Update on the E3D All Metal Hotend (Now finally shipping!) [Lots of pictures]

Will future orders come with the bowden setup, or is that something additional? There doesn't seem to be an option for it on your store. I would like to order another one of your hot ends and try out a bowden system.

Never mind, I found it. Is the lead time still two weeks?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2013 12:28AM by NewPerfection.

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SanjayM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Interesting point alj_rprp.
>
> I will see what I can do to stress test that.
>
> Another thing is that PFA is a bit less compliant
> that PFA - which means moving the print-head needs
> more force. Negligible in 1.75mm systems, but
> actually a noticeable factor in 3mm tubes.


Just checked, PFA is simply what I call perfluro, so flexural flexibility is 20% better than PTFE but flexing endurance is actually lower.

That means tubing made with that can use tighter radius and less likely to develop bent marks, but no advantage in lifetime.

Has anybody tried HDPE tubing? That should be nearly as slippery as PTFE but stronger and probably cheaper.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Good point, Nophead! After a quick search, there are a ton of different sellers for PE pneumatic tubing on ebay. They are of the LD variant, though, but that shouldn't be much of a problem. If that is your thing, they even come in a whole bunch of different colors.

Are there any updates about printing Nylon with this hot end? Last time I checked, it seemed to be a little bit more problematic than with PEEK hot ends?

Looking forward to the Bowden developments with the tubing, and possibly some info on the watercooled short version testing I saw you mention;-)

For longer length Bowden setups shooting for accuracy/detail, what is higher on the priority list for tubing selection, less friction or less expansion under pressure?

Quick update for Sanjay, I did get a chance to reassemble my hotend for the 3rd time. I ran a 2mm drill bit through it on my lathe before doing so, I didn't notice any obvious burs or similar in doing so, I also ran an M6 thread through the threads of the heater block to makes sure they were clean. I've spent a few days trying different strategies, increasing speeds, various retraction settings, printing with cooling and printing without it.
The short version is it behaves a little better, but much the same as the first two times, I can now reliably print with ABS, but PLA jams.
With PLA if I don't let the nozzle sit I can usually start a print, but 20 to 40 minutes in it will jam, to me that smacks of heat creeping up over time.

Printing with ABS I really like the nozzle, it produces a really "crisp" print, and stringing is easy to control even on my Bowden setup, but I can' t get a print out of it with PLA.
I'll post another update when I get my replacement parts.

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___________________________________________________________________________

My blog [3dprinterhell.blogspot.com]

Polygonhell Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Quick update for Sanjay, I did get a chance to
> reassemble my hotend for the 3rd time. I ran a 2mm
> drill bit through it on my lathe before doing so,
> I didn't notice any obvious burs or similar in
> doing so, I also ran an M6 thread through the
> threads of the heater block to makes sure they
> were clean. I've spent a few days trying different
> strategies, increasing speeds, various retraction
> settings, printing with cooling and printing
> without it.
> The short version is it behaves a little better,
> but much the same as the first two times, I can
> now reliably print with ABS, but PLA jams.
> With PLA if I don't let the nozzle sit I can
> usually start a print, but 20 to 40 minutes in it
> will jam, to me that smacks of heat creeping up
> over time.
>
> Printing with ABS I really like the nozzle, it
> produces a really "crisp" print, and stringing is
> easy to control even on my Bowden setup, but I
> can' t get a print out of it with PLA.
> I'll post another update when I get my replacement
> parts.

I'm baffled at how its jamming. I originally thought it was a retract issue but after a ton more testing it just takes longer to jam with a smaller retract. With a .4 retract i can get an hour print out of it, at .7 I can get 2 layers b4 it jams. When it jamms If i push really hard I can sometimes get the filament to push through, but I can pull it out easily.

Could the melt zone be too short? I haven't tried it with PLA without the fan on, its always set to 100%. This would explain why I have to get it alot hotter than my J-head to print PLA. Shorter melt zone means it has to convert the filament from room temp to melt temp very very fast, maybe the nozzle is cooling. Idk I'm not a hotend designer.

The ABS I have originally printed well but now jams too. I think my ABS may have swollen or gone bad, it doesn't like to feed into the hotend very well. I have some more on its way, I'll post if it works better than my other ABS.

Nylon hasn't jammed since I stuck it in the oven for a few hours at 175f. It became less like wet spaghetti and more like dry spaghetti. lol I did melt my spool a bit, next time I will stick a plate on top so it doesn't curl up.

