Common sense suggests me that this has indeed been tried already, we do have a set of taps and dies here. But you have not tried any of the two materials involved: PFA and PEEK, did you?
I do not know if it has been tried before, I had hoped that somebody from UM would occasionally read their own forum... :-(
The move from telfon (PFTE) to PFA was later in the development, and it is a bit stiffer than PFTE, so it might just work.
I agree, I don't think there is a large fundamental difference between the PTFT and the PFA, I think both should be easy to thread... I just happen to have 5m of PTFT, since my original tube got way to short in my uneducated and panic-stricken first 2 weeks of UM ownership. (If anybody in the NYC region needs some PTFT tubing, let me know.)
The PEEK is something that should be gotten rid off as it is hard to source. A setup with a longer stainless tube instead of the brass that can be screwed into an alu heatsink is much more preferable. The ultimaker is not aimed at the gada price, so it is not on a silly energy budget. The extra losses from a heatsink do not weigh up to the simpler construction without PEEK.
I agree, the PEEK is a somehow difficult item, that even as a rod (a 1.6cm rod costs about $1/cm, but there is usually a 30cm min order), which needs to be machined/lathed... but the PEEK offers another benefit: a lower k-value than metal, and mechanical stability. I do assume that it can be machined with metal tools like a thread cutter, but I haven't tried it yet (due to the lack to PEEK in my apartment. I'll think about a construction that doesn't stray from the original parts too much...
(see my other post at http://forum.ultimaker.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=206)
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jelleatprotospace 0
Common sense suggests me that this has indeed been tried already, we do have a set of taps and dies here. But you have not tried any of the two materials involved: PFA and PEEK, did you?
The move from telfon (PFTE) to PFA was later in the development, and it is a bit stiffer than PFTE, so it might just work. The PEEK is something that should be gotten rid off as it is hard to source. A setup with a longer stainless tube instead of the brass that can be screwed into an alu heatsink is much more preferable. The ultimaker is not aimed at the gada price, so it is not on a silly energy budget. The extra losses from a heatsink do not weigh up to the simpler construction without PEEK.
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