E3D All Metal Hotend for Ultimaker

[jonnybischof 60]

I haven't printed with the E3D yet. It still sits in my test setup (a little improved, but basically the same):

Got loads to do at work at the moment. I'm afraid there won't be much progress until the end of the week. But August is nearing - meaning my Ultimaker Black edition will soon see the light of day

 

[ultimore 1]

Need your help. After a few hours of using hotend, I think filament stucked in extruder, I couldnt push filament to the extruder. What can I do? And how to take off tube from the. E3d extruder?

[jonnybischof 60]

To take the Bowden tube out of the E3D hotend, you have to push the little plastic ring down (towards the hotend) and then pull out the Bowden tube.

ATTENTION: Make sure you don't apply too much force on the printer gantry (the 6mm shafts which hold the hotend). If you bend those shafts, then you're in for some replacements...

Now, the interesting question is, why did your hotend clog?

- Did you measure the diameter of your filament (with a precision caliper)? It must be around 2.85mm, and NOT 3.00 mm. Even though it says "3mm filament", it MUST actually be 2.85 +-0.1 mm. Otherwise, it will get stuck in the Bowden tube or even in the hotend.

- Did you install the small fan which cools the heatsink and did you always run it at 100%?

- Is the thermistor mounted correctly / does it show reasonable temperatures?

/edit:

One question to the experts:

How important is it to run the "PID autotune" after switching hotends? Is this function reliable? I have never done it (never actually changed hotends on a printer) myself...

 

[anon4321 16]

I was going to suggest that you turn the small fan off and set the temp to one where the material softens like 160-170 and then see if you can pull the filament out.

Without the small fan on, I suspect that the heat would creep up the hotend soften the material higher up and possibly allow you to remove it.

However, one risk is that some material will stick to areas inside the heatsink not normally hot enough to release the material and you might not be able to get the filament back in. So use the minimum temp and get the filament out as soon as possible so the filament gets soft but not so much that it leaves bits behind.

 

[anon4321 16]

One thing I heard about these E3D ends is they do NOT like retraction. Could that be the reason why the filament go stuck?

I thought that one reason the E3D were good was there was a short thermal transition and as such much less tendency to weep melted filament. So maybe only a tiny bit of retraction is required just to reduce the pressure or none at all...

 

[anon4321 16]

Jonny, I would use PID autotune on the new hotend. It worked really well for JasonHKs heated bed.

 

[jonnybischof 60]

I've also read somewhere that retraction distance should be set much shorter than with the UM original hotend. It was 2.5mm if I remember correctly, but I'm not sure anymore... I'm not at the point where I have to think about settings yet :(

 

[anon4321 16]

Was just looking at their forum. I believe the say start a 0 and work up to a max of 3 to 4 so your 2.5 might be the right number.

 

[ultimore 1]

To take the Bowden tube out of the E3D hotend, you have to push the little plastic ring down (towards the hotend) and then pull out the Bowden tube.

ATTENTION: Make sure you don't apply too much force on the printer gantry (the 6mm shafts which hold the hotend). If you bend those shafts, then you're in for some replacements...

Now, the interesting question is, why did your hotend clog?

- Did you measure the diameter of your filament (with a precision caliper)? It must be around 2.85mm, and NOT 3.00 mm. Even though it says "3mm filament", it MUST actually be 2.85 +-0.1 mm. Otherwise, it will get stuck in the Bowden tube or even in the hotend.

- Did you install the small fan which cools the heatsink and did you always run it at 100%?

- Is the thermistor mounted correctly / does it show reasonable temperatures?

/edit:

One question to the experts:

How important is it to run the "PID autotune" after switching hotends? Is this function reliable? I have never done it (never actually changed hotends on a printer) myself...

 

So the problem was that filament just couldnt het through the tube to the hotend, because of bad tube positioning and i forgot to use blue clamp. Now its okay, but ive broke my thermistor . Can i connect k type thermocouple without dissoldering 4.7k resistor?

