Post print

[Toyguy]

Ok, so what needs to be done to clean up the hot end, etc once a print is done?

[geneb]

Go find yourself a sacrificial washcloth, heat it up to operating temp and wipe it off.

You'll find it's very much like a 5 year old with a runny nose.

g.

[Nylocke]

I always (very gently) take a pair of needle nose pliers and grip the gunk off of the nozzle of the hot end. One of the teachers at the school has a coarse brush with nylon fibers i think and he vigorously scrubs the nozzles and heater blocks (incase some of the filament built up to that point) and that seems to work pretty well.

[Toyguy]

Thanks guys. So it isn't necessary to "empty" the hot end of plastic at the end - just heat it up again and keep printing?

How about when you want to change filament colors? Do you just retract the filament manually from Repetier-Host, push the new filament down then manually extrude until the color comes out pure?

Dave

[Nylocke]

I don't think anyone empties their hot end when done printing.

When i switch filament, I just pull out the strand that is in by heating up the hot end to melt temp, and feed in the new filament by pressing the lever on the EZstruder and slipping the filament in and then telling the printer to feed filament.

[dpmacri]

One word of caution on removing filament. Shortly after my first print I thought I'd change filaments. So I heated the hot-end up to temp. and started using Repetier Host to retract the filament (it was PLA). Unfortunately it had cooled so much by the time it got to the extruder that it clogged the extruder and I had to completely disassemble it to unclog . So now I just back it up a little and then remove the Bowden tube and take it out that way. Basically, you lose about 18 inches of filament whenever you switch.