Print Core Jammed

[Yarcich 2]

I was printing a PC piece when the print core jammed up.  By the time I noticed the malfunction, there was a large blob of PC material getting moved around with the print head.  I removed the blob and everything seemed ok.  When I tried to do another print I kept getting errors.  When I went to open the housing to look at the print core, I saw the core had PC material all around it (see attached picture).  The material must have oozed out around the print core during the previous error. 

 

Is there anyway to manually heat the head up to a high enough temp to remove this material?  I tried chipping it off but PC is way to hard to remove.  Just looking for some help on how to remove the extra material and hopefully salvage my print core.

[Brulti 177]

The first solution is to heat up the core for a while at the same temperature than if you were going to print PC. Heat up the core, wait a while while the core is hot, like 20-30 mins, so the heat can diffuse through the blob of PC and soften it. Then you should be able to remove most, if not all of it, and then clean up what little bits that could still be stuck to it somewhere.

[EVRC 1]

I just had mine jam too using NylonX. The problem for me is that the Ultimaker 3 wont power on. It was strange i found the print hanging from the head, the back bed screw had come off, and the machine was just making a clicking sound. I had used fresh glue and the print was about 1/4 of the way done.

[Brulti 177]

@EVRC You should make a separate thread about your problem, because it is quite different than  @Yarcich's problem.

I don't see how a jamming could cause the printer to not power on.

[EVRC 1]

Ill start another for the power. Do you think a heat gun will work for the NylonX to remove it?

[ultiarjan 1,223]

@EVRC I see you had your issue while using a "hardcore" and not an Ultimaker core.  I know Ultimaker core's are produced in the factory using a very high torque, so issues are mostly prints letting loose from the bed and material moving up into the head, despite the silicone cover.

 

In your case I'm curious if it's the same or if you had a leak in the printcore?  was you object detached from the bed?

how did you mount the nozzle? did you mount it while it was hot? do you know how much torque you used? 

 

good luck cleaning....I think a heatgun should work but you need to be very carefull with the delicate core ofc...

[EVRC 1]

The print did come off the bed so I’m hoping it wasn’t a leak from the nozzle. I installed the nozzle with the included torque wrench. I think its 1nm ish. I had just received the core and it didn’t have a nozzle on it. I didn’t think i needed to heat it since I wasn’t taking off another nozzle. Ill report back once i get out of this mess.

[Yarcich 2]

Does anyone have a link on how to manually heat the print core up?  I've gone through the menus on the S5 and haven't seen anywhere I can go to get the print core to heat up to PC temps for a sustained amount of time.

[EVRC 1]

Did this head flood happen on an S5? My head flood pushed the core over and caused it to short so I couldn’t heat it at all. Look on material or core menu to set the temp.  

[Yarcich 2]

Yes, it occurred on a S5.  It flooded around the head so it is locked into place on 3 sides (it's even blocking core #2 so I can't pull that one either).  It seems to heat up ok when I tried to change materials. 

 

Found it on the print core screen.  Had to hit the 3-dots in the corner to pull up an additional screen I did not originally see. 

 

Thanks for the help.

[EVRC 1]

Did you get your head cleaned out? I ordered another head to replace this one.  GR5 inspired and motivated me to clean mine out too. I destroyed the hardcore since the plastic on the hardcore melted quicker than the NylonX. The process was tedious with a heat gun from harbor freight. I ran into trouble when I didn’t realize I turned the gun on high instead of low. This resulted in desoldering the pins on the chip of the hardcore and melted the plastic on the lower bearing housing. I was worried I cooked the PCB on the head too. Since my new head won’t arrive until Monday I put this one back together to see if it would work. It seems to work fine but the melted housing made the bb core install tight. All functions have checked out and I’m going to order the replacement which is  less than $5. It may seem really bad when it first happens but you can recover and if you don’t hit the wrong button your heat gun the head will be fine and your cores might be ok too.  Good luck and thank you to everyone especially GR5. 

[Yarcich 2]

The material had flowed completely around the head so even when I heated it up, it did not soften enough to push the material out of the gap behind the nozzle.  This gap is needed for the head to move up enough to remove the print core.  I ended up having to take the printcore out with the bracket it slides into.  Then I had to use Acetone to melt and chip away the PC material enough to remove the core from the bracket.  There was no way to do this without destroying the printcore.

So, although I destroyed the print core, I was able to get the bracket out and reinstalled into the unit.  The next issue was leads to the fan and the sensor/shield on the head unit were pulled out of their contact holders when I had to pull on the core and melted PC material.  I tried to solder them back on, but as soon as I did the contact must have gotten too hot and it fell off of the senor board. 

 

So, it looks like I need to get a new core and also a new cover/sensor/fan unit.  Ultimaker was very helpful with getting me these new units and I should have them on in (2) days.  I assume once I install these new parts everything should be back to normal.

 

I'm still not sure how this occurred though.  I had done the same print 3x before without an issue.