UK made eBay J-Heads?

Has anyone had any experience with the UK made J-Head nozzles on eBay?

Here:

GB_Reprap

[www.ebay.co.uk]

and here:

Reprap-UK

[www.ebay.co.uk]

I've noticed that hundreds of these items have been sold, but the only information I have found on here concerning eBay J-Heads is dissuading people from buying the Chinese (non-spec) versions. However, these UK models are allegedly made 100% to the original J-Head standard. They look all right as far as I can tell. Any opinions?

Thanks

Hey, I bought one of these Hotends for the reasons you stated. I thought it was good value.

However, It broke after about 1 week of use.

DO NOT BUY!

So I then bought a new hotend: [e3d-online.com]

I have been using this hot end for months and I have to say it is incredible!

So if I was in your position, save your self £25 and buy a quality hotend right from the off and save yourself the hassle.

Thanks

The nozzle is made from aluminum, and they offer you the option to purchase a spare.
Not a durable solution.

Thanks for the feedback!

@A2

I assumed the spare was to provide the option for a different size nozzle aperture.


@ayouden:

The e3d nozzle was originally top of my wish list. It looks very solid, and I like the way it appears easy to change the nozzles without needing to disassemble the hotend. My main concern was the number of people I have seen reporting issues of constant jamming (after an initial period of excellent printing):

[forum.e3d-online.com]

Some of these posts are very recent. I don't know if there is a design issue, or whether the problem is specific to their item, or even their printing circumstances (obviously there are many parameters to consider).

May I ask whether you have ever had any jamming issues (actually I'd be happy to hear the experiences of any e3d users!)? Are you using 1.75mm or 3mm filament (I'm currently using 3mm)? Also, do you think the supplied heatsink is a sufficient cooling system for printing PLA (this is my favoured material)? I built my printer three years ago, and I'm using an old gen6 board, so it would be problematic for me to connect further fans to cool the hotend.

Many thanks!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2014 09:24AM by Rook.

I use both 1.75mm ABS and 1.75mm PLA. It all depends on the type of project I am printing.

I have experienced some jamming issues to begin with. However, I found out the reason for this.

It was all to do with where my filament was located.

My printer and filament are NOT in a dust free environment, so dust often settled on my filament. So when it comes to printing the dust travels down into the hotend and that causes mayhem!

This was the case until I printed out this gem: [www.thingiverse.com]

Since this point I have had no jamming issues at all.

As for the heat-sink and the overall cooling, I think it is second to none. As long as you have the 30mm fan running you are golden. (if you have no more slots, just wire the fan into the PSU OP as it has to be on all the time)

I have been using my e3D since December, so a good 5 months.

Hope this helps.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2014 09:31AM by ayouden.

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Thanks for your detailed response. It sounds like the e3d is a perfect solution for you. Unfortunately if a 30mm fan is absolutely required then this could be problematic for my setup. I'm just using a universal adaptor with the wires stripped to power the gen6 board. A crude assembly – even the heated bed is only manually controlled by a regular household iron. I'm still using nichrome wire to heat my hotend lol.

I got the reprap uk jhead served me well before I got the E3D, reprap uk has a cracking customer service I crushed the inner lining through over tightening they sent me a spare next day, grab,there hobbed bolt" Raptor" aswell bloody brilliant it is for lining up the bite to the extruder hole. there nothing wrong with the E3D as well the only issue is down too users nowa days. have a peek for the hexagon hotend aswell appear to be similar in size to the Jhead.

Had a couple off Reprap-UK ebay to try

Fast delivery each time.

At first both were printing really good quality, but both did not last long maybe 30 hours of printing and the print starts going all bubbly like it is letting air in or something.
Seems the aluminium nozzle wears very quickly.


Cheers

Sean.

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[www.cncdudez.co.uk]
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@jinx
It's good to hear something positive about the UK J-Heads. Assuming that these hotends were competently and precisely made to the original specification then I don't see why there should be a problem with them. If you don't mind – I would really appreciate it if you could answer a few questions below:

Have you had any unexpected problems with jamming when using the e3d?
Do you also use a 30mm fan to cool the hotend?
Would you strongly recommend one of the aforementioned hotends over the other?
Have you done any printing with PLA using the J-Head or e3d?
Are you using 1.75mm or 3mm filament?

I value your input!


@ayuden

Incidentally, what went wrong with the J-Head you bought, and was it from one of the mentioned UK suppliers?
Thanks!

@clanzer
Thanks for the info. Only 30 hours of trouble free printing doesn't sound too impressive, that would be shockingly fast for the hotend to show signs of failure. I wonder what happened?

@Rook

We do use our 3D printer in anger as we print all our stepper covers, big motor covers and gland holders etc with the machine. Which means when we are making a batch run of machines it can be printing up to 14 hours a day.

The first J-Head was fine for a few days and we started getting bad prints which was a shame because the quality of the prints were not too bad.
So we just though oh must of had a duff one and ordered another J-Head. Started off great and again a few days later the same thing.

Now switched to a E3D one the other week and it works like a charm.

At the time we even switched to external heat controller to make sure it was not us over cooking the hot end and checked with a contactless Infrared Thermometer.

The reason why my J-Head broke was that the aluminium nozzle got worn and sprang a filament leak!

I think this was down to the thread on the plastic part and aluminium part not being as flush as usual. (expanded due to heat)

I tried everything to fix it, but no no avail. I think a hotend which has anything other than a brass nozzle should be avoided at all costs.

