3D Printing Mod and Repair

I approached PinShape when they changed focus towards designs for home 3D printers and they agreed to partner for a few videos. This partnership allowed me to afford a new camera, so no more chunky pixels when talking at the workbench. From now on it's 1080p all the way down. Of course I also learned just how long it takes to upload high def video to YouTube.

During this video I really was repairing and upgrading my bot. I knew my nozzles were clogged. But I had no idea what I'd find when I looked inside.

The clog I've seen before, but the PTFE tube was kinked and broken. There's no moving parts there so I have no idea how that happened. Fortunately I had lots of spares, so it was no problem to replace it with the nozzle.

As I mentioned in the video I also replaced the ceramic insulation on the heating blocks, updated the fans (wow bearing fans are quiet) and added a little length of PTFE tubing to the feed area to bring it closer to the feed mechanism so I'll be giving ninjaflex another try soon.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. If you've got 2 extruders label everything. In this case I used a bunch of stickers for rings but in the past I've used masking tape which works just fine. Because I was careful about this I managed to get everything in it's place on the first try.

Once I got everything back together I was amazed how much better my bot printed. I don't think it was the upgrades as much as having a unclogged nozzle. So add that to my regular maintenance schedule.