Fixing My Ender 3v3SE

Understanding the Issue

I was working on making an Iron Man helmet for a fun project (More to come later on this in a future post!) and the main portion of the helmet was projected to take 20 hours. I set everything up and let the printer go. I would check in on the print occasionally for the first 14 hours, but once I thought everything was going to finish correctly I left my office for a familiy movie marathon. I came back down around the 19 hour mark and everything had spaghettified. I cleaned up the failed print and then walked away from the printer. For the next few months, I was having a hard time getting any prints to start correctly, but I also didn't have the time to try to fix the issue. This meant that I would run back to my club room at NKU to use the printer we had there. Come summer break, I finally had the time to get the tools and solve the problem.

Tools for the Job

I found a cost-effective toolkit that had most of the tools I needed. Here are the tools I used:

• 2 L-shaped wrenches (Kit)
• 10 stainless steel nozzle cleaning pins (Kit)
• 2 tweezers (Kit)
• 2 copper wire brushes (Kit)
• Adjustable wrench (Not included)

The Fixing Process

Here are the steps I followed to get my Ender 3v3SE back in action:

I also recommend this video for an easy to follow step-by-step.

1. Remove the fillament from the printer:
   • Either retract the fillament or cut the fillament and then extrude the rest.
   • You may want to consider doing a cold pull, but it didn't make sense for the problem I was experiencing.
2. Move the print head:
   • First, send the print head to the home position.
   • Then move the print head on the Z-axis to around 125mm.
   • You will need to turn the full printer around, so you can access the back of the print head.
3. Remove the hotend silicone sock & heat the nozzle:
   • Remove the hotend silicone sock. This is the black soft piece just above the nozzle.
   • Heat up the nozzle to 240°C.
4. Removing the nozzle:
   • You will need an adjustible wrench and a L-shaped wrench.
   • I highly recommend wearing gloves for this step as the heat will transfer to the metal wrench.
   • Use the adjustible wrench to hold the print head steady and then use the L-shaped wrench to remove the nozzle.
5. Attaching the new nozzle:
   • *Note: when I inspected the print head, luckily only the nozzle had been affected.*
   • Place your new or clean nozzle into the L-shaped wrench and screw it on.
6. Attaching the hotend silicone sock:
   • *Very important* Make sure to hit cooldown to allow the heat to leave the print head.
   • Once cool, attach the hotend silicone sock.
7. Final adjustments:
   • Turn the printer around to face the correct way.
   • From here, make sure to auto-level and I also recommend adjusting the Z-offset.
   • Now you're all ready to load up fillament and get back to printing!

Final Remarks

Although the problem had been causing me trouble for a while, I enjoyed going through the steps to fix it. The parts in the kit are definitely a good purchase and have been helpful with my printer in general.

Hopefully, these steps can help you if you ever encounter a similar clog with your Ender 3v3SE or a similar 3D printer!