1.75mm Filament

[kenn...@gmail.com]

Thinking about switching to 1.75m filaments on the Arcol 0.35mm hotend, do I need to replace PTFE tube in the hotend or any other part?
Anyone running Arcol 4.2 with 1.75 mm filament and a Bowden extruder, does it work ok?

/ Kennert

[Ante Vukorepa]

Er. I don’t think that will work.

The SS tube and part of the nozzle will still be dimensioned for 3mm.

Meaning you’ll have tons of room for molten filament to creep up and create one heck of a plug.

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Ante Vukorepa

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[kenn...@gmail.com]

its this that gave me hope  (Arcol.hu v4.0 hot-end for 3.0mm filament (works also for 1.75mm filament too).)

on  http://blog.arcol.hu/category/production/

[Ante Vukorepa]

Best to wait for Laszlo’s comment, but i believe you’d need (at least) a different SS tube for that, on top of a new PTFE tube.

-- 

Ante Vukorepa

[Kyle Kenney]

I think Antes right...the extra gap in your barrol will cause problems. More curious though..why the switch? I'm running one of his .35 nozzles (albeit the highspeed prototype) with 3mm filament, and it runs great. Why go to more expensive filament?

2013/9/13 Ante Vukorepa <o.or...@gmail.com>

[Andrew Falgout]

If you are paying more for 1.75mm than 3mm, you need to look around.

www.makertronic.com

I have some people in the US that are using 1.75mm with the arcol, but you have to put extra insulation down toward the lower part of the stainless barrel to keep it hot.  The back pressure pushes molten plastic up the barrel and it forms a plug if you don't.

As to why 1.75mm?  There really shouldn't be much of a difference, some say you get finer flow control with 1.75mm, but if your extruder is calibrated right you shouldn't notice.  If you are using a bowden extruder, I can see there might be a difference due to the mass of the filament in the tube causing more deflection.  I haven't tried a bowden yet, but that's about all I would imagine.

Regards,
Andrew Falgout

[kenn...@gmail.com]

I use Arcol and Bowden and it works fine with both 0.5 and 0.35 except when I print several small things with 0.35 or things with a lot of small details that lead to much retraction and little quantity of extruded plastic, it creating small plastic chips that come with the tube and caught in the jagged bolt and every one knows what happens then. this works better with 0.5 then it does not need equal force to extract.
with 1.75mm filaments  I need less power but feed the longer distance and I think it would work better.
When i run  without Bowden i have no problems .
the idea of using Bowden is to run with two extruders and use both 0.5 and 0.35.
other advantages are the smaller mass, though I reinforced my Prusa i2 so it could have been steadier :-(
it is easy to change hotend with extruder elsewhere
I win little print area most in z
drawbacks is that I need more retraction and it lowers still not enough pressure
need more power to feed filament

about 1.75 mm filament it seems like it goes in that direction, some online retailers have only 1.75 so it would not surprise me if in the future it is cheaper to buy 1.75 mm filament
I plan to build a new printer, and then it becomes 1.75mm filament and Bowden extruders and of course Arcol hotend when 1.75mm version is released ;-)

[Laszlo KREKACS]

Hi,

Seems like, I have not responded to your questions guys.

# Is the current 3.0mm diameter works with 1.75mm filament

Well it depends on the filament type. Some works, some do not work.
But afterall it is only a bandaid solution,
as the 1.75mm filament becomes 3mm inside the hotend,
so the advantage of having less molten volume disappears.

# 1.75mm version

First of all, the 1.75mm version is coming.
Now it is more a financial issue, then a technical one.

Some polishing left (mainly deciding if it should be 2mm longer or not),
but otherwise ready for manufacturing.

As you are maybe aware manufacturing a smaller diameter barrel (as is) makes it
so fragile it does not worth of building a hotend around it, but this technical
difficulty has been solved on my part.

But there is a manufacturing difficulty too,
namely I'm required to manufacture 2-300 pieces of the barrel drilled out 1.9mm,
otherwise noone is taking the job.

So the plans, drawings are ready since a long time (around june), I'm
basically saving
up money for the manufacturing.
The end user price of the barrel is expensive on the website for a reason.

# 1.75mm version is really required?

On my personal opinion it does not give much (if any) advantage.
I don't think it is the filament diameter which limits the printing quality.

But the world is moving towards the 1.75mm filament, and I'm noone to stop it.

# Is it financially viable to come out a 1.75mm version?

I don't think so, and I'm less convinced now.

To say the truth my hotend selling declined enormously.
In that perspective, I don't see a market for 1.75mm version.
It would be nice to know what is the reason (in my case).

Maybe the world moved to a complete solution (ie. complete machines),
and I'm not favored by the resellers (and I don't sell complete machines)?

Maybe there are too many others doing hotends,
and I became just one of the hundreds?

It looks to me 3D printing got mainstream,
and users are not interested in the machine itself,
but rather a complete solution.
And the technical knowledge/userbase are declining also,
we can't expect from a graphic designer to know the machine in and out.

Or simply I suck at marketing.

# Involving others in prototypes

I never really invited others into prototyping. Mainly because prototypes costs
2-3 times more then the final product (and I usually do 3 pieces to
cross-check).
And the last successful prototypes is the first "mass" produced version, so
it must leave some bitterness in someone who take the last prototype at
twice the price of the same (just mass produced) first batch.

What I occasionally did in the past (privately), is sometime gave away free some
of the prototypes, or charged normal price.

The open question to anyone here:
Are you really want to be part, financially, of the prototypes?

I never assumed so.


In future I may focus on other things, maybe the best strategy to a
small player is
to react quickly to new ideas push out roughly polished products.
The ball sticked onto a rod is basically that idea executed.

But don't fear, the 1.75mm version is coming, it is more of a prestige
question for me,
then a financial decision.
I think I was first with the all metal hotend, and I still think mine
is still the best possible.
I *need* to show the 1.75mm version and how it will look.
So stay tuned.

Best,
Laszlo

[kenn...@gmail.com]

looks forward to the 1.75 mm version ,was afraid I would have to buy another 1.75mm hotend. now that I know I wait until Arcol 1.75 arrives
/ Kennert

[Ante Vukorepa]

On Monday, 16. September 2013. at 10:19, Laszlo KREKACS wrote:

To say the truth my hotend selling declined enormously.

In that perspective, I don't see a market for 1.75mm version.

It would be nice to know what is the reason (in my case).

Maybe the world moved to a complete solution (ie. complete machines),

and I'm not favored by the resellers (and I don't sell complete machines)?

Maybe there are too many others doing hotends,

and I became just one of the hundreds?

I think it’s a combination of both.

Yes, printing became mainstream and people are looking (and buying) complete machines - and here’s the key part - without researching anymore. Research was an important part of RepRap and FDM buying process before. Now it’s not anymore. The shinier the kickstarter campaign page and/or the site, the more likely it’s going to be bought, research and word-of-mouth mean little nowadays.

On top of that, there’s heaps of new hotends, including some that are pretty similar to Arcol.hu, at least superficially (E3D, to name just one). And on top of that, it might be the way you distribute your products too. I remember you used to sell hotends through 2printbeta and i think someone else at some point? Having a distributor network probably helps the chances of your product being seen (which, again, comes back to the previous paragraph - people don’t research much nowadays and tend to just hit the shiny BUY button).

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Ante Vukorepa