I have a Wanhao Duplicator i3 v2 (A.K.A. Maker Select, Cocoon Create).
My extruder got clogged: I noticed that it wasn’t extruding, so I stopped my print, removed the fan, heatsink and the extruder motor and I saw that the clog is at the heater block level.
As you can see from the attached pictures, there is some PLA clogged at the very beginning of the 1.75mm hole in the extruder block.
I can see there is something white in the middle of the filament (a stone? something that is not PLA?). I tried to heat up the extruder to 250°C and pushing with an hex tool but the block did not move.
I solved a lot of clogged nozzle issues with the cold pull method, it always worked like a charm, this time I tried too but as a result the PLA filament broke and the “stone” is still there.
Does anyone know if there is a way to unclog the extruder in this situation?
Do I have to replace it?
1 Like
Hi allesandro see this youtube vid, i think its the same for your Wanhoa
succes
John
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As I wrote, I tried pushing with an hex tool and it didn’t work. I’d like to know if there is something I can do instead of just replacing the hotend.
did you try heating it up and then use hextool pushing trough the nozzle end ( so not upside down but dowwnside up)
The white looks to be stressed PLA, if you grab a failed PLA print and try to snap it, you’ll see the material go white with stress before it breaks.
If I get a nozzle clog I either use the atomic cleanout method, heating the PLA to 80 deg C and pulling it hard back through the extruder. Any clog in the hot end comes out on the end of the filament and can be snipped off.
As you’ve got yours fairly well wedged, you have a couple of options, ethyl acetate is a fairly decent solvent for PLA, strip the hotend out and soak in solvent until it frees, alternatively you can heat the hotend up to normal printing temperature and remove the nozzle. I use an adjustable spanner to hold the heatblock, then a socket on a wrench to unscrew the nozzle. That will let you push the filament through the block. If you can’t push it through the heatbreak then it’s a sign you’re not getting the cooling right and it’s melted in there.
Matthew
The first method is the cold pull, which I mentioned in my question and unfoetunately didn’t work 
I didn’t know about ethyl acetate, I’ll keep that in mind. I managed to do it with a drill and a 1.5mm drill bit, at slow speed and pushing gently, the white ball has literally boomed and now the extruder is free. Thank you!
Yes but it didn’t work I tried with my drill and it worked
Brilliant! Glad you got it unjammed!!
The solution
I’m sure this is not the best, and if you have some ethyl acetate (thanks for pointing that out, @matthewrwright) you should try that before going “the hard way”.
You’ll need:
- A drill
- A 1mm drill bit
- A 1.5mm drill bit
Insert the 1mm drill bit into the drill. If your drill has a setting to reduce the drilling speed, take this to the minimum speed. If your drill doesn’t have such options, you’ll need to push the drill button very gently.
Put the drill bit on the pla block (be sure to not touch the cooling block, you might ruin it). Start drilling at the minimum speed and push very gently, until you get a side-to-side hole on the PLA (you know it because you feel no resistance at all while pushing the drill).
Take the 1.5mm drill bit and repeat the same operation. At this point my PLA block literally exploded (now I have some broken PLA inside my room, don’t know where) and the extruder was finally free.
I hope this helps someone. Please notice that you need to be very gentle in order to avoid breaking parts of your extruder, but if I managed to do it, you can do it too 
As previously said, if you have ethyl acetate try soaking the extruder into it to make PLA dissolve before trying this. Try this solution only if all other options didn’t help.
