I got myself a tungsten nozzle, thinking it would last forever…

Today I tried to clean it with a needle (learning after about many suggestions not to do so) and the needle snapped inside the nozzle, quickly fusing to the clog…

I’ve tried blasting it with a kitchen torch, without success at loosening this thing. Any tips?

Thanks!

  • solarbird@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Kitchen torch is almost the right idea, what you want is a hot air gun of some kind. I have a hot-air rework station, which cost me like $45 including sales tax, and lets me set the temperature of the air coming out. Get the nozzle off and get ready to clean out the entire hot end, which for the nozzle means getting it clamped onto some sort of holder (pliers, even, but preferably better) and heating it up with the hot-air gun until you get the filament melting. Then start clearing it out from the wider end using, say, a bamboo skewer, which I find effective and non-scarrning to the nozzles.

    It’ll take some futzing around, but you’ll get there.

  • deFrisselle@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    Yup, hotair gun or reinstall it then heat it up to try clearing it Could try putting it on a tray in the oven or grill

  • nyan@lemmy.cafe
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    1 year ago

    Heat gun. One of more powerful ones used for stripping paint, not the cruddy ones for heatshrinking. You need to get the nozzle hot enough to soften that clog to have any chance at all of clearing it, which means you’re going to have to get it up to the kind of temperature you’d be printing at. Put the nozzle in a vise while you’re doing this, so that you don’t touch it and burn yourself, or drop it and set something on fire.

    I have a sneaking suspicion you’re going to have to chalk this one up to “lessons learned” and get a new nozzle, though.