I wish I could print anything in nylon but it warps rly bad and I don't currently have $35 for a garrolite sheet.

sounds like the same thing as the qu-bd hot end was having.

Hey Sanjay, I'm about ready to order one. Although I'd like to see if I can get one once the revision is done that you had mentioned with fix some of the jamming that some members are experiencing.

Regarding Tubing:
I have simply opted to test the tubing rather than speculate from datasheets. The PTFE really is much easier to push filament through. PTFE is also more compliant than PFA - less force needed to bend it. I have been unable to get the either the PTFE or the PFA to develop a kink/weak spot through repeated bending; I zip tied both to the X-Carriage of my mendel90 and a point of the frame, with a bend radius that was quite aggressive (unmeasured) and had the machine reciprocate the X-Car for 6 hours - However I realise the results might be quite different after 100s of hours of printing. I am also unable to find any other references to people having problems with the PTFE (or PFA) developing kinks. I think the filament inside the tubing would actually also enforce a minimum bend radius of sorts.

I have actually used some Nylon tubing intended for conveying compressed air. It worked very well, but was not very compliant. However it was quite thick walled - more experimentation needed.

Regarding Jamming
I really want to make it clear that there is no intrinsic jamming problem - the only 2 reported jams from the entirety of the first batches are those being experienced by Hendo and Polygonhell. I have a great deal of incredibly positive reports. I am incredibly sorry about the hassle caused to these 2 guys, and I am doing everything in my power to get them new parts, and up and running ASAP.

I too am unable to ascertain the exact cause of the jams these two are experiencing, it is incredibly frustrating. But due to the fact that it is manifesting in just two parts I am of the opinion that it is some manufacturing defect. I have spoken to the machinists and they have pointed out some possible sources of imperfection and we have put strategies in place to prevent them (changing the order in which machining operations are performed to avoid deformation/burrs that affect the filament path.)

My other possible thought is heat-creep - it is perhaps possible that the heatbreak-heatsink contact isn't passing heat off the heatbreak and onto the heatsink properly due to minute variations in thread profile.

Hendo and Polygonhell
I would be really interested to see if adding some heatsink compound or even just tin-foil to the heatbreak-heatsink would sort things. The amount of heatsinking provided by the fan-sink combo is way in excess of what is needed to take the heat away that is conducting upwards. The only way there could be heat-creep is from that junction not passing heat effectively to the heatsink.

You guys have been really awesome about testing stuff out, and feeding back info. As well as offering your time and efforts to give me the info I have wanted. I will try and see what I can put in the post to you guys as a thankyou for all your help. It has really been appreciated.

Hendo
The melt-zone really isn't very short, it's around the 15mm mark in length (depending on what you define as "melted"). Many people are conflating short transition zone with short melt zone. The E3D hotend has an average length melt zone but an exceptionally short transition zone.

Matty2013
The revisions that have been done aren't really aimed at jamming issues. It's probably a manufacturing defect rather than a design defect - strategies have been put in place to eliminate manufacturing defects. The revisions do however reduce the weight of the hotend and increase cooling.

To those considering the integrated bowden system
Just to be clear, the bowden-hotend is mechanically different from the direct-hotend. The bowden version has a hole drilled and tapped for the coupler to thread into. You cannot retroactively buy the bowden upgrade and use it with a direct-hotend - if you order the bowden upgrade with the hotend we send you a drilled/tapped version. However the operation to add the thread is a simple one any engineering company or person with a lathe/drill could do it in a few minutes, for little cost.

We are considering considering drilling/tapping all the hotends and providing a little acetal plug to fill the hole for direct-extrusion people, remove the plug and replace with coupler for bowden use. This would allow people to switch to bowden use from direct use retroactively. However this would add a bit of cost to the direct-hotend even for those that have no intention to ever use bowden.

Nozzle Sizes
We are geared up to start cranking out other sized nozzles - presently 0.6 and 0.25 nozzles are on the cards - but what would you guys want? the default will probably remain at 0.4.

To those who have ordered and are waiting for parts
We are still looking good for delivering on times promised - maybe a 1-2 day delay for a handful of orders. The problem as before is fans - suppliers in China really do not keep to promised delivery dates. Argh. We have ordered a massive batch of high-quality two-ball-bearing fans, with a very high flow rate. This should knock the fan shortage issue on the head.

Cheers,
Sanjay

Great to hear how your hot end is developing with the help of the community!

