Gluestick-gun as extruder ...

... i don't know, if someone already tried to use a gluestick-gun for melting plastic.

In the appended picture there is a extracted heater of a gluestick-gun, which runs with 240V AC.

With adapting of the inlet to 3- or 4-mm-sticks (my thicker Gluesticks have 11mm, the thinner ones 7mm diameter) and changeable nozzles (more expensive Pattex-guns have changeable heads, but others sometimes too ...) there should be no problem, to use them with a thermistor as controlled heatings.

Viktor

Glue guns were tried in the early days of RepRap and found to be not up to the job:

[blog.reprap.org]

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

... OK, i read the comments ...

Is some particularly wrong with them?

In the local tool-store i have seen 5 or 6 different vendors with varying techspecs (and prices).

My disassembled Glue-gun is from PowerTec, has 78 Watts and i used to disassemble it because of the weak housing and transport ...

An "esco powertronic" with 500/40 Watts (heatup and constant?) and a much better transport runs since 20 years or so and sometimes for hours continuously ...

Two smaller-guns (for 7-mm-sticks) are there too, one from AlphaTools, the other is a bit more worthy, but i didn't know from which vendor ...

i think it's no real difference, if i use a ready made heater as in the gun or in a welder-tool, or if i make my own heating with nicr- or constantan-wire.

The point is the power-source and the controlling - maybe it's easier to use stronger 240VAC-heaters (with secure hints), as 12Volt-types with then much more Amps and high-power-drivers?

I think, with a shunt-resistor for reducing the current in a highpower-heating and a PWM-controller i can easily expand the lifetime of the tool and reduce the possibility of overheating or shortcuts in constant use.

And maybe a 100Watts-heater powered with 30 Watts is better, then a heater designed for exactly 30Watts and then runs in limits ...

Viktor

My machine only needs 7W to get to 200C and another 3W when extruding at its maximum rate. My heater is 16W so it has plenty of spare capacity. Switching a couple of amps at 12V is trivial, no need to use the mains.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Hi nophead,

... i disassembled the head a bit more (see the image) - there aren't wire-windings, as i meant, but two aluminium-blades separated by a kind of metallic-ceramic-blade as heater

I think, the hint with the gluestick-gun is aimed to experiments with higher extruding-speeds (for example a lathe-style extruding on a roll or so).

The small 7-mm-guns have much lower power, so this type would be better used in continuous runs with reduced heating.

When i build my toolhead, then i try them out, maybe soldering-heating too.

But for my experiments with micro-fabbing or laminating i have to use solvents and pastes at room-temp or a sintering laser instead of a heating extruder.

Viktor

Mabey a soder canister with a pumped up glue gun could be used for circuts. As soon as ive got a repstrap ill try. a two toolhead setup for chips could work...