I just had an epic clog on my K1 Max using a Matte grey Filament. Half way through another of many prints without a filament change the nozzle stopped extruding.
No big deal, Just do the basic maintenance of getting filament to pass through again and carry on. Well, no amount of helping force pushing the filament while extruding would help. so I took the 0.050 inch or 1.27 mm rod that comes with the printer and tried to push filament through and again not happening. Ok, time to get serious here, take the print head apart. Next I took the nozzle out and cleaned it. I also used a acupuncture needle smaller than the 0.04mm hole to clean even the small point of the nozzle. Still could not get filament to pass through the print head. Now I take the whole print head apart and really check the filament path. I know the nozzle is good. I check the motorized wheels path that push the filament and it is clean with no obstruction. I look down through the heat chamber with a light underneath and I cannot see through. Ok so that is an issue. I took the 0.050 / 1.27 mm rod and tried to push through from the top and bottom with no nozzle to no avail. No amount of force could move the obstruction in the heat chamber. I heated the heat chamber to 220 degrees and still could not move the obstruction. I took a 0.048 inch / 1.22 mm drill bit that is slightly smaller than the rod that comes with the printer to push through there. With the nozzle still removed I then went up through the heat chamber by hand with the drill bit to cut through the obstruction. After this I could now push the rod that comes with the printer down through the print head. Put every thing back together with all the same parts and it worked fine again. Woo Hoo. Thought I would pass this on to the masses.
Clogs are a painful fact of life with printers. There used to be a lot of foreign material, like paper and metal that used to get in the nozzles and really jam things up. That has mostly pasted with better filaments but occasionally still happen. There are cleaning filaments available that will clean the inside of the nozzle.
Nozzle floss? Grin.
Glad you got your system working. My last couple of jams lead to thermal failure and for the life of me I can’t get the temp sensor and heater out of the block. These were pre-assembled units from Creality, and they look like they have a thermal paste on them that has set like glue, so the blocks are mini paper weights as a result. I’d drill them out but my drill press has terrible play, so I would for sure see the bore get larger, meaning more thermal paste… ugh. No thank you!
Latest heater block kits came unassembled and no paste! Yay!