3d printer metal hotend upgrade
Mark Robson
Richard Ibbotson
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Mark Robson
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Alex Gibson
Hi Mark
I run 15 Ender 3’s, and had mixed results with some of the lower end upgrades and abandoned them, so can spare you a few pitfalls.
I’ve not personally used it, but I am let to believe the upgrade parts from Micro Swiss absolutely do the job. They are expensive, and work.
On my Creality CR-10 derived machines, among many upgrades, all have E3D v6/Titan hot ends. I’ve tested the Revo and am designing a cold-side to enable easy adoption of this across the board.
Back to your stock Creality(clone) hot end:
This is an excellent video which takes you through the issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKN0VOuul0o&t=793s
The key problem is the degradation over time of the (poor quality) PTFE tube shipped with the machine, as it is butted against the hot nozzle. This creates a black tar-like goo which moves up the tube, insulating it from the heatbreak and then the PTFE tube swells to become hard to pass.
For normal PLA use, the stock setup is fine for long service durations maintained per the video above. Critical factors are:
1) Strip and clean out the metal heatbreak with a 4mm drill, then q-tips soaked in IPA until it’s perfectly clean inside. It matters that the heatbreak can take heat from the tube.
2) Use an appropriate tool or jig to cut the tube perfectly at 90 degrees for a clean butt against the nozzle.
3) Screw a new nozzle in fully, then back off ½ turn before inserting the PTFE tube fully, then tighten fully.
4) Do not exceed 225C (regardless of theoretical specs for PETG – the stock tubes are weaker)
For PETG and TPU, you can use the stock hot end and just switch out the standard PTFE tube for (genuine) Capricorn PTFE tube, then you can print up to 235C routinely, and for short occasional durations at 240C, ensure good ventilation.
For Nylon/other high temps:
I tried (and have spares you could try) all-titanium heatbreaks. These worked well in some ways and badly in others.
Pros: PTFE tube heat resistance no longer relevant, can print 260C happily
Cons: Stock hot-end heatsink and fan setup fails to contain the heat sufficiently. These will jam when printing with PLA, as the plastic expands above the heatbreak. PETG is usually fine at 235C.
You need to create a better hot end cooling solution – ducting fans over the stock heatsink is a bit of a pain.
I’m designing my own solution replacing the heatsink entirely for full spectrum printing, then I will revert to the Titanium heatbreaks.
If you have more than one printer, you could leave one set up for high temps and the other as stock – this will work well. For a working all round low/high temp solution you want to spend the money on either the Micro Swiss upgrade, or consider E3D Revo Micro if you can wait for preorders or E3D V6 if not.
Cheers,
Alex Gibson
+44 7813 810 765 @alexgibson3d 37 Royal Avenue, Reading RG31 4UR
edumaker limited
admg consulting
· 3D Printing
· Project management
· Operations & Process improvement
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Alex Gibson
Wow, just seen the details on the JGMaker site for the hot end.
They have taken the Ender-3 design and further simplified it, so the heatsink just has an M6 thread internally. They then use their old MakerBot-compatible-ish ‘MK8 style’ heatbreak with an e3d clone heatblock. Nice mishmash!
The ‘MK8’ style of this bimetallic heatbreak could work well with the JGMaker, and it’s not expensive to try. The stainless inner tube is great for all temps, and the larger contact area of copper material on the cold side may do a better job of taking heat to the (rather basic looking) heatsink than the titanium ones I used with the Ender 3 stock heatsinks.
Cheers,
Alex Gibson
+44 7813 810 765 @alexgibson3d 37 Royal Avenue, Reading RG31 4UR
edumaker limited
admg consulting
· 3D Printing
· Project management
· Operations & Process improvement
From: reading-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:reading-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Alex Gibson
Sent: 06 February 2022 11:48
To: reading-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [RDG-Hack] 3d printer metal hotend upgrade
Ender 3 hotend with titanium heartbreak - this will do the trick for higher temperature filaments, but much less reliable for PLA than stock using the stock cooking setup.
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Mark Robson
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Alex Gibson
Hi Mark
Don’t worry too much about experimenting… an entire new Ender3 hot end, with fake-but-still-OK blue ‘capricorn’ PTFE tube good for PETG/TPU temps is less than £20, so even on a single printer you can have cheap and quick redundancy!
Cheers,
Alex Gibson
+44 7813 810 765 @alexgibson3d 37 Royal Avenue, Reading RG31 4UR
edumaker limited
admg consulting
· 3D Printing
· Project management
· Operations & Process improvement
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/reading-hackspace/CAJ4NLMfG2j5OEr53LG4vCVw_JdUT54zaA1sNgy4HmboG%2BwFtoQ%40mail.gmail.com.