“Cache” means space used for disk caching. It’s free to be used for processes as needed, but the system consumes idle RAM until then to speed things up, so it’s technically not “free”, even though it isn’t used by system processes. In Linux, used - cache gives you the actual consumption by processes.
I think if you can ensure they all thread together without a problem, it doesn’t need to be perfectly clean, but I suspect that will be difficult if there is melted filament in the threads at all
I see. I probably should have been more specific, sorry. If you do try torching the parts, be very careful with the heater block. They are usually aluminum, and can melt much more easily than the steel and brass parts.
Most nozzles and heat breaks have M6x1mm threads, so they’re pretty standard (double check yours specifically). Lightly chasing the heater block threads with a tap should clean out any gunk and ensure that your heatbreak and nozzle threads engage properly when you reassemble everything again, and that things get torqued together correctly.
If your heatbreak tube and nozzle don’t have any ptfe liners or anything, using a propane/butane torch to cook the PLA to carbon and wire-brushing it off is a fast way to get those threads clean.
If it’s all super gunked up, and you don’t wanna buy tools, you can generally buy just the heat break, heater block, and nozzle together pretty cheaply for most common hot end designs
Sort of. As the previous poster pointed out, you need to make sure it’s assembled in a way that the nozzle is seated against the heat break inside the heater block, not against the heater block itself. You’ll have to do a complete disassembly to clean it up properly, and you may need to run a tap through the heater block to clean the threads, but when you assemble it, make sure that you back the nozzle off a turn or so, assemble the hot end so that the heatbreak is bottomed out against the nozzle, then heat it all up and torque the nozzle up snugly to the heatbreak(quarter turn past touching is usually sufficient). There are YouTube vids that will demonstrate hotend assembly better than I can explain it, but solid nozzle to heatbreak seal is critical for preventing this
You have an incorrectly torqued connection between the heatbreak tube, nozzle, and heater block that is allowing filament to work its way past the threads and out the top/bottom. You’ll likely need to clean off what you can while hot in order to get it to a place where it can be disassembled and fully cleaned.
You may need to heat or even torch some of those parts clean, since there’s no generally available solvent for PLA to soak it off.
To prevent this, make sure you’re properly torquing those parts together according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Final torque is normally applied with the hotend empty and at temp.
It’s absolutely a grand plan, and they’ve even written it all down. It’s called project 2025, and it’s their carefully engineered play by play for exactly this and more.
Just for anyone running across this later, another limitation of the EzFJr is that you have to load a custom F/w if you want SGB to work. The Krykzz cart works fine out the box for both platforms. That said, I do own both, and the EzFlash is a great budget alternative for handhelds if you can get it.
I have a X7 and a EzFlash Jr because I want my experience to be seamless and compatible with RTC games, but if you’re really after something for homebrew or don’t mind the added step for anything that supports saves, just get the cheaper one.
Not exactly. Some original carts with SRAM would save automatically. You could shut it off and when you turn it on again, your progress would be saved without doing anything manually(eg. Mario Six Golden Coins). In any case, even those games, you still have to do another manual operation on the cart to save the “virtual save”, so the difference is that saving requires an additional, manual step, beyond whatever the game itself requires
If you’re not playing games that save to SRAM, nothing. If you are, then saving just requires you to do it manually, rather than being able to just shut it off and be done, like the original carts would
“Cache” means space used for disk caching. It’s free to be used for processes as needed, but the system consumes idle RAM until then to speed things up, so it’s technically not “free”, even though it isn’t used by system processes. In Linux, used - cache gives you the actual consumption by processes.