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

[skinny-kid 65]

Had the pleasure of getting my new Olson block and i2k isolator today and as an added bonus got to meet GR5 and talk to Swordriff on the phone while I was there. :-P GR5 helped me get new block installed and showed me a few tricks with my machine.

The hole for the temp sensor was a bit too small so we drilled it out a tad and got it to fit nice and snug (no foil needed!) The heater cartridge slid in easily and both secured well with the lock washer when the screw was tightened down.

Back home and printing with no issues. The design of this block is fabulous and I am thrilled at how easy it is to change nozzles. It is also nice to know that if needed the temp sensor and heat cartridge can be removed without too much headache. Highly recommend getting this block.

I am looking forward to playing with the different size nozzles.

 

[Labern 774]

Just started a new topic for my fan shroud here: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/10554-um2-fan-shroud-replacement/?p=102188

 

[3dnerd 6]

@Skinny Kid:

coud you share with us the tricks GR5 showed you?

 

[swordriff 119]

Yes! Gr5 has tought us everything we know about the UM2, it is about time he teaches us everything HE knows about it....Haha!

[skinny-kid 65]

@Skinny Kid:

coud you share with us the tricks GR5 showed you

 

Well most of it he has written out here, but it was very nice to see a few things in person, especially for someone new to 3d printing. He showed me correct spacing for isolator and heat block, went over taking head apart, helped me get temp sensor and heater cartridge out of block, showed me how he levels the bed making sure springs were good and snug before getting bed level. We discussed gcode and how commands work (which is new to me). He also applied glue to the bed to show me how he does it. I was basically not putting almost any glue on. He put on a layer of Elmers wood glue and water (1:10 ratio) that looked thick but dried much thinner and almost clear. Prints stick very well this way. For a seasoned printer it wasn't probably anything new, but for me it was very informative.

I also got to see the UM Go....man it's tiny! lol and his original UM. He also had an array of impressive prints that I got to look over. Our conversation also wandered into filaments and new products being released.....a 3d nerd's dream....lol

 

Yes! Gr5 has tought us everything we know about the UM2, it is about time he teaches us everything HE knows about it....Haha!

 

Sorry been sworn to secrecy! :mrgreen: The man is a walking vault of info and it's always nice to know I have a chance to get spare parts/nozzles etc not too far from home.

 

[swordriff 119]

I have started a new thread under "Modifications and Hacks".

Please help me test an item.

 

[Labern 774]

Hey guys

3Dsolex now has steel jet nozzles. Wohoo!

I have some ordered to try out on some colorfabb carbon fiber, glowfill and bronzefill.

they are jet ones so should be good for cold pulls to clear out the fiber gunk and blockages.

Go check em out in their store.

[bob-hepple 59]

Got a question about the tool to remove the Nozle could I adapt it to fit in a electric screw driver (small low rpm) I have a condition that makes it very very difficult to use my hand to screw the Nozle in by Hand. I had thought of producing a shank and gluing it to the handle but not sure if I use Cyno it would be strong enough. Thoughts.?

[swordriff 119]

Hey Bob!

Do you mean to remove/attach Nozzle to the Olsson Block?

Yes, you can use s slow battery-electric tool!

The nozzle/block threading is much MUCH tougher than you think, so dont worry.

You can use more force on the little screwdriver and screw holding the cartridges as well!

Anything else, glad to help!

 

[meduza 191]

Bob: I'll think that the easiest thing would be to use a electric screw driver and just use a 1/4" hex bit to 1/4" square socket adapter and fit a 7mm socket on that.

Most electric screwdrivers already have a torque limiting function, so use that instead of the printed tool and set that to a low value (target torque is about 0.3mm but can vary in quite a large range without problems)

[swordriff 119]

Bob! If you break it I will help you with a new block! Do not worry! Make it work, relax.!

 

[swordriff 119]

Steel nozzles are delayed, sorry! They are really hard to get right.

The "I2K" wafers have been shipped to everyone.

[fvilliers 0]

Hi folks,

Hope this question hasn't been asked already, sorry if it has.

I need to switch back and forth quite often between the different nozzles, and I was wondering if I could use this as an oportunity to soak the nozzles in acetone, just to make sure they are good as new when I put them back on.

I've warped my printer with plastique to keep some heat in when printing ABS, and I don't feel like taking everything off just to perform the atomic clean, so to me this would be a nice alternative...

- Would that cause any harm to the nozzle?

- Would that be usefull at all?

Thanks

[gr5 2,167]

Soaking a nozzle that printed with ABS is a great idea. It shouldn't hurt PLA and might actually help but in either case you should soak for hours. Brass is unaffected by acetone.

Acetone will actually dissolve PLA a little bit but it takes much larger amounts and much more time.

[fvilliers 0]

Great, thanks a lot for the quick answer.

[ultibrain 5]

I ordered block/nozzles with 3dsolex, got this nice envelope with the block and some nozzles. Very fast delivery!

I just mounted it. When warming up the colorfabb to 210 degrees, the filament literally leaks out of the nozzle by its own weight. Which is good! After watching a few layers put down on the build platform, it seems my underextrusion problems are totally gone!

Ow man it's such a relief, big smile over here (the ear-to-ear smile).

[paban 4]

Hello everybody

A few days ago, I changed the standard UM2 heater block against the custom block designed by Anders Olsson. The disassembly oft he hotend and the reassembly went quite good. The heating element was easy to remove from the UM2 block; the Pt100 sensor was somehow fixed. After some heating oft he block with the soldering iron it got out too. