Printer Head Completely Filled with PLA

[Derek1984 0]

Hi,

 

I'm an high school engineering teacher. I printed a large part overnight. When I got to school this morning the printer cores were jammed up against the build plate. The PLA had backed up and filled the printer head. I've read on other forums that I can remove the backed up PLA by heating the printer cores. However, the Ultimaker 3 Extended is displaying a "Max temp error on print core 1". Thus I can't access the menu to heat the print cores. Due to the large amount of plastic, I cannot preform maitenance on the printer cores to address the error message. What is the best way to remove this plastic from the printer head? Why did the printer malfunction?

 

Thanks,

 

Derek

[fbrc8-erin 298]

This generally happens if your print detaches from the bed during printing--it will attach itself to the nozzle, and start going up into the printhead because there's nowhere else for it to go. I recommend reaching out to your reseller.

[Derek1984 0]

Thanks for your help. I think you are correct Erin. I checked the part before leaving for the day, 1 hour into the print, and it looked great. In there morning there was no trace of the part. The build plate was completely clean. 

[gr5 2,234]

You'll have to learn how to get parts to stick very well if you will be leaving your printer unattended:

 

 

You can get all that plastic out using a hot air gun but it's going to take you a long time.  A hair dryer might work also - not sure.  You need to get it up to around 60C.