Cleaning Up A Big Mess

Well, after spending a few hours cable tie-ing and cleaning all my wires up.... I fired off a print, watched the first layer go down and left the room to make some dinner. I returned 15 minutes later to see a 3in round gob of PLA surrounding the bottom of my e3d hotend/heaterblock/wiring the works..... Worst mess I've ever created. Unfortunately, I broke the thermister wire while trying to cut away the green-gob so I've got some work to do. Question: What is the best way to clean all the PLA out of the heating block, hotend, off the wires etc... I know acetone is supposed to "dissolve" ABS but what's the best way to clean up the remaining PLA stuck to everything? It's going to be a challenge to get the wiring apart to put in a new thermister with all the PLA stuck everywhere.



Best thing I can think of is to get the lighter out and try to soften up the PLA and scrape as much away as possible so I can disassemble things and start there... Any advice?

What about boiling the hotend into some water ?

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

How about a heat gun?

why not use a blow torch till it turns to ash then use a wire brush to clean it up. Just be careful not to over heat it and melt the aluminium.

Dismount the hotend from printer
Replace the thermistor wiring and let the heater reach app 200 deg c or less until PLA starts to float.
now you can use any cloth material to wipe off the melted PLA.
Be aware of the hot and don't get you fingers grilled..
Good luck :-)

Better to heat it to something like 70-80C and it will become like rubber end can be peeled off. For ABS I heat to 130C and it becomes like chewing gum.

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