If adding a thread and acetal plug to the hot ends as a standard costs around 1 or 2 Pounds more, the simplification of the whole manufacturing / supply chain might well pay off. I am for equipping the hot end with this and making it more versatile from the start.

Any information on how good Taulman 618 prints with this? I am strongly considering to use your hot end in my second build, but would like to experiment with a lot of different materials, so compatibility would be nice.

Once the moisture is out of the taulman this hotend prints it nicely. Be aware of 618's warp tendency. You may think you can just print it to blue tape but it will actually pull your tape off of your print bed.

Thank you, hendo420. I have ordered a piece of fabric laminate that should be similar to Garolite / Tufnol. This and the heat insulated chamber should help with any warping.

SanjayM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We have ordered a massive batch of
> high-quality two-ball-bearing fans, with a very
> high flow rate. This should knock the fan shortage
> issue on the head.

What kind of fans are you using currently? My fan has developed a nasty whine, and I don't think it will last much longer.

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Placed my order, can't wait!

o/ One more with extrusion issues. Can't get the hotend to print reliably, it's acting just like polygonhell and hendo are describing.

I can get it to jam almost instantly by feeding filament by hand and simulating lots of retracts i.e. pushing and pulling filament for under 10 mm in the hotend. After it jams, the filament is still easily removed but extruding takes very significant amount of force, if it even extrudes. Pushing the same filament straight back, it extrudes but with a considerable starting force. I've had one jam where I had to disassemble the hotend, but that was after heating it up to 260 °C in frustration.. Tried to print from 20 to 100 mm/s and 180 to 260 °C, havent' found a combination that works.

I think there is a little lip between thermal break and heatsink and there seems to be a little lip between nozzle and thermal break which can be seen after removing filament at around 60 °C temp.

I've tried two filaments, translucent blue (~1.63 mm diam. some visible air bubbles) from a nearby seller and sky blue (~1.67 diam.) from reprapworld. Both PLA. The translucent blue jams faster.

Cooled filament pulled from hotend

As someone that got the first batch, just want to add that I *love* this hot end. My print quality and reliability both increased bunches.

I'll add that I didn't assemble mine correctly initially, and I had clog issues. Since disassemble / reassemble (make sure nozzle has a tiny bit of room to screw in yet after heating to 300c, make sure it has a tiny space where it *could* screw in yet if it weren't already screwed tight after 300c tightening), -I've had ZERO clogs since.

Will buy again on next printer if something better doesn't come around first.

SanjayM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hendo420
> Second batch of metal just arrived today.
> Parts in post for Hendo and PolygonHell tomorrow I
> expect!
> Sanjay


Have you shipped yet? Your post was on the 8th saying parts were in, its now the 21st, 2 weeks later, and nothing yet. Please tell me you didn't forget about me. lol

Hi All,

Been a bit absent on these parts for a while, sorry about that!

Again, just piles and piles of orders that need filling and not enough time in the day to fill them! This is compounded by some rather exhausting "life-outside-of-reprap" matters that need to be dealt with. If you are emailing David and not getting a response please email me sanjay at e3d-online dot com or use the website feedback form on the website - David has a lot of stuff on his plate right now.

To all who have ordered stuff
We ARE shipping! Right now! All parts will have left our hands by Friday. Tracking numbers should be popping up in paypal over the next few days, but we have actually already shipped a good deal of parts. I think some people may have experienced a delay of 3-5 days over their 3 week pre-order time, and I am very sorry about that. We really tried to learn from our first batches and be as realistic as possible, but murphy's law always prevails. It was the fans again that delayed the order. To remedy this, we already have a huge batch of fans on the way from supplier to knock this fan issue on the head.

uGen
We are coming around to the idea of just drilling and tapping the lot and using a delrin plug for those with direct-extrusion. Mainly because of supply-chain simplification, and also to allow people to have the choice to upgrade to a bowden at a later point in time. We think we may have to add a few pounds onto the price around the next batch, to accommodate for this feature and for some other costs that have come into play.

Nylon prints wonderfully on this hotend, but you must ensure it is very dry. Due to the sharp thermal break there is less area for the filament to heat up before melting. In conventional hotends you find that there is a longish section in the barrel that is quite warm and goes some way to drying filament before melting. I am printing on scuffed up tufnol-whale - sticks very well.

