Geoffs Easy Nozzle Cleaner

thingiverse

Cleaning Nozzles Always remove the nozzle carefully when it's hot because ABS works like strong glue otherwise, and something will likely break when unscrewing a cold nozzle. I've tried many ways to clean out 3D printer nozzles - this is what I've found that works best. A word of warning: never buy carbide drill cleaners advertised because they are extremely brittle and can easily ruin a nozzle if they break off, which happened before I changed to HSS cleaners. Firstly, buy some high-speed steel drills the same size as each nozzle you use (usually 0.3mm or 0.4mm) - these cost only a few dollars on eBay. Cheaper ones may not be the specified diameter, so check they fit through a clean nozzle first and put away oversize ones where they won't be used by mistake. I found drills this small hard to handle, so I designed a knurled 3D printed plastic sleeve to make handling easier. I also decided to print drill sleeves in orange for 0.3mm and yellow for 0.4mm - yes, the same as resistor color code, so I can tell the size very easily. I also color-code cleaned nozzles the same way (using a texta-color) - it makes finding a working, cleaned-out nozzle a lot easier, rather than digging out a magnifying glass for small writing on the nozzle. To clean the nozzle, first drill out plastic with a 2mm drill slowly with a battery drill and don't press too hard, you just want to clean out any ABS/PLA plastic, not drill into the metal nozzle. Then, either by hand or a small drill, clean out the nozzle tip, blow it all clean - voila! You have a perfectly clean nozzle. It's sometimes a good idea to run an m6 die over 6mm threads if they are really gunked up with plastic.