Metal hotend - recommendations?

I am thinking about upgrading my "sturdy" from a J-head (Mk. V-BV) to an all-metal hotend. Way I see it, there are two main choices if I don't want to go Chinese (which I really don't - I have found that Chinese hotends are hit-or-miss in terms of quality). Those choices are the Hexagon and the E3D. I plan to keep my Wade's geared extruder, and not go to a Bowden setup.

1) Like to hear from anyone who has used an all-metal hotend on their Mendel90. What did you use, and how did you like it? How did it compare to a J-head?

2) Are there any other metal hotends besides the Hexagon and the E3D that would work well with the Mendel90 and a Wade's extruder?

Anybody? Nobody?

Hi,

Most folks opt for the E3Dv6. There are many posts on here describing how to fit it and results. Try the search feature.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.

Also you need to work out what you're trying to acheave by going for an all metal hotend. Its not as simple as metal = better therefore upgrade... For example many people report problems printing PLA with all metal hotends.

I would like to print anything from PLA to polycarbonate. That being said, if necessary I will simply have a separate extruder module set up with whatever hotend I plan to use (use the J-head for PLA and the metal hotend for everything else, in other words). I would, however, prefer to have just ONE hotend for everything, as it reduces the number of things I have to recalibrate.

I used a J head for a while, but switched to an chinese e3d v5 alike all metal hotend (no teflon inserts). This for 2 reasons: the jhead was 0.5 and I liked to use 0.3 or 0.4mm head. Also like to use nylon and PC in the future, needing temperatures exceeding j-head capabilities. Still the j-head worked ok, but had a design error internally.

I found out the hard way that using a 0.3mm head with 3mm filament is almost impossible: the required pressure is just to high and only carefully slow extrude works. Switching to a 0.4 head works good. Both ABS and PLA are printing beautifully!

It is remarkable that these e3d copies are sold in china for 7 usd (including sensor and heater) and including shipping and still they work great!

Largest drawback of a e3dv5 is that is cost 20mm printing height. But when using a e3dv6 will cost lest printing height. Also that is needs a fan continuisly - extra noise during print.

I use an E3D v6 and changed the extruder block to gain back most of the lost height. I have used a 0.25mm nozzle with 3m filament and it works fine. I switched the fan for a 40mm one fitted to the carriage which is much quieter than the supplied one.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/2015 07:43PM by Ralph.Hilton.

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Ralph.Hilton
I use an E3D v6 and changed the extruder block to gain back most of the lost height. I have used a 0.25mm nozzle with 3m filament and it works fine. I switched the fan for a 40mm one fitted to the carriage which is much quieter than the supplied one.

Well, I just bought an E3D V6 today (got some money for my birthday a couple days ago). What extruder block and carriage did you use? I am using a Sturdy, so whatever carriage I use would have to take LM10UU bearings.

[www.thingiverse.com]
The carriage would need LM10UU modification.

Quote
Ralph.Hilton
[www.thingiverse.com]
The carriage would need LM10UU modification.

Okay, I got the direct feed version of the V6 instead of the Bowden feed. I found a carriage, though, that uses LM10UU bearings [www.thingiverse.com]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2015 08:00PM by Rich K..

Hi Rich K,
I'm using an E3D V6 on my Mendel90. It works very well. There was no issue with the J-head. I simply wanted to try out some higher temperature materials. I've found that when I run PLA through it (the E3D) I have to raise my usual PLA temperatures by about 15 Deg C or so. I've also found that PLA doesn't change out as cleanly from the E3D as it used to from the J-Head, so I have to purge a bit before printing. I miss how cleanly I could swap PLA colours, when using the j-head. It's no biggie really, but these little things show how sticky pla is over the all metal hotend.
Print quality is good from both.
Regards,
Ivor

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[numbersixreprap.blogspot.com]

I just stumbled upon this thread so I thought it worth putting my two cents worth in. I built a Sturdy and fitted a Hexagon hotend with 1.75mm filament. I have been happy with it but have mainly printed in ABS with just a little PLA. So far no blockages or trouble feeding filaments. I can only compare it with the Makerbot Replicator 2 and 2Xs that I have at work and would appear to be similar results. The Hexagon maybe a little more reliable than the Makerbots. I am using a mirrored Gregs-wades extruder and an x-carriage with a fanmode (40mm fan on side of x-carriage). I mounted the hotend on top of the aluminium plate so the nozzle only protrudes slightly below the fan duct. I am wanted to upgrade the x-carriage to move the fans around.