Changing the nozzle isn’t hard, you just have to be careful. All you have to do is heat up the hotend, hold the heater block with a wrench, and use another wrench to unscrew the nozzle (you might’ve gotten one with your printer for this). Holding the heater block is mostly just important imo so that the torque doesn’t misalign other parts in your hotend. Remember that if you’re facing down, then screwing directions are reversed. So you would unscrew the nozzle counterclockwise (lefty loosey).
After you get the nozzle off, I would push some filament through the top to get your clog out. Then you can put the same nozzle back on. The main time you would need to replace it is if you’re consistently having issues even after that or you’ve been using it for a while (the hole gets worn through bigger over time). You can also look into doing a ‘cold pull’ to get out clogs.
Of course your extruder would still work fine if you didn’t have anything in it because it’s only jamming due to trying to push something through a clog :p You have 2 zones in a hotend: the cold end (radiator) and hot end (heater block). Sometimes a clog can happen because of heat creep, where a bit of hot melted filament gets retracted up into the cold zone and resolidifies there, blocking the passage.
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 1 year ago
I don’t know exactly how it works or your printer, but with my direct drive Artillery printer (Volcano style hotend) you just heat it up and then loosen the nozzle with a 7mm socket. When reassembling, screw the new nozzle in and tighten it while hot to make a good seal. You’re apprehensive about doing something new but nozzle changes are going to be a fairly regular thing for you in the future so you might as well learn the procedure now. Definitely Google around and look for guides/videos specifically for your printer or your style of hotend.
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I apparently need hot gloves, I tried without them but burnt my finger and possibly graunched the spanner.