over the last 1/2 dozen prints my nozzle began to clog. I have the .5mm nozzle and am running ABS. The prints fail very early on. At first I thought my tensioner was coming out slowly (this had happened in the past) but that was not the case. I now run a zip tie around the two nobs in a figure 8 and then crank it down so the tensioners wont work themselves out during a print. It’s ghetto but has been working great for quite some time. I soaked my nozzle in acetone over night and every time I clean it out I notice these little white pieces of plastic in there. They are quite hard and I almost thought it was rocks/sand but after the hammer test I realized it was a very dense plastic that doesn’t seem to melt or respond to acetone. It is definately the cause of all of my clogging. What is this stuff? It’s not coming from the filament because I used 3 different brands and all 3 do the same thing. It’s coming from the machine. Is it some sort of insulation from the nozzle?
did you crack your peek isolator liner? it’s made up of a hard white chunky plastic, but should be an intact smooth tube inside the hotend itself somewhere.
I took the budaschnozzle off and inspected it. I cast a light down the tube and sure enough I could see pieces of that white stuff sticking out into the tube. I had noticed I was getting a little more resistance when I was feeding the filament down into the nozzle. Apparently the white plastic liner was causing the filament to bind up and in turn riping off small pieces of the white stuff during the print. I don’t really know how to fix this. I figured the insulation was toast so I couldn’t make it worse so I got out the coordless drill. I found a drill bit that wsa the exact diameter of the tube and I drilled it out. It removed all the white crap that was sticking out and in the way. I then took my air hose and blew it all out. I think I got it all out. I pushed the 3.00mm ABS through and for the first time ever it just slid right through with almost zero resistance. I then started a print. It is now 2 hours in with no clogs or issues of any kind. It’s a 9.5 hour print so we will see if it can make it all the way to the end. I need to look into seeing if I can replace that plastic liner/insulation thing. I REALLY don’t want to have to replace the entire nozzle for some 5 cent piece of plastic.
I think I found the part that is damaged. Is that what I need to replace?
http://www.lulzbot.com/products/budaschnozzle-20-ptfe-tube-3mm-filament
If so, is this an easy repair?
There are two pieces in there. the PTFE tube, which is what you linked, and the Peek isolator, which is further down in the assembly. You can see the assembly diagrams and parts here: http://download.lulzbot.com/Budaschnozzle/v2.0/drawings/
I’ve never had a need to take one apart so I don’t know how difficult it would be to get to that particular area.
The Peek isolator is this part here: https://www.lulzbot.com/products/budaschnozzle-20-peek-isolator
it may be brown though, so if you are seeing white, it’s probably the PTFE tube.
the pieces are definitely a bright white. The part that is breaking off is up near the top of the nozzle. I know when I first installed that particular nozzle I noticed the filament seemed to hit it as it entered the nozzle.no matter how i lined up the nozzIe I couldn’t get the fIlament to slide into it smoothly. I think over time it started to chip away the insulation up near the top where the filament enters the nozzle. my 9 hour print did print successfully. I am now trying a larger 16 hour print. If I am successful again I will probably just leave it the way it is. If the white chunks continue then I will have to do the repair at that time.
Unfortunate Update: The printer is going crazy on me today. I can’t get it to print anything. It keeps clogging and now there is no white chunks in the nozzle. I checked the tensioners and they have not moved. I moved them in tighter and tried again but same thing about 1 hour into the print. I then loosened them and tried again but again the print failed. Finally I got an error code on my 5th attemp that says “ERR: MAXTEMP”. This time the machine was not clogged nor was the filament torn up by the extruder gear. I was able to easily push the filament through the nozzle manually. The machine literally just stopped the print one hour in. I have already replaced the entire budaschnozzle 3 times and have replaced a faulty converter box. Last week I had to replace the glass bed and heating element a 2ND TIME because the glass shattered. This time I just put a piece of glass over the old busted glass and just uped all my prints build plate temps by 10 degrees (as suggested by Brendt at lulzbot). I just can’t afford to keep this machine running anymore. I am spending hundreds every month in repairs. I am stumped on what to do next. My last failed print had a nozzle temp of 232 and a bed temp of 106. That seemed to be the sweet spot for both with the .5 nozzle and the .3mm ABS. I know something is wrong but I just don’t know what. I already replaced the thermostor in the heat block and the wiring harness. The only odd thing I could find was that the stepper motor on the extruder head was CRAZY hot. It actually burnt the back of my hand when I was trying to test the nozzle for clogs. But I don’t think there is any heat sensor on the motor. I also don’t know what heat sensor is triggering the error code. Is it the nozzle sensor or the bed sensor? “ERR: MAXTEMP” is a tad vague for trouble shooting.
