Drilling out JHead Mk V

I have a 0.4mm J Head that I want to use in a two extruder machine for just doing infill. Can I drill it out to 0.5mm or even more? This could have quite an impact on print times.

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Using ABSPrusa Mendel Zaphod with Pronterface and slic3r 1.3.0. Printing well with 3mm PLA and ABS through 2 x J Head Mk IV b and Wade Geared Exruders. Controlled using RAMPS1.4 board running Marlin_v1.1.9

It's highly likely that you will end up ruining it, unless you have a mill with which to drill the hole. Doing it with a drill press is probably not feasible without some very precise fixturing.

You may want to email Brian (the guy who makes the j-head) and ask him how difficult it would be to swap out the brass block for one with a larger diameter. He may be willing to sell you just the brass block drilled out to the diameter you want.

Go for it. I drilled out a few .35mm nozzles by hand using a lathe and holding the bit with a pair of pliers. With a bit that small the trick is just dont push it, let it SLOWLY work its way in so it doesnt bind up. If it already has a hole and you just want to drill it bigger it should be a piece of cake. You could probably do that by hand if you can find something to grip the drill bit with.

I recently drilled three of mine from 0.4 to 0.45mm because I got some new ABS with lower die swell and so was unable to print 0.4mm layers. I just heat it up to running temp and twist a carbide drill with my fingers.

Drilling the first hole is tricky, but opening up a hole is easy. I did once break a drill in the exit. I tried extruding to see if it would be pushed out. I got two streams of plastic that came out and spiralled round each other! I got it out by heating the ABS to 150 and pulling it back.

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For printing infill, what would you guys say should be the maximum diameter? I'm guessing that having a bigger diameter hole means I can extrude plastic faster. I also realise that there are other things limiting how fast I can extrude such as how quickly I can melt the plastic.

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Using ABSPrusa Mendel Zaphod with Pronterface and slic3r 1.3.0. Printing well with 3mm PLA and ABS through 2 x J Head Mk IV b and Wade Geared Exruders. Controlled using RAMPS1.4 board running Marlin_v1.1.9

i've heard of people using up to 0.8mm i personally have a nozzle that is 1mm which i was using to print single wall wings, (turned out to be a failure, but at least i tried it) 0.7 is probably about the biggest i would consider going, otherwise it gets ridiculous

if you are set on drilling it out yourself, use somthing with a bit of speed to it

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I once swapped out my conventional brass 0.4 mm nozzle for an M6 threaded welding nozzle, it had a 0.6mm orifice that worked great. The extra length gave a really long melt zone so I could extrude very quickly. I even drilled it out to 0.75 or so by just using a pin vise by hand.

Both worked really well, if a little drippy. We were actually using these to print copious amounts of fixing blocks for nopheads mendel90 in a hurry.

Would recommend trying to do this by hand just by twisting a drill bit into the hole. If you were going to do this under power do it Afghan lathe style. Put the nozzle block combo in the Chuck of the vise and feed the bit into the spinning work piece. This will self centre automatically and is the basic principle lathes exploit to achieve their inherent accuracy.

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If you were going to do this under power do it Afghan lathe style. Put the nozzle block combo in the Chuck of the vise and feed the bit into the spinning work piece. This will self centre automatically and is the basic principle lathes exploit to achieve their inherent accuracy.

This may be a bit difficult to pull off for the average person, since the heater block is rectangular and the hole is not centered on the face. You could chuck around the PEEK tube but this is probably not 100% concentric with the orifice hole in the brass (in theory they are concentric but in reality...).

I agree doing this by hand is better - if he screws up the lack of power will prevent him from ruining things as quickly :-)