Hey 3d printing community. Since a few days I proudly own a used ender 3 v3 SE. I repeatedly witnesses the following problem of clogging. Two times printing the same object, after 10-15 minutes it always stops ejecting plastic. Inside the hot end I find then a nail shaped stucked piece of filament, which I can push out from bottom to top after disassembly. Is this due to a wear down of a component or the ominous "heat creep"?
@sakurasubnet It's likely to do with the cooling of the heat break, causing the "throat" (the metal tube that runs from the top where the filament enters, through the heat block to near the nozzle) to heat up enough to melt the filament - it's only supposed to melt just before the nozzle. Once that happens, the filament can no longer be efficiently pushed through the nozzle.
There are two fans on the hot end - one mounted on the metal heat sink, and one close to the nozzle. The one on the heat sink is supposed to cool the heat break, and it should be running at all times when the printer is operating, but the one near the nozzle doesn't always come on (depends on slicer settings and other things).
If the heat break fan is not running, not fast enough, or the fins of the heat sink are clogged with dust, this will mean the heat break doesn't get cooled enough, and the throat heats up and - JAM!
There are some other things that can cause this, but it's probably the no. 1 cause, and easy to check. If you have a digital thermometer - like a meat probe or similar, you can place it on the heat sink - it should not be above about 30 degrees. Be careful not to touch it with your finger, as it could be over 100 degrees centigrade, and burn you.
@sakurasubnet Can be a few things:
1. Worn out or clogged cooling fan, or accumulated dust in the heatsink. You can remove the fan and blow/vacuum/brush the dust off the fan and heatsink.
2. Loss of power to cooling fan - broken wire, or bad connection on the plug end(s). In my experience, where the cable bundle bends - by the hot end, and near the bracket at the top of the gantry - it's likely to succumb to fatigue and break. This can cause the fan to become intermittent as the broken wire makes and breaks connection during movement of the head. Fixing this is probably more difficult - you need a new wire, which you can buy online. The easiest thing to do is cable tie it around the outside of the cable bundle, as feeding it through is a right pain. Or buy the entire bundle - other wires are probably also near failure if this one has gone. Obv you need the right one, with the correct type of plug/connector on each end. You can also make if you have the skills and equipment.
3. Electrical fault on mainboard (less likely). Replace the main board - available for probably about £30/$40 online.
4. Power supply fault (even less likely, esp as the rest works). Again, replace PSU. Probably a bit more expensive than the mainboard.
SakuraSubnet 🥙
cybervegan