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E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker


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Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

This problem is caused by a faulty heater, because it has a short circuit to the outer shield and in turn to the heater block and thus thermocouple. The only option is to replace it.

Hack fix would be to insulate the heater or thermocouple with some kapton, however it is not recommended.

 

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Just ordered two kits, because my stock hotend is really starting to be a pain. I've wasted a lot of spare parts in a short time now, and I just want something reliable that won't steal hours and hours of troubleshooting when I have important projects to do for work.

    I've read complaints about the tube fittings being bulky. Is there a problem with that?

    Do I need to change the PID settings in my firmware? I suppose there will be some difference in behaviour compared to the stock hotend?

    /edit:

    First impression:

    Very quick order processing from E3D! My order was shipped the day after I ordered (I ordered at lunchtime) and is now on it's way...

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Hi Jonny

    There is no need to change the PID, if you are using the ultimaker block and heater. If you use the E3D, then yes, as the mass is different, and the heater rating, you need to optimise the settings.

    The tube fitting is bulky because they selected a panel mount style with an O seal in the base, so in my design of head it doesn't fit as I wanted the head as close to the linear bearings as possible. In other mounts, you may find this is not a problem. They are cheap enough, any 1/4in fitting will do for the UM bowden, or 6mm if you have changed to 6mmOD-4mmID bowden. I think the thread is 1/8 BSP, but please do check.

    Yes E3D are a refreshing change to dealing with Ultimaker at the moment! They have always been very professional from my dealings with them.

    Andrew

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    I warn all Ultimaker owners to stay away from this hotend. It has been nothing but a giant headache for months. This unreliable hotend has left our two Ultimakers more or less inoperable since January and chewed up 100+ hours of my time. I've used three of these heads on two different machines. Every single one of them jams. I've polished the interior stainless steel surface to a mirror finish but it did not help. I've increased the size of the heater block and snugged the brass nozzle flange against the face of the heater block to increase heat transfer and nozzle temperature stability. I've tried all kinds of PLA filament and every single one of them ends in a hotend jam. Read this thread for more details.

    http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=1682&start=560

    Plenty of people love this head for ABS but for PLA users, beware.

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    I warn all Ultimaker owners to stay away from this hotend. It has been nothing but a giant headache for months. This unreliable hotend has left our two Ultimakers more or less inoperable since January and chewed up 100+ hours of my time. I've used three of these heads on two different machines. Every single one of them jams. I've polished the interior stainless steel surface to a mirror finish but it did not help. I've increased the size of the heater block and snugged the brass nozzle flange against the face of the heater block to increase heat transfer and nozzle temperature stability. I've tried all kinds of PLA filament and every single one of them ends in a hotend jam. Read this thread for more details.

    http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=1682&start=560

    Plenty of people love this head for ABS but for PLA users, beware.

     

    Could it be that you need to adjust your retract settings? I have read that due to the very short hot area and very cool cold area of the hotend, retracting warm molten filament too far back in the chamber will cause it to solidify and jam...

    EDIT:

    Just read a bit of your link, and it talks alot about retract, so I guess you tried messing with that.. sorry

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Can anyone else speak to using this hotend for PLA? I was thinking of buying one but need to print both PLA and ABS.

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    I am able to confirm that E3D has worked for me without problems with both PLA and ABS for 1000+ hours without significant problems.

    My retraction settings using Cura:

    PLA 1.75mm filament, 215deg, 30mm/s retract, 3mm distance

    ABS 1.75mm filament, 235deg, 40mm/s retract, 5.5mm distance

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Well, my hotends are on their way (haven't heard from the post yet... Should arrive tomorrow) and I will definetly try both ABS and PLA.

    I can't really say because I don't have any experience with this hotend yet, but I believe if it doesn't work you just did something wrong...

    I will check about the surface quality. If it looks bad, I will send them back immediately for replacements.

    I will definetly not drill or ream or polish anything, because they clearly state "high quality surface finish" in the online shop. And, for the premium price, I demand premium quality. But it's too early to say just yet. First I need to get them :)

    For now, I still have a good feeling about this hotend and I'm looking forward to testing it.

