Barrel, Can it be drilled for airflow

Hey guys,

Just wondering if any of you Drill venting holes in the side of the barrel or your hotend setup?

I was thinking this may help cool the top section better to prevent pla from expanding

But if it does expand it will get into the holes and jam solid.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

do you think its worth a try? or am i wasting my time, when i touch my barrel its pretty damm warm.
besides fans blowing over it, what else could i try?
thanks

What about a peltier plate in conjunction with a big heat sink and fan cooling the hot side?

has any one tried one with a all metal hotend to keep the top barrel cool?

If you have a big heatsink and a fan that is already enough to keep the cold end of an all metal hotend cool.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

What is your "layers" in order in your heated bed?

wood-heater-glass ??

No metal plate?

As for my printbed, i use ceramic, has some magnets on the base so it can be attached and removed easy.


I have been running a a 12 volt fan on 6 volts for half the rpm, I will print out a duct and try that

I have been reading some of the posts about the all metal hotends for some while and all the issues they are meant to address (they certainly look tempting!)
I hear terms like "short melt zones", "transition areas", "aggressive cooling", "thermal breaks" etc. Blimey!

Anyway, just for fun, I thought I'd design a new hot-end that breaks all of the above (so called) rules. My new, bullet shape, hotend is (almost) all metal, it has no cooling fins, no active cooling fan, no thermal break and a long melt zone. Why does it not melt the extruder? Because it's not attached to it as such. The whole thing is suspended ridgidly and therefore has no lateral movement. I have a fan aimed at the extruder body (where the idler bearing sits) to draw any heat away but that's always been there.

Well, I really didn't know what to expect initially but so far, after a few weeks of printing, there have been no issues with it and the prints are good - I even switched the extruder fan off for one (PLA) job and had no problems with heat - maybe I would use it for ABS though.
I will continue using it!

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Waitaki 3D Printer

waitaki ...
Can you show us pictures of your hotend?

Sure, will do later Novato

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2013 06:30AM by waitaki.

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Waitaki 3D Printer

I'm very curious too about your hotend Waitaki. If what you say is true about turning the fan off and printing PLA, then you might have found the «perfect» hot end, because many of them have quite a hard time to print PLA even with a fan.

Looking forward to see it!

woodencase01 Wrote:
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> I'm very curious too about your hotend Waitaki. If
> what you say is true about turning the fan off and
> printing PLA, then you might have found the
> «perfect» hot end, because many of them have
> quite a hard time to print PLA even with a fan.
>
> Looking forward to see it!

Ah, you need to understand that it's the barrel cooling fan I'm droning on about, not the printed part cooling fan. In the pictures you will see a white "claw" shaped fan shroud which is used to supposedly cool the print. Having said that, it's rather wide so has minimal effect one would have thought on cooling small parts. A fan is usually only needed with PLA for such small parts. However, seeing as you mentioned it....I thought I'd try something with no fan.
I selected a small part to print - in this case the small Wades extruder gear. I reduced temp from 185C to 175C (silver PLA I am trying out) and disconnected the part cooling fan. - 0.2mm layer height, slic3r, and it printed fine. Crikey!
Obviously, pointy objects would need a fan for sure.
I should add, that none of these parts were made using a lathe - part of the criteria I set myself. A pillar drill is all I used + hand tools.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2013 05:02AM by waitaki.

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Waitaki 3D Printer

novato Wrote:
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> waitaki ...
> Can you show us pictures of your hotend?

Thanks for asking on my behalf novato!

waitaki, I've been wondering about your hot end since you mentioned it. Amazing. We are slowly moving away from fastening the hot end to the extruder via the small 16mm hole. That never worked so good(Sorry Adrian!"") I suspended mine like you did yours, but put a stuby PTFE ring where you have an air gap to keep the parts aligned. I like your idea better!

I see a lot of potential in this.

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Yvan

Singularity Machine

Okay so i fully dismantled one of my hot ends, proceeded to drill, i dont think it will have much of an effect.


The barrel is peek, and inside the peek it ptfe tube that connects to the hotend block and tip while the peek barrel screws over.

I hope this makes sense.


The only way i can see this working is by drilling multiple small holes on the exterior barrel, cause less heat being able to travel up the ptfe tube..
other than that, iv ordered a few all metal hotend, just waiting on them to arrive .

If the PEEK block is a lot sturdier than needed, small holes might not be enough to weaken it much...

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Yvan

Singularity Machine