Custom heater block to fit E3D nozzle on Ultimaker 2 ("The Olsson Block")

[meduza 191]

First print with 0.8mm E3D Nozzle, UltiArjans https://youmagine.com/designs/um2-minimalist-front-panel, printed at 0.4mm layer height at about 45mm/s speed.

 

[ultiarjan 1,223]

ha ha, with the 0.8 nozzle the ultibot really becomes minimalistic

 

[swordriff 119]

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:132498

 

 

This is a trial print using E3D 0.30mm nozzle on an UM2 (worlds overall best 3d printer).

 

PLA , 215, 40mm/s, layer 0,2 (!!). Fill 100%. PLA: Ultimaker original GOLD 2.85mm.

 

Support everywhere, Lines, 0 degrees, Fill amount 10, Distances 0.8 and 0.2.

 

2 min support removal.

Some of the stuff is smaller than the nozzle, which is why it looks like the Dragon suffers from Lepra.

The detail dots right below the edge of the table are crummy, I think because I used a too far Z (and also X) distance for my minimal support material.

LIke it is now, it tried to print this "dots" upside - down.

Will try a safer configuration, and a smaller layer height!

 

[gixxer 1]

Just received my first prototype heater block!

Fresh out the machine shop. Had to make one adjustment off the drawing but worked really well.

Haven't had much of a chance to test it in anger yet but the first thing I noticed was how much I had to lower my temps! Using the light blue PLA ultimaker filament which has always been a pain for underextruding at anything lower that 255, I was having to go down to 220!

Will hopefully post some pics later off the block and the fan mount mod. With some pics of some prints to follow on Monday.

[gixxer 1]

Ok here are some are some pics of the heater block install.

Sorry about the blurry image. I had to extend the slot for the cartridge clamp by hand to gain enough pressure on the heater and temp sensor.

 

Here you can see the 3mm hole for the M2 clamp bolt. Something which I missed in my design originally that Anders pointed out. This prevents the heater block from rotating.

 

 

Inevitably the design is very similar to that of Anders one but there are little options if you want to be as plug and play as possible. The only significant difference is in the heater clamp.

 

I've had limited time to test but did give the 0.8mm ago, which I was surprised to find required lots of adjustment flow control. Great on the solid first few layers at about 70% flow then had to increase to 105% for the walls. However this was on the sprialize mode.

 

Tried a 0.4 next which considering the filament I was using which I'd had so many problems with in the past, it worked very well. Nice glass like top surfaces and great flow even at temps of 210 (50mm/s). That shocked me the most. Previously to get a solid top surface with the light blue UM pla I'd have to slow it down and run at 255+ with 110%+ flow.

 

I hope to get some pics of prints Monday.

 

Just to note. I don't have any intention of selling any blocks as Anders if very similar. If ether Anders or Swordriff want the Inventor or pdf files to make one or sell many I'd be happy to share.

 

[meduza 191]

@UltiArjan: Yep, it all becomes very minimalistic, on the other hand with 0.8mm nozzle and 0.4mm layer height the print time was only about 1,5h at 30% fill, 1,6mm shell and 1,2mm top & bottom, compared to the 4,5h it would have taken with 0.4mm nozzle, 0.2mm layer height and the rest left at the same settings

I have a plan to do some tests with 0.3 and 0.25mm nozzle also and see what kind of detail i can get with those

 

[gixxer 1]

Yes I to am looking forward to playing with the 0.25mm nozzle. Don't think it's going to be used that much by myself though. I'm mostly printing prototypes of our plant equipment and although it could be useful in some prints the print time would take forever.

Longest print so far was 72h with the standard nozzle so I dread to think what that would have been at 0.25mm. I'd really love to show you some of these but as Robert says NDA's are a bitch.

[ultiarjan 1,223]

@UltiArjan: Yep, it all becomes very minimalistic, on the other hand with 0.8mm nozzle and 0.4mm layer height the print time was only about 1,5h at 30% fill, 1,6mm shell and 1,2mm top & bottom, compared to the 4,5h it would have taken with 0.4mm nozzle, 0.2mm layer height and the rest left at the same settings

I have a plan to do some tests with 0.3 and 0.25mm nozzle also and see what kind of detail i can get with those

 

I like 0.6 / 0.8 mainly for stuff like spiralised vases, but when I get anders block i'm sure i'll change much more also for fast prototyping, specially for mechanical stuff its good enough. i'm usually not a very patient person

 

[swordriff 119]

Puh.... I need sleep. This is beginning to confuse me.