On a side note, the PTFE tube inside the hotend was useless! This is why i like the all metal hotend which is like the e3D.

Thanks

I have an eBay hot end (j-head) - pushed 3kg+ through it and shows no issues. Maybe I'm just lucky. The one thing I will note is it came with 1.75 and 3mm ptfe inserts - but the drilling is for 3mm all the way. I think it's dodgy modifying a 3mm nozzle like this to 1.75. I use 3mm filament so perhaps this is why I was OK.

I bought mine from RepRap-UK when I started 3D printing over a year ago. After 2kg of filament and a transplant into a new printer it's still working well.

I got my 0.4mm J-head from reprap-uk, it came with everything i needed and was very well machined. They even included some silicone 'string' to help tie the thermistor down, and some brass wire crimps to connect the power resistor.

The nozzle worked really well for me until i crashed the nozzle into the bed and it destroyed itself !

I'd recommend the J-head to get experience with printing as it's cheap enough and reliable... I now have an E3D hotend which has been fantastic.

@clanzer & ayouden
Many thanks for the detailed explanations of the problems you both had with the J-Heads from eBay.

@konwiddak
That's interesting, I wonder how many of the people who are having issues with these J-Heads are using the 1.75mm filament (of course this may only be partially related). I would be using 3mm filament btw.

@samp20
I'm happy to hear that the eBay J-Head has worked well for you!

@T0mmm
I'm mainly upgrading my nozzle (quite archaic by 2014 standards) for the chance to experiment printing higher resolutions, so it is encouraging that you consider the parts well machined. I've also had several close escapes when my printer has tried to commit suicide using the Z axis (dives for the power supply!). Those plain "clipable" PLA bushings saved my hotend .



So far, it sounds like the UK ebay J-Heads have been a mixed bag for people. I like the price, and I especially like the way it would easily fit within my existing setup (simple replacement with no fan connectivity). Obviously it concerns me that some people have had problems though.

It is a shame that the e3d requires a fan, as it is clear that this hotend has much positive support. Of course, I could acquire fan connectivity (perhaps upgrade my electronics for example), but then I could easily see the scope of my project expanding, and would probably just end up building myself a new 3d printer.

Why can't anything be simple.

Quote

It is a shame that the e3d requires a fan

not at all if using an atx PSU just find a 12v lead splice in a switch you good to gooo.

if you were only gonna print with PLA it be the Jhead every time. but the E3D is "to rule them all" and to experiment with all kind off filament

Quote

Have you done any printing with PLA using the J-Head or e3d?

rolling off my chair [www.youtube.com] not the most challenging off prints,, [www.youtube.com] nor was that!!!
as for jams poor line feed causes jams, inadequate cooling piss poor slicer setting will as well,, I use the 1.75 without issue apart from when I forget active cooling.

Quote

easily fit within my existing setup (simple replacement with no fan connectivity)

you still want a fan cooling the jhead peek for long prints for best results.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2014 06:21AM by jinx.

I've just had a thought – probably an obtuse one but electronics aren't my forte. Would it be possible to crudely plug a 2 pin 5v computer fan directly into the gen6 board without modification? There is a spare 12C 4 pin connector on the gen6 board for expansion. Pin one is +5v, and pin 2 is ground . So I'm guessing that if I match a 5v fan's red wire with pin one, and the black with pin two then it would function, although presumably permanently switched on (not really a problem for me). Anyone know whether this simple idea is a viable solution (at least temporarily), or am I just going to kill my board?

Thanks!


@Jinx
Nice videos! I'm assuming that you were using a J-Head for those prints. Unfortunately my electronics are not powered by an ATX supply, but hopefully my aforementioned idea could be a simple solution to power a small fan. Please let me know if you think it will destroy my board.

One was the e3d the other vid had a j head,don't know about gen6 am a ramps user, you need 12 v to run the e3d fan " I would run a dc-dc 12 volt STEPUP cheap enough of eBay,

I think I may have a simple solution for the fan. I possess an unused (12v 5v) sata HDD enclosure. Inside there is a PCB with a 5v cooling fan already installed, this might even be adequate for cooling the J-Heads. Anyway, eBay has cheap conversions for sata to molex, and there are converters for 4 pin molex to 3 pin too, so in theory I should be able to connect a good range of fans from here. This PCB has the advantage of being very small (easy to integrate), and even has a power switch on board. Hopefully the sata controller won't care (or more likely won't know) that there is no HDD attached.

You shouldn't need any extra electronics to run the fan at all! Just connect it directly to the same 12v power supply as you are using to power your printer. No control of the fan is needed, it's just a matter of having it on the whole time - attaching it to the power supply achieves this.

Hi Sanjay,

I'm not using an ATX psu, so there are no sockets available for me to plug the fan into.

Anyway, this isn't a problem now, it turned out that the disused PCB from my sata enclosure is a perfect solution for powering fans and stuff. For about £2.50 I ordered two convertors (sata to 4 pin molex to 3 pin fan), it works, and I can now have several fans running from the little PCB.

I think the e3d is an option for me now. My setup is a Prusa i1 with an old Wade's extruder, so I assume I would just require an e3dv5 3mm direct: [e3d-online.com]. Is there anything else I would need that isn't provided in the package (I can't think of anything)?

Thanks!

To conclude – I bought an e3dv5. Early days yet, but I'm very happy with it so far.