ERR maxtemp means that your printer has either exceeded the firmware programmed temperature maximum allowed value, or more likely you have a short somewhere in the temperature sensor loop. Possibly due to a pinched wire? It could be the bed, but i’ve never seen it for the bed.
It sounds like you have a couple of variables here that could be the problem. The hot extruder motor is probably due to strain from the extruder being unable to send filliament through the hot end. is it due to the hot end not heating up? Is it due to a siezed bearing, or too tight idler? or a bolt that is too tight? It could be a combination of things.
if it were my printer at this point, what I would do is start by getting an inexpensive point and read infrared or laser thermometer. They should carry them at most hardware or automotive stores near you for under $50. I’d then remove the hot end from the extruder, but keep it wired and mount it out of the way so the filliament can extrude directly without passing through it. Run the filliament forward and back until you are satisfied the motion of the extruder itself is fine. At that point, use the thermometer on the hot end itself and see what temperatures it is actually at vs. what it thinks it is at. Chances are you have a bad thermistor, a bad heat block. or something unhappy with your repair job in the wiring harness.
If you have replaced the entire hot end 3 times and blown a power supply, I don’t know what to tell you. Possibly get a power conditioning UPS battery backup and monitor it to make sure your electricity is notout of specification? Maybe put an inline surge supression device between your printer and your computer USB ports? I’ve never heard of anyone having that many electrical issues with a printer, and the buddaschnozzle itself is such a simple device electrically that I can’t see you having that many failures unless something in your electrical system is spiking and causing component melt. It is very odd for you to be having that much trouble with those particular parts of the system.
Just about everything you have mentioned I have already done. I even paid for an electrician to come out to my house to make sure all of my wiring was correct and I wasn’t getting any weird surges or drops in power. My machine is plugged into a serge protector and the surge protector is plugged into a GFI socket. I also have monitored the volts coming from my house with my own multimeter many times and in every situation my house power was well within spec. I have two printers running full time. One is a Makerbot Replicator 2 and the other is the TAZ 3. The makerbot had a pile of issues when I first got it but I eventually got it dialed in and it has ran flawlessy for months; printing 24/7. The TAZ3 had less issues early on but got going in a rythm for a couple months. Right about the 3 month mark (right when my warranty ran out) the machine went crazy on me. It was going through electrical components, nozzles, glass beds and heaters at a daily rate. There just isn’t much left to replace. Something is very wrong and I just can’t figure it out. Last night I disconnected all electrical connections and took as much a part as I could. I then cleaned everything and put everything back together checking every plug, connection, contact, exposed wire, etc. as I went. I then started a new print this morning and the machine is printing fine. I’m about 80% done on an 8 hour print with no issues. Maybe I fixed the issue without realizing. That still doesn’t address my reason for this thread, which is the white insulation that seems to be coming apart inside the nozzle. My thinking is that I was getting a short which was causing the temp to spike which was causing the insulation to wear out prematurely.
Replacing the PTFE tube would be the first recommended replacement part, we’re currently sold out however, but with the links at the product listing, you may be able to find one elsewhere that matches the size and specs: https://www.lulzbot.com/products/budaschnozzle-20-ptfe-tube-3mm-filament
Well I have looked and looked for the plastic tube from other vendors with no luck. When will you guys get that tube in stock? I also want to buy the .75mm nozzle but it is also out of stock. I want to see if I can limit some of my electrical issues by decreasing my longer prints. Right now I am running a .5mm nozzle with .4mm layers heights on large 20 hour prints. I figured if I could go to .5 or .55 layer height I could knock those long 20 hour prints into the 15 hour range. I know my Makerbot HATED long prints and maybe the TAZ is the same way. It seems like whenever I do a few of the long prints back to back to back I start getting electrical issues. I have been able to get the machine going again and no error codes have returned. I basically just took everything apart AGAIN and put it all back together and my problems went away. Hopefully the 2nd time doing this will be a more permanent fix and not a short one.
Mcmaster Carr sells it. This “might” be the correct size http://www.mcmaster.com/#8547k23/=t7iglp but you will want to measure and double check and then order the correct size. Thats what I used in my beltyflexystruder so it fits the 3mm filliament pretty well. not sure it’s right for the inside of the buddaschnozzle though.