 

[anon4321 16]

No, if you go back to the thermocouple, you need to use the amp board and remove the 4.7k resistor.

 

[r4ix 0]

How important is it to run the "PID autotune" after switching hotends? Is this function reliable? I have never done it (never actually changed hotends on a printer) myself...

 

It's very important but not catastrophic if you don't do. PID constants (determined by pid auto tuning) adjust the way the function corrects the deviation of the temperature done. If you tune the constants the temperature will become more stable, and this is important!

It's a simple process, there's no reason to don't do it. Just send "M303 E0 S200 C8" to the printer, you can do that very easy with printrun (mac, for windows i don't remember the name) the soft give you the constants and you can change them within "temperature" menu in LCD display.

Important and easy to do it.

 

[fablab 0]

Hei,

I've found this thread very educational but I have a followup question I didn't find the answer to in the discussion:

I bought the e3d V6, we're trying to install it now but when buying the resistor you have to weld on the UM controller shield I've noticed tat there are different tipes of 4.7k resistors. How many watts does the resistor have to have?

 

[duesentrieb 0]

The wattage is not important for this resistor, because it is only used as constant, see above. Only the value is important. When adding the heated bed I had to do the same and took a bunch of smaller resistors, because I did not have an exact 4.7k one. Worked very well, all of them had the lowest wattage.

 

[anon4321 16]

The worse case power dissipated by the resistor is so low that any resistor will work. Worse case is if the thermistor is 0 ohms which will never occur. Then the current through the resistor is 5V/4.7K or 1.1ma. Power is then current times the voltage drop which is 5V. So 5V * 1.1ma or 5.5mw. The smallest power resistor you would see normally is 1/8watt or 125mw which is much, much high than the actual worse case power which will never happen.

Your best bet is to buy a high precision resistor but you don't need to go crazy with that either. 1% is probably enough since I don't think thermistors have super high accuracy either.

 

[jonnybischof 60]

1% tolerance is ideal. The commonly used standard component is a 1/4 Watts, 1% resistor.

You will have a certain error (most importantly the thermistor value error and the 4.7k resistor error) which will lead to a slight temperature offset.

Meaning temperature readings will always be 1°C too high, or 3°C too low, or something like that. If you have multiple Ultimakers in the same room, you'll notice that.

You can either calibrate that or simply ignore it, the error is negligible...

 

[anon4321 16]

I agree with Jonny, best thing is consistency so if it reads 1C high or 3C low it always reads that way and if the temp is super critical to what is being printed, you know to adjust.

 

[fablab 0]

another question in the E3D installation saga.

I welded the resistor to the motherboard and proceeded in uploading the modified firmware. The upload didn't work until I removed the arduino from the rest of the electronics. The upload was instantaneous after that bunt another problem arose: I can't connect to the printer, I've tried different software with the same result, plus my controller keeps on showing ERROR: MAXTEMP message and then it lights up and I can't use it anymore.

Retracing my steps back, I removed the resistor and installed the initial firmware and now I keep getting a mintemp error.

This is where I welded the resistor and how I connected the thermistor and heat sensor:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f1velfz12v43sh6/DSCN8293.JPG

Do you have any ideas why it's still not working?

 

[r4ix 0]

another question in the E3D installation saga.

I welded the resistor to the motherboard and proceeded in uploading the modified firmware. The upload didn't work until I removed the arduino from the rest of the electronics. The upload was instantaneous after that bunt another problem arose: I can't connect to the printer, I've tried different software with the same result, plus my controller keeps on showing ERROR: MAXTEMP message and then it lights up and I can't use it anymore.

Retracing my steps back, I removed the resistor and installed the initial firmware and now I keep getting a mintemp error.

This is where I welded the resistor and how I connected the thermistor and heat sensor:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f1velfz12v43sh6/DSCN8293.JPG

Do you have any ideas why it's still not working?

 

With a termistor it shows MAX_TEMP error when there's no signal from it. So you should revise all cable conections from the termistor to the board.

With thermocouple you get MINTEMP error when there's no signal, again, i think you have a connection problem in some cable.