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Yeah, as I stated earlier in this thread - after several months of tweaking settings, double/triple-checking correct assembly, and dealing with constant clogging... I got rid of the E3D.

    I like the enthusiasm with which they designed it, but I don't think that they tackled the right set of problems to make a great PLA hotend. For other plastics, it seemed fine, but for PLA (and given the cost) I'd much rather use the UBIS (of which I have 3 installed, used for months, and have never had a single problem with) or the Merlin (which others have been excited about).

    Also, as a general note - Switching between ABS and PLA on the same hotend is asking for clogging in my experience. Pick one and own it.

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Yeah, as I stated earlier in this thread - after several months of tweaking settings, double/triple-checking correct assembly, and dealing with constant clogging... I got rid of the E3D.

    I like the enthusiasm with which they designed it, but I don't think that they tackled the right set of problems to make a great PLA hotend. For other plastics, it seemed fine, but for PLA (and given the cost) I'd much rather use the UBIS (of which I have 3 installed, used for months, and have never had a single problem with) or the Merlin (which others have been excited about).

    Also, as a general note - Switching between ABS and PLA on the same hotend is asking for clogging in my experience. Pick one and own it.

     

    Are you printing 3mm or 1.75 mm filament?

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    3mm

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Anyone have any opinions about what appears to be an E3 clone made by reprapdiscounts?

    http://www.reprapdiscount.com/hotends/67-hexagon-hotend-set.html

    These are the only comments I could find about it on the web.

    http://forums.robo3dprinter.com/index.php?threads/hexagon-hot-end.1888/

    edit: here is a comparison shot of the hexagon to the e3 and some others. (Taken from this thread http://www.soliforum.com/topic/4491/reprapdiscount-bulldog-allmetal-extruder-project-not-hotend/ )

    UQKIhVI.jpg

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Interesting to see that there are this many "similar" hotends on the market...

    I keep reading about how people have to ream, polish and clean these hotends inside. What's with that? I'm definetly not going to lay my hands on the insides of the E3D hotend! First, I don't have the tools, second, I pay a premium price for a premium product (they do state that in the online-shop: "High quality surface finish").

    Any experiences with that?

    I still haven't received anything from the post (#°¦@|¢!!), seems I have to investigate -.-

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    The inside needs to as clean and polished as possible to reduce friction.

    That is why many hot-ends used PTFE tubes inside - low friction to the melted plastic and hi melting point of it's own.

    I suspect this will be one area where a cheap clone will not properly do the required work to reduce cost --- You the user will probably never look or know but the performance of the head will suffer.

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Oh I will look, and if it looks bad, it goes back to the manufacturer. If I ever get it in the first place. The British post sucks.

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    The inside needs to as clean and polished as possible to reduce friction.

    That is why many hot-ends used PTFE tubes inside - low friction to the melted plastic and hi melting point of it's own.

    I suspect this will be one area where a cheap clone will not properly do the required work to reduce cost --- You the user will probably never look or know but the performance of the head will suffer.

     

    I haven't been able to find anything bad written about the Hexagon hot end. Some people even say it is has a sharper temperature gradient (which I guess is better). Besides, the E3D doesn't have a PTFE tube.

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    The E3D is all about not needing a PTFE tube...

    I wouldn't switch away from the Ultimaker hotend if I didn't think it was necessary. I think that the Ultimaker hotend, being built out of several different components that all touch the filament, is just too unreliable.

    I've had problems with clogging over and over with the UM hotend, so now I want a "solid state" solution which will deliver steady and reliable performance. It can't be that difficult...

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    I haven't had any technical problems with the stock hot end, but I have been wanting to start printing in nylon. I also want another print head for small detailed parts.

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Hi Guys,

    Just thought I'd drop in and let you know we've released our new v6 hotend, which is smaller, easier, and generally better performing. There's a 10% off promo for the first few days too.

    I'm particularly excited about what the 3mm bowden product means for UM users, as it carves a huge amount of bulk of the hotend by using embedded couplers. The UM mounting designs are by far some of the most polished and well thought out mounts I've seen for E3D hotends and I hope the v6 can serve to make things even better.