How making your own block can take down printing temperature from the 250is to the 210s,

I mean that FANTASTIC. Devolian even, to borrow a phrase...I´ll call Stockholm in the morning!

it´s, it´s, ... eh.. ehemm.. cool! Yes, very COOL!

Good night!

[Anders Olsson 136]

I really enjoy reading about you playing with the new heater blocks! :smile:

It reminds me of when I got my first prototype heater block and stayed up all night to test all the new exciting possibilities. :smile:

Now it feels like that exchangeable nozzle has always been there, but still it is something that makes my printer more useful and my life easier.

I hope I did not sound too much like I was complaining about Ultimaker in my previous post by the way, I just tried to explain why things went this route.

gixxer

Check that you have some space between the heater block and the fan cap.

If they are touching you might get all sorts of extrusion issues.

I would also recommend you to turn down the tube that sticks through the fan cap a bit. It was very tight on my first prototype too, it worked better after it was turned down to 7 mm.

You might want to be a bit careful making your design public before you tested it properly. Some people have a tendency to copy without noticing the word "prototype" and then they come back complaining when it did not work. At least for me that can really kill my inspiration, so I prefer not to make things public until they are well tested.

Your drop in extrusion temperature could be because you changed sensor with the block and that the old one was faulty I guess? 255 C for PLA sounds a bit high to me.

 

[ultiarjan 1,223]

I'm sure something else is wrong in his case, printing 255 PLA is very much abnormal, broken temp sensor? clogging ? issue with the feeder ?

 

[gixxer 1]

Dam did I weight all that on my phone!

I need sleep!

[Anders Olsson 136]

Sleep? nahh, no time for that :smile:

In general, I experienced a bit higher maximum extrusion rates with my heater block and possibly that I could print at 10 degrees lower and so, but it depends. If you run the fans at full speed they seem to affect the extrusion in some cases for example.

If anyone decide to mount the UMO-nozzle (which fits), the fans might have quite an impact on the nozzle temperature, that remains to be properly tested.

The blue PLA that came with my Ultimaker a year ago is really quite strange by the way.

I had to go up from 210 to 230 C when the fans started with that one to avoid underextrusion, but I haven't experienced anything like that with any other PLA or ABS (?), so I am starting to believe that the blue PLA is cursed :???:

Meduza appears to have been printing at more than 14mm3/s with he 0.8 mm nozzle, that is impressive! :smile:

I have pushed it that far too, but for ABS I think 10-12mm3/s feels like a good compromise, it is still way faster than anything I could do with the 0.4 mm nozzle anyway.

I haven't tried the 0.25 mm nozzle much really, so I am looking forward to read about your experiments.

It was a bit difficult to get ABS to stick to the platform with the 0.25 mm nozzle for some reason, so at the time I needed to print small I went for the 0.3 mm instead, which worked fine.

After that I have not really had any need to go smaller than 0.3 mm, so that remains unexplored for me.

Printing times gets quite ridiculous too when you go that small, so you really need a good reason, or a very small object, for doing that :smile:

The 0.3 mm saved me a few times though, so that one is highly recommended by me!

Regarding the fan cap clearance, here are two photos:

I decided now it is time to sacrifice that nozzle for science, so I just started a 3 hour print with Carbon Fiber PLA at 0.02 mm layer height :smile:

Did you try the printable nozzle torque wrench by the way, gixxer?

 

[meduza 191]

Yep the extrusion speed was quite high, i actually wrote "about 45mm/s" above since i sliced it for 50mm/s and dialed the speed down right to were i was able to get rid of underextrusion, but forgot exactly how many percent that was, but it was impressevly fast

[chrisr 18]

Reading through these recent posts I really can't wait for my heater blocks to arrive. I'm as excited about these as I was when I got my UM2. It feels like having a new printer all over again :grin:

Anders and swordriff, you two have a lot to answer for :grin:

 

[gixxer 1]

That blue pla that came with the UM2 that's the stuff. I've not hat underextrusion with any other filament ABS,PLA, NYLON, XT, Copper fill or PET but that blue stiff is poor.

I've not tried your printable nozzle torque wrench as yet but it's at the top of the list. I just used an adjustable to nip up the tips been very careful not to go to far.

