Hello everyone. Ok, so a few updates:
1. Early this morning, I got a reply from Rafal himself. He was kind enough to sit with me (via instant message no less!) and walk me through a few repair procedures. The first issue was figuring out how to unclog the nozzle. I had left it overnight in a jar of acetone, but it was still clogged. After viewing the videos, he noted that it was more likely material from the bed platform itself that was jammed up there when the bed was crammed up against the extruder. The included wire was too weak to dislodge, so I found some old sewing needles, and eventually was able to clear out the hole. Re-installed the extruder, ran the load filament test, and everything worked thus far.
2. We next loosened the screws holding the X and Y axis, and moved the extruder around the build plate, then retighten everything.
3. We next re-ran the auto calibration, and this time it worked (minus all that loud banging and clicking noises) The extruder positioned itself over the silver squares (which i learned has something to do with making an electromagnetic(?) connection) and after a few screw adjustments, success calibration!
4. We then loaded up the zortrax_carabiner_00h_25m.zcode file as a first test print. Everything started off nicely. In fact, I was so psyched that I recorded and posted it to all my social <https://instagram.com/p/0N1vJLkjAA/?taken-by=stevetalkowski> ,as my followers were anxiously awaiting work on whether or not I got it working ;) - and it did work, until it reached 34%.
5. At 34%, the extruder stopped, raised up and stopped printing. It was suggested to remove the SD card, clean/scratch the connectors, re-seat and try again.
6. The second print attempt also failed at 34%. Corrupt file? I opened up Z-Suite for the first time and attempted to load the file. It failed, along with the other file included on the SD - zortrax_bearing_01h_36m.zcode
7. It was then suggested to go to thingaverse and download the carabiner STL file there, bring that into Z-Suite, save out as zcode, and try printing that one.
8. When that one was loaded, the printed started to act wonky again, laying down thicker blobs of filament during the raft stage. The orientation was also different, and i could tell it wasn't working properly, as the rafts were going all the way to the rear of the bed, and stuff was definitely not aligning properly. (See attached photo)