I got some of the Sunlu High Speed PLA that I’ve been hearing good things about. On the first print I discovered that, while it prints beautifully, it creates a ludicrous amount of dust going through the extruder.

So I open it up to clean it out, when suddenly the tensioning spring shoots out. Searched for about an hour in total, it’s nowhere to be seen.

I’d been thinking of replacing the extruder for a dual gear one anyway, so I took the opportunity to order a nice one from Micro-Swiss.

The problem is, that I have an FLSun Q5, and I’d seen from videos online that it doesn’t quite sit flush - you need to print a spacer.

So I needed to get the printer patched up for one last hurrah. The spring was salvaged from a broken clothes peg. And it worked perfectly - not just “well enough”, but easily as good as the original.

So in summary, if it helps anyone, losing the spring doesn’t mean you need a new part - a clothes peg spring works just as well.