 pounds since that replacement and I'm back to a full blockage. Pushing by hand is impossible, even at 220C with PLA.

I'm wondering if there's some maintenance I've been missing and if anyone has any advice as to how to unclog this thing, hopefully in a way that doesn't involve a lot of money. Already I'm kind of stumped about how to disassemble this since it seems right impossible to get a socket over the head while the thermistor is in place, keeping it from overheating, and figuring out how to hold it to unscrew... I wouldn't expect it to budge while cold.

Maybe it's just a case of they don't make them like they used to? I wonder if it's time to move on to a more modern design like the Arcol, Budaschnozzle, or J-Head.

Hey Mazaw, there is no need to throw it out, the "clogs" your getting are very likely just thermal failures. If you go into the makergear/RepRap IRC we can walk you though fixing this issue pretty quickly.

[webchat.freenode.net]

Mazaw Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Since April I've been using a Makergear hot end
> and pushed a lot of plastic through it without any
> problems. It was my second one, the first one
> never let me put any plastic through it and
> clogged immediately, and the folks there were
> great about sending a replacement.
>
> Since then I've probably pushed about 7 pounds of
> PLA through between then and November and with
> what I consider heavy usage (I don't have anyone
> to compare to so maybe it isn't heavy usage) so I
> wrote it off and figured I would stick with what
> worked. And why not, with the inline connectors
> making swapping a snap. I got a second one (third
> if you count the DOA one) and it worked just as
> well as expected. I printed another 3 pounds since
> that replacement and I'm back to a full blockage.
> Pushing by hand is impossible, even at 220C with
> PLA.
>
> I'm wondering if there's some maintenance I've
> been missing and if anyone has any advice as to
> how to unclog this thing, hopefully in a way that
> doesn't involve a lot of money. Already I'm kind
> of stumped about how to disassemble this since it
> seems right impossible to get a socket over the
> head while the thermistor is in place, keeping it
> from overheating, and figuring out how to hold it
> to unscrew... I wouldn't expect it to budge while
> cold.
>
> Maybe it's just a case of they don't make them
> like they used to? I wonder if it's time to move
> on to a more modern design like the Arcol,
> Budaschnozzle, or J-Head.

---

repraplogphase.blogspot.com

Oil! (it worked on the QU-BD hotend, at least, but I only started printing a few days ago)

I'll definitely pop in IRC once I'm back home. In advance, do you know if I'll need some tools or hardware beyond wrenches/sockets?

It's funny that I was printing out some heart gears to take for my trip as a welcoming gift and, wouldn't you know it, the very last piece is 1/3 good, 1/3 skeletal, and 1/3 just plain not printed. lol

I'm also using a makerbot nozzle which works great. When running PLA I had the same thing happen. After pulling the nozzle I found very hard residue in down in the nozzle. I couldn't tell if it was cooked PLA or some contaminant that got pulled in with the filiment. using picks and a very small drill bit, I was able to clear it and it shot well since. I havn't had problems like this with ABS but I havn't gone thru that much material.