Have you ever had a lot of printing material accumulate on the nozzle like the picture above? What is the reason, and how do you deal with it?
The main cause of this problem is that the 3D-printed part detaches from the printing platform during printing and sticks to the nozzle. This prevents the printing material from flowing out of the nozzle correctly, causing the extruded material to curl and flow upward along the side of the nozzle, blocking it. And they accumulate more and more.
How to prevent material build-up in nozzles
Prevent this by ensuring that the part has good adhesion to the platform during printing. This may include using Brim/Raft settings, adding a paste pen, etc., and making sure the build platform is at the right temperature for the material you are working with.
How to deal with material accumulated in the nozzle
Removing the plastic chunks from the sprinkler head is not difficult, but it does require some patience, time, and caution with hot hands. Assuming the plastic in question is PLA, the print head is first heated to ~100°C and then the heat is transferred into the plastic for a few minutes to soften it. If you’re lucky, you can now remove the plastic chunks in one go. At least you should be able to escape the worst of it. If the plastic won’t move, try increasing the temperature again until it starts to set in.
If the piece of plastic has spread around the two wires coming out of the heater block, you should be careful as the wires may be damaged during removal. Those wires are mainly heaters and detectors.
After removing most of the plastic block, you can bring the heating block up to printing temperature and simply wipe off most of the remaining plastic.
The above are the causes and treatment methods of material accumulation in 3D printing nozzles. I hope it will be helpful to everyone.
