Total disaster. I updated the SFact with some new settings that I had high hopes for, that I thought would take the print quality to the next level.

I turned on the hot end. After a few minutes I saw that some filament was leaking out of the hot end. Strange. Then I saw this:

The PEEK block has melted into the nozzle. PEEK’s meant to have a melting point well over 265 degrees C.

The only cause for this that I can think of is that the thermistor wasn’t quite attached to the heater-block correctly. This would then have generated an incorrect temperature reading, causing the electronics to over-drive the hot-end past the melting point of the PEEK.

Unfortunately, the printer’s going to be out of action until I can get some parts in to rebuild the Arcol hot-end. While I’m at it, I should make a list of ‘critical spares’ and consumables that I should have on hand for the printer.