NewPerfection
Unable to tell you exactly what fan model you received as we had a few batches ordered in from multiple suppliers at the last minute to make deadlines - futhermore the resellers haven't given us the exact data on them. However they are most likely sleeve-bearing, with either a 0.06A or 0.09A rating, both provide more than enough airflow/cooling. Could you try loosening the screws a little? I think some of the fan-ducts had a slight warp on the base making the face which faces the fan somewhat convex. By tightening up the screws hard you may have deformed the fan ever so slightly, loosening them may relieve the whine.

extin
Very sorry you aren't having a good experience with it. Get in touch with me on email and I will make sure your issue is sorted out asap. Thanks for the detailed info about the symptoms and the photo - it really does help.

opnotic
Glad you are liking it! The point you make about the hex-flat portion of the nozzle being spaced off from the aluminium is quite important. For more info you can check out the the assembly manual which has specific instructions with photos to explain this.
Hendo420 and PolygonHell
I believe your stuff has gone out already, I will have to double check this because I don't actually perform the shipping. You guys were at the top of the priorities list when it came to getting stuff out. Hope to have you guys up and rolling very soon!

Just a thought - when looking at PolygonHell's blog photos, and also thinking about the PLA ring in the gap issue - are your nozzles tightened up hard into the heater block with the hexagonal-flat-portion of the nozzle hard against the heater-block? Or does the nozzle butt up against the stainless steel break inside the block and have a small gap between the heater-block and the flats of the nozzle? See step 2 in the assembly manual for pictures.

Cheers,
Sanjay

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2013 03:52PM by SanjayM.

> Just a thought - when looking at PolygonHell's
> blog photos, and also thinking about the PLA ring
> in the gap issue - are your nozzles tightened up
> hard into the heater block with the
> hexagonal-flat-portion of the nozzle hard against
> the heater-block? Or does the nozzle butt up
> against the stainless steel break inside the block
> and have a small gap between the heater-block and
> the flats of the nozzle? See step 2 in the
> assembly manual for pictures.

It's against the thermal break. I have a small gap even after tightening at 300C.
my best guess is that the interface between the two parts isn't "flat".
I really did use about as much force as I could to tighten the nozzle against the break.

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___________________________________________________________________________

My blog [3dprinterhell.blogspot.com]

Sanjay, you may want to pop into this Reddit thread and dispel the rumors before they get too carried away with the torches and pitchforks thing.

[www.reddit.com]

Happy to see this cool new nozzle option. As for the future, I'm not sure why 0.6 would be in demand, and I think 0.25 might be pushing it, but if your testing shows them both to be reliable and useful I'll be very intrigued. Currently I'm using an 0.5mm nozzle and while I love the speed I definitely could use a finer XY resolution to produce better Mendel parts for sale. I will continue to lurk and observe!

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| Lead Developer of Marlin Firmware
| Help support my work at Patreon and Elsewhere.
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PolygonHell
Cheers for the info - another thing to tick off the list.

crispy1
Cheers for the heads up

Thinkyhead
0.6mm nozzles are really good for printing quickly, especially useful for large objects in the ever-increasing build envelopes of delta-bots. The prints also come out very strong. Quite nice for fast prints of vase-type objects with a single wall too. In a multi-nozzle setup they could be used for fast-strong infill alongside a small nozzle for hi-res perimeters.

0.25 isn't terribly small, but is on the lower end of normal. Reliability is only an issue if you are feeding dirty or contaminated filament - but if you are getting particulate matter in your nozzle somehow then you are probably going to block bigger nozzle too. There are some prints done with nozzles as small as 0.15mm starting to pop up that are really incredible with regards to small features. [www.jerrill.com]

I think our nozzle lineup is going to be 0.4 as default on all hotends, with 0.25 and 0.6 sold as an upgrade. Having these three sizes targets 3 distinct use cases.

I am however more than open to suggestions as to what I should be shipping instead of 0.25mm/0.4mm/0.6mm if you reckon I'm missing something.

SanjayM Wrote:
> I think our nozzle lineup is going to be 0.4 as
> default on all hotends, with 0.25 and 0.6 sold as
> an upgrade. Having these three sizes targets 3
> distinct use cases.
>
> I am however more than open to suggestions as to
> what I should be shipping instead of
> 0.25mm/0.4mm/0.6mm if you reckon I'm missing
> something.

A point to consider is that what matters is the area, not the diameter of the nozzle.
0.6 to 0.4 area is 2.25 which makes a lot of sense for rougher prints.
But 0.4 to 0.25 is 2.56 which I feel too much of gap when going to finer resolutions.
Problems will be also more than 2x worse.