    As is always the case with E3D products, if you're having problems just get in touch. We stand behind our stuff and if it doesn't work properly we'll make it right. Everybody who has comes to us with problems through the support system gets supported into a working situation, even if that means replacements. We've had some reliability niggles in the past, we've pulled out all the stops to eliminate them from the manufacturing process in v6.

    You can find a blog post of all the gory details that went into v6 here:

    http://e3d-online.com/index.php?route=extras/blog/getblog&blog_id=21

    Sanjay

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Will V6 bolt directly on to Ultimaker2?

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Aaaah great -.-

    I've just bought 2 E3Dv5 hotends and am in the process of designing a printhead for them...

    Looks neat though!

    Btw. I finally got my parcel (the post forgot it in their storage...).

    Haven't tried the v5 hotends yet but they seem perfectly fine.

    One question about v6:

    There was some talk about the E3D nozzles needing to be drilled out in order to work properly (especially with PLA). Has this been fixed for v6?

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Is there any loss of performance or reliability with using the UM1 alu block and heater and thermocouple?

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    So you also mean to tell me v5 nozzles wont fit the v6 hotend?

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Chuck

    You'll need to add a new printed XY carriage to get it on, so not quite a bolt on and go, but no a massive overhaul either. There are some E3D-v6 mounts out there on thingiverse, but these may not fit v6 due to new smaller size of v6. This one looks like it should work quite well though.

    I'm happy to support the creators of the original v4/v5 mounts in creating a v6 ready mount. If anyone who has designed mounts for the previous E3D ends would like to do an update, i'm happy to get them out some free parts to support the cause.

    Jonny

    Some users, mainly 1.75mm Bowden users with relatively weak ungeared extruders had trouble with generating enough pressure for completely reliable flow. Quite a lot of 1.75mm bowden users were just fine however, the data is a little noisy, we've done testing and have had a hard time making them jam or underperform. Some extra variable somewhere.

    However in v6 we essentially "drilled out" the nozzles by default - you can see drawings of this on the individual nozzle pages on our site. We've also overhauled the heat-break manufacturing process for a fantastically smooth surface finish inside. This should make prior issues go away.

    Anon431

    Not really, I'm not sure how good their heater cartridge contact is, ours might be a little bit better, I'm not sure. The thermocouple should perform well too, so all in all I see no reason not to use the stock UM block in place of the E3D block. It certainly simplifies wiring and firmware. By simplifies, it means you have to make zero wiring or firmware changes, other than running the fan wires to the UM power supply 12v rail. (Are UM2 now on 24v?)

    Tommy

    A v5 nozzle will fit on a v6 just fine, v6 nozzles are a bit better in a few areas, but your v5 nozzle will work just fine on a v6. You can also use v6 nozzles just fine on v5 and v4 hotends. All fine.

     

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    Posted · E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

    Weeelll, I'd be very willing to design a v6 printhead for the Ultimaker if you can send me a v6 hotend for free :)

    I'm not a pro level designer like for example Nick Foley, but I think I'm not doing so bad with my E3Dv5 design:

    E3Dv5 Printhead V0 1E3Dv5 Printhead V0 2E3Dv5 Printhead V0 3E3Dv5 Printhead V0 4V0.5 assembly cura 1V0.5 assembly cura 2V0.5 parts print orientation 1V0.5 parts print orientation 2

    Will be adding some more pictures in the next minutes. (Note: my V0 is pretty outdated by now, it looks a lot better already ;)

     

    My aim is to create a solid and easy-to-print design which is still as small and lightweight as possible. I'm somewhat limited with complex shapes because I work with Google Sketchup 8, but so far it went quite well. I will share the source files and offer support (via youmagine) if someone has problems with my design.

    My stock hotend started to misbehave again yesterday, so I will press on with the v5 design in order to switch hotends as soon as possible.

    Glad to hear about the nozzle situation. The Ultimaker1 doesn't exactly have a weak extruder, so I think I'll just leave my nozzle as it is and try it.

    /edit:

    Is it possible to put a new heatbreak into a v5 hotend?

    I have two brand new v5's here which I definetly want to use...

     

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