Return to 3D printing

A few months ago my 3D printer (it's an Ender 3 S1 pro) stopped working. Filament would no longer feed into the extruder and application of a cleaning needle wouldn't change that even with the head heated up.

Some searching on line suggested that I had a broken-off piece of filament blocking the mechanism. Unfortunately the same investigation also suggested that disassembling the print head was a really tricky job. When I couldn't find a Sheffield-based company that did printer repairs I began to think my 3D printing days were over.

Last weekend, though, I decided to stop being a wuss and to have a go at the disassembly job!

It turned out that what I needed was this video by The Edge of Tech, a few tools, and a very systematic approach to documenting the process as I went along.

I took photographs of the work at each stage. 

Also each time I removed an assembly and/or some fixing screws I placed them in a specific location with a label keyed to the corresponding minutes and seconds in the Edge of Tech video.

I ended up with about nine labelled piles of tech before I managed to remove the offender; a 3mm long piece of filament stuck in the guts of the hot end.

After reassembly the printer seemed to be working okay and within an hour I was the proud owner of sheet of Roman roof tiles:

Since then, inspired by the recent review of Benghazi Handicap, I've produced and painted two battalions of 1/300th scale M11/39 tanks for the Gabr-al-Ahmar scenario.

This in turn has led to my putting in an order to Heroics and Ros for some British and Italian infantry and support weapons.  I'm just incapable of sticking to a single project!