Filament melted or jammed into Hot End Isolator (UM2, 2.8mm PLA)

[chenobble 1]

After not getting any filament coming out during printing and the normal troubleshooting failing I took my hot end apart thinking it was a nozzle blockage however the nozzle is completely empty - further disassembly has convinced me that the PLA is either melted or jammed inside the isolator...

isolator hanging from filament:

http://i.imgur.com/KEoYCaT.jpg

awful pic of gold filament blocking isolator:

 

http://i.imgur.com/Yh8PQhT.jpg

so I want to know -

1: what's the best way of clearing this jam?

2: How can I avoid it happening again!

Cheers

Gary.

 

[donmilne 2]

I think you'll have to take the teflon spacer out and push the plug out with a screwdriver.

The gold filament uses some kind of metal filler perhaps? Possibly the filament itself is a good thermal conductor, which might explain why it melted so far up.

 

[chenobble 1]

So I tried again today and with a little more force the end came out of the isolator and the spacer quite easily - my current theory is that there was some sort of earlier jam and that caused the feeder to grind the spot of filament it was trying to move to nothing and that's why it stopped kicking out plastic even after the jam was cleared - and why it failed to retract the filament during troubleshooting. I cut off the offending section and reloaded the filament. Printing a test run now to make sure I haven't broke anything.

It's kicking out a load of blackened crap but it's printing - running it at a high temp to clear it out...

Cheers for the help!

 

[IRobertI 520]

You don't have a gap between the widest part of the teflon piece and the hot end isolator it looks like. Is this true when it is mounted on the machine as well? There should be a small gap there to ensure the teflon piece is in contact with the hotend. If the teflon piece isn't fully pressed against the hotend you could get plastic leaking out between the two and cause issues.