Blocked MOARstruder

1

Hi everybody,
I have a blocked MOARstruder on my TAZ 6 and I am looking for somebody to hire to unblock it. Please let me know if you’re interested.

Kind Regards
Scott

2

Hey Scott,
What filament type were you printing on your MOARstruder when it became blocked?

3

Hi Aidan,
It blocked with the nGen that came with the printer

Thanks

4

Hey Scott,
I’m sorry to hear you’ve had that experience. Sometimes the filament can grind out with the Direct Drive extruder on the MOARstruder tool head. Let’s get you back on track.

If you could:

  1. Release tension from the Idler tensioner (as if you are unloading the filament)
  2. Use the metal brush that came with your printer (or any small brush like device) to remove any filament particles from the hobbed bolt in the tool head. You may need to rotate the gear on the tool head to move the bolt around and remove all of the material.
  3. Next, heat your tool head up to the printing temperature for your filament. I’d go with 230 degrees for nGen.
  4. Now, when the tool head is up to temp, try to pull the filament out of the tool head (if the filament has been ground away, you might need to utilise the tweezers from your tool kit)
  5. Finally, you should be able to load another filament type back into the tool head and replace tension to the filament drive system.
  6. Now manually turn the gear on the tool head until your filament begins extruding.

Let us know how that goes for you Scott.

5

Thanks for the advice, unfortunately I already tried all those steps and while trying to unblock the nozzle the filament snapped right where it enters the block and there is not enough filament to grab with pliers or tweezers. After checking with Lulzbot we also tried increasing the temperature up to 240 and then to 50 and trying to push filament through to unblock the nozzle but couldn’t get anything to move.

I think the biggest problem was just a really unlucky snap

6

That’s great to hear! I’m glad you’ve been in touch with LulzBot support. I’ve had experience with this exact problem in the past (only on the Single Extruder Tool Head). The way I got past it was that I heated the tool head up and then fed some PLA down the opening and used that to push the “blocked” filament through.

Do you think this method could help?

7

Yeah that’s the method I tried with no success. It always worked in the past with my Makerbot 2X with ABS filament. You would push and suddenly a clump would come out and everything would start flowing smoothly. With this blockage we are getting nothing. The filament just refuses to go through

8

It sounds like your filament has suffered from heat creep, causing it to melt and set around your heat break (the heat sink part of the extruder). The only way to fix that sort of issue would be to replace the Hot End or you might be able to pull the extruder apart and remove the block above the heat break.

It’s really unlike a MOARstruder to suffer this though, the only time I would imagine it could happen would be if you were to leave the tool head heated at printing temperature for too long with no actual printing going on.

What did LulzBot support recommend?

9

It was my first time trying to use it. The first print failed because a blob got stuck to the side of the nozzle. Then I tried again and it was already blocked. It was only on for less than 15 minutes maximum. LulzBot support don’t want anything to do with it. I purchased the printer November last year and only recently set it up because I was in the middle of moving house. They told me the parts only have a 90 day warranty which is pretty terrible service. If I knew that I would have gone with something else.

1 Like
10

It sounds like you’ve gone through all the steps you possibly could to reasonably fix this one up yourself Scott. Shoot an email through to our support team at support@core-electronics.com.au and we can organise getting the tool head back and repaired.

11

Thanks for the help. Yeah, all the usual tricks haven’t worked this time. I’m happy with the regular head at the moment but need to print large parts (I built wheelchair components) and a larger head will be needed for those big prints.

The only problem is I ordered the head directly from the US. Does this support team service printers ordered from elsewhere. I completely expect to pay for the service since it wasn’t purchased through you.