hotend clogged - how to clean

[athapa]

Hi everyone,

In a middle of printing with PLA, I noticed the filament had clogged the hotend. I tried pushing the filament but it is not going forward at all.

How can I clean the hotend? Do I need to disassemble the hot end or can I use some sort of needle to clear the clog?

Thanks in advance.

-AT

[Polygonhell]

For PLA you can usually get away with just heating the hotend to ~235 and waiting for a few minutes, the offending PLA will usually dribble out.

[athapa]

Thanks Polygonhell.

Here is basically what I did and it seems to be good now.
1. clean outside by using a piece of discarded printed stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfui0c3jXGc
2. clean the hotend hole using a thin wire similar to guitar string (while the hotend is around 210)
3. and finally followed this article to remove the PLA stuck inside. (I had to remove the Bowden Tube from the hotend for this)
https://www.lulzbot.com/unclogging-your-hot-end