What did I miss?

[ultifay 0]

After about half a year of letting my Ultimaker collect dust, I decided to revive it to do some projects that I've been wanting to do for a while now. I was of course very excited to see how much Cura has been improved (thanks Daid!), but I'm also wondering about the hardware changes. Can anybody give advice on what to

 

• 
  [*:1tzkn0yj]Fan duct - I replaced the standard fan duct with a fan from thingiverse (

thing:17768), assuming it would be better. Even back then I had no idea whether it improved performance (didn't do any structural tests). Original, 17768 or other suggestions?
[*:1tzkn0yj]Hotend v2 - I never had any plugs at all, so I wonder whether this upgrade has any added value (does it make a difference for retraction?).
[*:1tzkn0yj]Extruder drive v2 - looks worth the investment... As far as print quality goes, is this doing more than simply adding the Quick Connect Shim?

 

Any other things that I missed? Cheap/easy heated beds?

Thanks!

still confused about the status of this 'official' forum versus the google groups (which is where most of the officials hang out?) btw!

[IRobertI 517]

For the fan duct I'm a fan of this one:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:21182

The new hotend was created to prevent the plugging problem so if your original is working fine there is no reason to change it.

The extruder drive upgrade is well worth it though IMHO as it makes retraction much more reliable. The shim and the new feeder aren't related at all, both are good to have though.

For the hotbed someone (sorry, I've forgotten who it was, doh!) tipped us about this thing which looks pretty good. It's not a complete solution though:

http://store.qu-bd.com/product.php?id_product=30

The forum situation is in a state of flux at the moment. A new forum software is being beta tested and will replace this when it's ready. But I don't think they'll shut down the google groups (seems quite a few people are dead set on using their e-mail clients instead of forums. Personally I can't see the reason but hey, people are different ) so it'll continue to be two split communities.

[illuminarti 18]

For the longest time I never had any hot end plugs, then after a few months I started to get them - not sure if it was due to wear in the hot end/bowden, or was when I started using new filaments with, perhaps, different properties. But the combination of the v2 hotend and the new extruder upgrade (and v3 extruder bolt) have pretty much totally eliminated them. The new bolt with better teeth, and the spring loaded pressure plate help to ensure consistent feeding of the filament without too much deformation, even if the filament diameter changes a little.

I like the Owen's Fan Duct (

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:32491

) - or his earlier version perhaps if you don't upgrade to the v2 hotend. I started to go with the fan duct you printed, but I saw some suggestions online that it might not be the most effective design a) because it gets in the way of cleaning/maintaining the head and b) the output opening is too small relative to the fan input - the stock fan design can't really generate much pressure (as I understand it) so having a small output opening is counter productive.

 

After about half a year of letting my Ultimaker collect dust, I decided to revive it to do some projects that I've been wanting to do for a while now. I was of course very excited to see how much Cura has been improved (thanks Daid!), but I'm also wondering about the hardware changes. Can anybody give advice on what to

 

• 
  [*:1zwgsdzx]Fan duct - I replaced the standard fan duct with a fan from thingiverse (

thing:17768), assuming it would be better. Even back then I had no idea whether it improved performance (didn't do any structural tests). Original, 17768 or other suggestions?
[*:1zwgsdzx]Hotend v2 - I never had any plugs at all, so I wonder whether this upgrade has any added value (does it make a difference for retraction?).
[*:1zwgsdzx]Extruder drive v2 - looks worth the investment... As far as print quality goes, is this doing more than simply adding the Quick Connect Shim?

 

Any other things that I missed? Cheap/easy heated beds?

Thanks!

still confused about the status of this 'official' forum versus the google groups (which is where most of the officials hang out?) btw!

[Daid 303]

I also still have a V1 hotend in my machine, works fine for me. But the V2 hotend has some advantages, if you want to play with different nozzles sizes then you can order some extra nozzles, and those are much easier to exchange in the V2 hotend. The V2 hotend is also less likely to leak.

The extruder upgrade is awesome. Bertho's idea on this works great ("Bertho's extruder upgrade" on thingiverse is the father of the upgrade) I highly recommend it on any machine.

Fan ducts is always a tough one, what works for one doesn't work for someone else, and most ducts are designed for the V1 hotend, where the V2 hotend has the heaterblock a few mm lower.

[ultifay 0]

Thanks for the input guys! Looks like I'm gonna upgrade the extruder driver (Bertho's at thing:26094). As I understand it I will still need the shim then? From the google groups, thing:24363 looks good.

[Daid 303]

The shim never hurts, but I have never used it myself.