K1C with Unicorn nozzle blocked

Flagship K Series Creality Flagship K1 & K1C
1

I have had my K1C just over a year. It has the Unicorn type nozzle and the brown sock over the nozzle.
It has performed well - until today. I was printing using Creality PLA and it got blocked and printed fresh air for an hour

I tried cold pull (AKA Atomic method) I tried heating to 300 and pushing the stillette down. Finally I removed the nizzle and heated it with an hot air gun and again tried cold pull alternating with stillette. At one point some filament came out the nozzle when I pushed with the stillette. But when I put filament in to see if it would extrude with manual pushing it would not come out
I have ordered 4mm needles to try and clear the nozzle and a new Unicorn
Does the nozzle deteriorate over time so that I am wasting my time trying to get the original one to work?
It seems unlikely, but could the filament have caused the block (I have a dryer but have never used it for PLA)
Thanks

2

It was for this exact reason I ordered a bunch of teenie weenie drill bits. PLA becomes a magical material rivalling Unobtainium in strength, and as ignorant and stubborn as (Insert politician’s name here)!

I’ve hit it with mapp gas so that the nozzle was almost melting
I’ve hit it with a hammer out of sheer frustration
I’ve hit the bottle, just cuz, I’m not ALL about printing, lol

Seriously tho, drill bit is the most effective if Atomic yields no joy.
Needles can help, but try to put a little hook on the end, and it’s very time consuming.

Ordering new parts is fast and (somewhat) painless.

Hope it helps!

3

I have had great success ordering parts from AliExpress for five years. They have great pricing. Little slow on shipping, plan ahead with a few spare nozzles on hand. Rember, these printers are designed and manufactured in China, so parts from China are original parts. :joy: