Ulti_printer 200x300

Double post deleted.

Edited By Nick Hulme on 01/07/2017 20:30:03

I think you are confusing the definitions of "Adequate", "Good", "Perfect" and "Near Perfect", I have a good dictionary and nothing here including my own 3D printed work gets anywhere close to "Near Perfect",

I await your "Near Perfect" prints with bated breath  

- Nick

Edited By Nick Hulme on 01/07/2017 20:31:08

My printed parts already are 'near perfect' Nick...

You're a funny man, I'll give you that :D

Busy making 12 E3D hotends for these two printers I just made. Lucky me I have a lathe and a mill.
To give an idea of the prices : Heatbreaks are made out of SS bolts M6. One box 50psc cost about 12€. Buying just 1(!) heatbreak from E3D would cost me 11.50£
Same story with the heatsinck, heaterblock, nozzles.
Now I have to wait to assemble and finish these hotends because the PT100 thermistors are out of stock..

Making these hotends myself saves me 32.4€x12 = 389€

Edited By Chris Baetens on 02/07/2017 21:47:08

Hey Chris, they're nearly perfect!

Nick,

..... nearly...?...

Good work on those! I had to make my own as well, but fitted a PTFE tubing inside of the heatbreak.

In my case the PTFE tubing also goes into the heatbreak, but only 5mm deep.
that's why the 4mm drill at the upper side of the heatbreak.

A few of my selfmade fast removable hotends...

Very neat - bowden tube ones, I assume?

Neil

No Neil, no Bowden at all. This printer has a direct drive system on board.
The PTFE tubing is just to guide the filament to the top of the printer. What I did was install the reel of filament at the bottem of the printer(The reel is installed flat and is supported with ball bearings of course.). I did this because I do not print very often very high things. So most of the time there's lots of unused space at the bottom, logic not, to use that empty space..?. Only if I want to print a large(high) part I remove the reel and hang it at the side( front) of the printer.
I hope it's clear...

Chris

So there is either a drive in the head which we can't and haven't seen or each hot end has it's own drive?

It indeed looks like having a Bowden system on board, but the PTFE tubing has a completely other reason of existence. I wanted to install the filament reel into the printer housing itself. Most of the time I print stuff about 4" to 5" high. There's lots of unused space in that printed. So my reels are (inside)at the bottom of the printer, horizontally(takes less space) supported by ball bearings of course. To guide the filament near the top of the printer I use that PTFE tube you're mistaken for a Bowden. Works really nicely btw. So the filament is pulled by the direct drive all the way up, no problem there.
Like I told before I have a set of 6 interchangeable hotends with different nozzles. The direct drive itself stays fixed in the XY-carriage. Only the E3D(clone) is swapped. Together with the E3D-clone goes the fan, PT100, and heater cartrige. My pall Guy made me a few very tiny PCB to make that connection between hotend and XY-carriage. So while inserting another hotend into the XY-carriage, contact is made immediately and automatically. Only two little screws to fasten the hotend..done..!
The few times I want to print a large(high) part I remove the reel, hang it in front of the printer and I can print as high as 230mm.(almost 10".

But the reason everyone makes the same assumption is that you don't show your drive or it's position or function and leave it open to speculation based on your vague description.

I suppose I should Google it as I have no idea what 'hotends' or 'heatbreaks' are. I think I can sort of imagine that the hotend is the actual printing nozzle but why would you need so many of them?

As to the hotends, why cut up perfectly good M6 bolts when it appears that quite a large quantity could be made from a 1m length of M6 threaded rod.

Ian P

Nick,

Huuu...? I think it's all but a vague discription. I think the first pictures in this thread explained it all. Or am I missing something here...?

Ian,

A hotend is the complete assembly, that heats up the filament in the lower region of that hotend and at the same time cool it in the upper part, to keep it from jamming. This pictures shows 3 hotends with different nozzles. The hotend with the smallest nozzle(0.4mm) is for very small prints or prints with a very smooth perimeter, say accurate work. The thickest nozzle(0.7) is for printing very large parts, very fast, or in case perimeters does not have to be very smooth. I'm busy making hotends for even faster printing, I'm thinking of 1.2mm nozzle and even bigger..

The heatbreak is the specific part in the hotend (in a E3D that is) that separates the hot from the cold zone. It is made of stainless steel because SS has the least heat-transfer conductivity of (almost) all metals. The recess in the the threaded part is very narrow and also very thin. That's why there's almost no heattransfer(in combination with the fan of coarse)

I used these bolts because I had no further use of them, but also because these bolts have a partly smooth part. I needed these smooth parts to secure it in the lathe without destroying the threads.

Filament drive mechanism?

Not evident, photos don't enlarge when clicked so I can't zoom in either.

I know you can see it but put yourself in the position of the engineer who built the machine and wrote the manual, you obviously can't see past your own assumed level of knowledge

- Nick

I used an ER40 Collet Chuck to machine my throats from Stainless threaded bar, you can safely hold the OD of threads without damage using a good ER40 Collet Chuck

- Nick