If you still have connected the termistor without 4k7 in R23 (as it seems in the pic) it won't work any way. So you MUST have 4k7 resistor in R23 if you want to use termistor, if you don't have you should use thermocouple.

I don't understand why you couldn't upload the modified firmware. You should do it without problem without disconnect the arduino board. Did you compile via internet with this marlin builder or did you modified configuration.h by your self?

You should revise all your cable connections... It seams there's some unconection somewhere...

So, if you want to use thermistor sold again 4k7 resistor in R23 and revise all cable conections, modified the firmware and upload with "install custom firmware" in cura

If you take out the resistor and upload original firmware you should connect thermocouple again.

 

[fablab 0]

With a termistor it shows MAX_TEMP error when there's no signal from it. So you should revise all cable conections from the termistor to the board.

With thermocouple you get MINTEMP error when there's no signal, again, i think you have a connection problem in some cable.

If you still have connected the termistor without 4k7 in R23 (as it seems in the pic) it won't work any way. So you MUST have 4k7 resistor in R23 if you want to use termistor, if you don't have you should use thermocouple.

I don't understand why you couldn't upload the modified firmware. You should do it without problem without disconnect the arduino board. Did you compile via internet with this marlin builder or did you modified configuration.h by your self?

You should revise all your cable connections... It seams there's some unconection somewhere...

So, if you want to use thermistor sold again 4k7 resistor in R23 and revise all cable conections, modified the firmware and upload with "install custom firmware" in cura

If you take out the resistor and upload original firmware you should connect thermocouple again.

 

Thank you for the advice, I found the link you sent very usefull.

I did have the resistor weld, I removed it to see if I would get a different response from the software without it.

I tried uploading the software with arduino, following this tutorial:

 

[r4ix 0]

There's several ways to compile/upload firmware to your ultimaker.

you can either get the hex file and upload with cura or use arduino sofware to compile and upload to the board (i don't know if you need to disconect arduino mega from the main board, i never used this option)

There's few explaniations of how to compile and get hex file in http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4347-how-to-compile-marlin-firmware/ thread, i think the online option is the easiest one.

 

[zoev89 73]

For those with a V6 hotend, how is your experience with PLA printing? Did you have jams? I am thinking of buying a V6 unless I find a good glue to glue small parts printed in PLA without discolouring it. It is quite invasive to modify the printer to use a V6 hotend.

 

[ppope357 0]

Hi

I've recently tried to install the e3d hot end,and keep on getting a maxtemp error. I soldered a 4.7k resistor to r23, updated the firmware to the recommended epcos version as described previously. I've tried to go with the complete e3d system, so am using their thermistor, heater block, nozzle etc.

But I keep getting this error, have checked the connections many times and still fail. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

[zoev89 73]

Can you do a resistance measurement? I don't have the schematic handy but one of the terminals should connect to ground and the other should connect to 5V with the 4k7 resistor. And between you should measure about 100K. If you do that on the board connectors you know if the wire-ring is ok.

 

[ppope357 0]

Hi

Thanks for the response. When I measure the resistance between the two I get about 140 k, which drops as I warm the thermistor in my hand. So that indicates to me the thermistor and wiring at that end are OK - sound fair?

In terms of the connections I have one end on signal and the other end on ground. I allso tried one end on ground and the other on 5v and got the same maxtemp error message.

Does anyone know which is the correct connection? Previously in this thread there is a picture showing the signal and ground connection, so I've assumed that's the way to go.

And secondly does anyone have an idea of what the problem might be?

Many thanks!

 

[anon4321 16]

The correct connection is the thermistor across the outer pins which are gnd and signal. The middle pin is 5V and isn't used with a thermistor.

You should measure 4.7k between the middle %V pin and the signal pin which is towards the power connector without the sensor attached and no power.

See if someone else with a better understanding of thermistors chimes in but 140K sounds high. I thought the typical thermistor used for 3D printers are the 100K types which means they are around 100K at room temperature. So m the unconnected sensor at room temperature and it should be near 100K.