u/GRIMobile

Recap: A friend recently asked if I could help rescue her sons a1 mini.

During an overnight print it developed a bad case of death blob.

UPDATE: On first inspection it didn't look too terrible. But after entering maintenance mode I realized the hot end would not heat up. I assumed a wire had gotten broken. My suspicions were confirmed in the warnings, where it said no cooling fan detected.

Not being able to heat up the hot end and pull off the blob created a challenge....

I first started by putting a hair dryer on it for a few hours to get it malleable. That had some limited success, but allowed me to remove the parts cooling fan and shroud which was firmly encased.

I knew to get anywhere I needed to get the nozzle free so I could access the screws that held the hot end in.

The hot end cooling fan was already toast as you can see in the pictures. Not only had it intruded into the fan but the expansion had crushed it. So out that came with a little snapping.

You can see that yes, the wires for the hot end were indeed ripped loose. Which I assume is what stopped the blob from being even bigger. Almost a saving grace in a way.

I was stuck, so I took a Dremel and carefully cut away as much of the blob as I could. Doing this led to huge gains, as I was able to expose the nozzle.

Using a micro torch I have I was able to heat the whole hot end and slowly get the nozzle clamp open. After that it was smooth sailing.

Now a few parts later, and she should be chooching real nice.

As the "3d printer guy" in my neighborhood a friend asked me if I could fix her sons a1 mini.

I will let the pictures describe the issue.

I couldn't heat the head at all in maintenance as the blob had expanded and broke a bunch of wires.

So after, hot air, nippers, pliers, and Dremel we are here.

My plan was to use the Dremel to cut the extruder clamp, but I no longer feel comfortable doing that as I don't think it will make a difference in the long run.

It's gotten to the point where to get any further I'm going to have to start breaking things

I'd honestly like to just replace the entire tool head. I can find the parts list for generally all the parts but no guide to take the tool head off the rail.

Current status is the pictures above minus the extruder fan as it was partially melted and already destroyed I snapped it off hoping to get better access...

Any actual help would be great.

On July 1st 30 round mags become illegal in my state to purchase or sell. So, one of my local LGS was selling pmags for $9 a piece normally $13. Figured a few more wouldn't hurt to have around. I also picked up two 60 round mags off the Internet the other day.... Just to have. I wish I could find more of the purple lancer mags.