Never 3D print during Solar Storm

Something I wasn't expecting is for the recent solar storm to cause problems with my 3D printing.  During the Recent Solar Storms in May 2024, My Creality K1 Max which has flawlessly printed over 100 times since I bought it, crashed.  Note to others, when there are Solar Storms, just turn off your printers until the storm has passed.

I wasn't even printing anything complex. Just a simple Swimming Hand Paddle design I made using Tinkercad.  We are talking about a flat piece of PLA with some holes for bungee straps.  It was going to take 3 hours to print it, so I started it and went to bed.  In the morning I found a mess of filament in my printer with an error message on the screen.  The printer had created a huge blob of filament that pretty much encased the nozzle and head.  

The damage was so bad I was worried I was going to have to order an entire head assembly from Creality.  But after some emails with tech support, they assured me that I just needed a heat gun to remove the blob of dried filament, and at worst I would need to replace the Ceramic Heater Core.  They were right, the heat gun did the trick in softening the filament making it easier to remove.  

I was able to order a new Ceramic Heater Core for my K1 Max from the creality website.  When it arrived install was pretty straight forward.  Now I am back printing that hand paddle, and 1 hour into the print everything is running fine.  

To anyone else who is considering doing some massive print during a solar storm, DON'T!  Solar Storms can do a number on your electronics.  Best to just take a break until the storm passes.

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