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I was disassembling the hot end and found this weird thing.
All around the heater cartridge and the screw that fix it to the heater block, there is some sort of white substance, a bit sticky.

Is this a sign of something going wrong? or it's just normal?
This never happened before, maybe is due to the cartridge being enclosed by the silicone cover? condensation of some sort?

Full sized picture: https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8857/2892 ... 65a8_o.jpg
[img]https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8857/2892 ... e9e1_z.jpg[/img]


All feedback is appreciated.

A reaction between dissimilar metals? I just had mine apart and it looks clean.

That looks a lot like wet silica gel, or one of the silicone gels. I've not seen something like that from metal reactions. Given you do have a silicone boot on it, perhaps it just wasn't fully cured when you attached it?

I'm going to doubt it's bimetallic corrosion. There are at least 3 different materials there, and the coating on the screw looks untouched. Unless there's pitting on the inside of the cartridge holder, or on the heater cartridge under that foil wrap (which I doubt, as the foil itself would be pitted), I'm going to agree that it's the boot.

It just hit me, it's the same stuff you see on corroded car battery terminals.
But it's not blueish, of course there is no acid to leak here, so... oxidation? Maybe you are right joe

Edit:
I think you nailed it Xenocrates, I did install it a bit early, thought that the heat of the hot end will cure the hole thing when printing.
I'm going to clean it and use it as it is. Will check in a few weeks and see if it happens again.

Thank you both.

Quick update... All good.
I guess it was the RTV.

If the problem appears again I will update the thread, but for now... SOLVED!