Hotend with ceramic parts

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to share my developments up to now using a ceramic heat issolator(also called the nozzle holder) to see if this would work.

If your interested please check out my article on it:

http://3dobjectifying.blogspot.tw/2012/12/ceramic-hotend-part-1.html


Cheers,
hp

Cool job using the ceramic. Do you think you could remove the need for PTFE if the inside was polished or finished with some sort of glaze?

When I first started building a 3D printer I looked at several materials to make the hot end insulator from, but settled for the time being on PEEK. However, your explorations have got me looking at one that I considered before - cuttlefish bone.

I have just tried out cuttlefish bone for it's thermal properties and was mightily impressed: I set up a block of cuttlefish bone 25mm thick with a 25mm deep hole 12.5 mm from the bottom surface and a type K thermocouple in the hole. A similar block of expanded polystyrene was made. Both blocks were put on a heated bulld stage whcih was then brought up to 100 degrees over a period on 30 minutes. The temperature in the polystyrene rose by 50 degrees over this time, but only by 38 degrees in the cuttlefish bone.

At the same time as this trial, I put a 800 degree F (426 C) soldering iron on another block of cuttlefish bone - after half an hour there was a little discolouration, but no deformation - and the heated surface could be touched immefiately.

Let's face it, cuttlefish bone is mechanically quite wimpy, but perhaps a shell of Kapton would make it a contender.

Mike

Hi jzatopa,

so yesterday i got a new batch of nozzle holders, check out the link: http://i.imgur.com/deeoH.jpg

you cannot see it on the picture, but its a version with some precise polished ID, so hopefully testing goes well.

my latest design i want to shoot for is an 100% ceramic hotend: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ETE5LSZNx1A/UOlJDfBUaVI/AAAAAAAACxw/f34uD68deMs/s1600/100procentceramic.png

with a 0.5mm orfice. hope this will work for me

cheers,
hp_

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2013 12:58PM by hp_.

Really hope this works out. It is such an elegant design. And it will not require ABS to be used for the mount.

Perhaps part of the problem you are seeing is that the heat chamber (brass) is too short and so the filament does not have enough time to heat and melt properly. Just a thought.

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to mention that i'm now printing without a ptfe liner in the ceramic hotend. printing with 3mm PLA fillament.

the new ceramic holder(ID=3.2mm) was extra polished upto an ID of 3.4mm

checkout the youtube clip below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXvNLvI4GA

and image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/n60qlpqpgjj7b0n/DSCF9209.JPG

the Letter R printed really nice, I got it from thingiverse.

I've used a stronger motor here and plus the polished ceramic piece made this happen!
more testing will be done of-course..

cheers,
hp

Great project!

Any updates?