Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and today, I am going seemingly nowhere with my printer. Let’s get started.
I got some cleaning filament today. It looks just like the “sample” that came with the printer. It doesn’t have a spool. It is a translucent white when solid. However, it’s much longer and came with two twist ties to hold it together. It actually extrudes clear and goes milky when it cools.
I spent a while messing with the cleaning filament. I shoved a bunch through the extruder tip and it still ooze a little, then curl around to touch another spot on the extruder tip and form a loop instead of a thread. I developed a hypothesis that the natural curl of the filament was influencing the curl of the extruded material, so I tested it by flipping the roll on the holder. The curl eventually went the other way, supporting my hypothesis. The printer does not appear to be clogged.
I still have a bit of gunk I want to get out so it doesn’t show up in random spots on my important, white print. I found a guide [LINK], but I seemed to regress in my abilities as I went along. The first try was okay, the second one seemed a bit broken, and the rest didn’t even come close. At one point, I even had the filament coming out a completely wrong part of the print head. I ended up turning the printer off until I can research it a bit more, but the guide I linked did say something about maintaining pressure for a couple minutes. I did manage to get a bunch of stuff out, but I have my doubts as to if I even got close to all of it.
Final Question: The curl seems to be a works as intended, but my main problem still exists. Any ideas why my filament is trickling a little when it’s otherwise warm but not extruding?