I want to revive my mendel90 dibond with a hot end upgrade - I want to use 1.75mm filament. What's the best way to go about it in 2021? Is e3d v6 the way to go?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2021 05:18AM by Razorconcepts.

You can fit an E3D V6 but you lose some Z height as it is significantly longer and the fan duct won't fit.

There are STLs on github for an alternative Wades block that loses less height and a shallower fan duct and a different fan bracket to clear the hot end fan. [github.com]

You also have to provide permanent 12V to the hot end fan by connecting the positive to the 12V heater connection and negative to the pin intended for a probe and the ground the spare wire at the Melzi end.

You would then have the issue that the feed path though the Wades block is for 3mm filament. It will probably work with stiff filaments as is or you could regenerate the STL with a smaller filament path, or perhaps line it with a PTFE tube. That might allow 1.75mm flexibles to be printed as well but I have never tried it on my Mendel90's.

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

You can get E3D and Titan clones on Ebay now that are functional. Another way to go is a dual gear BMG extruder with various hotends which is again cheap on Ebay..
My Mendel90 got stripped down for rebuild after a second Melzi board failed. Design changes keep happening so it is waiting on parts again. I replaced the top of the gantry with extrusion for Z space with E3D/Titan combo some years back.