I was very surprised how much force I could put on the little M2 clamp that holds the sensor and heater in my block before I opened out the cut. Thought to would have stripped the thread. I had a small nut as plan B but didn't need it.

[gixxer 1]

Have you managed to strip the threads on the tips Anders or was the printable nozzle torque wrench part of the project from the start?

Great work on that but the way.

[Anders Olsson 136]

I don't think you strip the nozzle thread easily, something else probably bends or breaks first.

These non flexible metal to metal seals are quite difficult to tighten I think, even though I have a lot of hands on experience working with similar things.

The torque wrench was just something that popped up in my head two weeks ago.

The prototype worked surprisingly well and I realized this could be quite a nice accessory for the heater blocks.

Since it potentially can reduce the failure rate, I thought it was worth putting some effort in optimizing the design so that "anyone" can print it, and then make it available for free.

:smile:

The torque wrench actually has quite some future potential for lab-use so it is something I will probably redesign and reuse for other purposes.

 

[titanoid 4]

Anders, youre doing such great work with all that research and engineering - and releasing your outcome into the wild, so that others can benefit from that.

Thanks a lot!

I can hardly wait for holding the block in my hands. They have not been dispatched yet, or did I miss something?

 

[Anders Olsson 136]

I think swordriff is just about to ship them, if he did not already do it.

Shipping the heater blocks from Sweden to Norway took one week (!) for some reason this time, that is why you have to wait a bit, sorry for that.

I need to catch a plane at 6 AM, so I hope swordriff can sort things out.

 

[gr5 2,189]

@fixxer - So are you saying the *same* blue filament that used to need 250C now needs only 210C? And the only change was the nozzle? If so then the nozzle may have a slightly larger hole (.45mm?) or your old nozzle had a partial clog. It's common to see burnt PLA on the outside of the nozzle turn into a thin black/brown surface. The same thing can happen on the inside of the nozzle. It can be cleaned by burning it off but you have to take the nozzle off. Now with your new design it's much easier!

 

[gixxer 1]

I don't think there was a partial clog as I changed to a new standard UM block just days before I fitted the custom specifically to try the problematic blue filament for the purpose of a good comparison. It was the same. Printing at 50mm/s required 250+ to close off top surfaces. The custom solved this.

Could the 0.4 tip from E3D actually be a 0.45? This is a possibility. I ordered two of each size so I'll give the other 0.4mm a go on Monday.

[swordriff 119]

I am being PM´d by people asking if the Block can fix underextrusion, and I think maybe some folks believe this and do not ask.

Good question!

YES! The Block will solve underextrution problems IF YOUR EXISTING block/nozzle was the ONLY issue in your printer (clogged, improperly inserted sensors, improperly mounted block).

Underextrusion is a large subject covered elsewhere here, but I repeat some keywords, in arbitrary order:

Temp sensor, sensor connection, heater connection, PCB connection, heater,

high printing temperature, low printing temperature, swapping material,

extruder jamming, bad filament, nozzle cleaning, printing speed, cura nozzle settings, cura settings.

If I had to chose one single subject: atomic method, check it first.

The Block has started shipping. We are waiting for some high quality nozzles to arrive before the biggest batch can ship. Thank you for your patience.

[gixxer 1]

I think we need to be cautious saying that these custom blocks would solve underextrusion problems at all without further testing.

We also need to identify the differences between the custom block to the standard. The first key differences (that could affect extrusion rates) that I think we could put some numbers on are:

Mass of block with 0.4mm nozzle tip in.

Length of melt zone from the top of the block to the tip of the fully inserted nozzle tip (again using the same 0.4mm tip)

The other variable would be internal nozzle geometry, easy for the E3D nozzle but I don't think there was much on the internals of the standard block in the open source file.

I'll get the melt zone length for my block for you tomorrow but the weight will not be accurate as the block has been used.

Do you think swordriff or Anders that you could take some measurements?

I have an unused standard block in work that I'll measures up tomorrow also.

[swordriff 119]

Good point!

a new block will not help underextrusion unless

the old one is blocked, and depending on the reason why the old

one is blocked, the new one will block also.

An endlessly long meltzone length will totally stop retraction, depening on temp.

A too short meltzone will hinder extrusion, depending on temp

and speed. Something inbetween will work depending on material, printing speed,

temperature and retraction policy.