In fact having both 0.3 and 0.25 gives 1.77x and 1.44x factors respectively which would be perhaps more ok.

The area of the orifice (along with it's length) really governs extrusion speed in terms of volume/second. With a large nozzle being used to print large items fast you want large volumetric throughput.

I get what you are saying about factors of throughput being a square (actually maybe more than a square law when considering extrusion orifice - nophead has some good blog-posts on this).

However the point of small diameter orifices is to get one thing and one thing only - small features/details. (Some people seem to run with a bit of a misconception that a smaller nozzle will achieve greater XY accuracy - not the case) In order to get significantly smaller features/details you need to be paying attention to you extrusion width (Track width/PWOT/whatever your slicer calls it). Extrusion width is linear factor of your nozzle diameter - not a square. (Something like 0.75*NozzleDiameter for optimal extrusion width)

However - I might just be talking out of my arse, not done extensive testing on 0.25 yet!

Sanjay

I was thinking about the extrusion problems, and especially backpressure, that will works in squared terms (or more if viscosity changes).

And extrusion width will affect layer height (if not totally proportionally), and the squared term came back

SanjayM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just a thought - when looking at PolygonHell's
> blog photos, and also thinking about the PLA ring
> in the gap issue - are your nozzles tightened up
> hard into the heater block with the
> hexagonal-flat-portion of the nozzle hard against
> the heater-block? Or does the nozzle butt up
> against the stainless steel break inside the block
> and have a small gap between the heater-block and
> the flats of the nozzle? See step 2 in the
> assembly manual for pictures.
>
> Cheers,
> Sanjay

Mine looks just like this photo. It has a small gap between the nozzle and the block, It was tightened while hot also.

SanjayM, already contacted David and got a response in an hour. Guess my replacement metal parts are on their way

I too have that gap after tightening. I noticed that I couldn't screw anything though the heaterblock by hand so I ran a tap through it, partly destroying the threads (heatbreak just got in so that it was level with heaterblock, was like that when I got it so it wasn't plastic that was in the threads)

Now I need to make a new one.. First I need to get a better tap for aluminium, those dollar store taps need too much patience with al
Would a round heaterblock work as it's easier to source?

I added some tin foil to the heatbreak/heatsink connection, really got it only to the upper half of the threads. I haven't had the time to test it through but I did manage a print with lots of retracts (coral cuff, thing 88849), that failed before after the first bigger layers. I did change the speed to 80 mm/s.

I made too many changes to really tell what made it work, and it's too little of an print to tell if it was just pure luck that I got it to print or if it really is fixed. Will test some more, undo the tin foil and try printing slower to see if all this trouble was just bad alignment of the nozzle and heatbreak.

i'd guess the speed change would have been it,

SanjayM: have you tried any sodium silicate based muffler putty, it's what i use on my hotends andyou don't need to do much in the way of tightening thus avoiding damage to the thermal barrier, plus if you want to take it apart because the putty behaves like a ceramic it's not as much trouble, , the caveat is that you have to bake the whole hotend in the oven after you apply it


extin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> SanjayM, already contacted David and got a
> response in an hour. Guess my replacement metal
> parts are on their way
>
> I too have that gap after tightening. I noticed
> that I couldn't screw anything though the
> heaterblock by hand so I ran a tap through it,
> partly destroying the threads (heatbreak just
> got in so that it was level with heaterblock, was
> like that when I got it so it wasn't plastic that
> was in the threads)
>
> Now I need to make a new one.. First I need to get
> a better tap for aluminium, those dollar store
> taps need too much patience with al
> Would a round heaterblock work as it's easier to
> source?
>
> I added some tin foil to the heatbreak/heatsink
> connection, really got it only to the upper half
> of the threads. I haven't had the time to test it
> through but I did manage a print with lots of
> retracts (coral cuff, thing 88849), that failed
> before after the first bigger layers. I did change
> the speed to 80 mm/s.
>
> I made too many changes to really tell what made
> it work, and it's too little of an print to tell
> if it was just pure luck that I got it to print or
> if it really is fixed. Will test some more, undo
> the tin foil and try printing slower to see if all
> this trouble was just bad alignment of the nozzle
> and heatbreak.

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i cant wait till the fathers day present promotion comes wink wink lol only joking my missus said what do you want for fathers day for your 3d printer i think ill be asking too much to get me one of these i think it will have to come out my money .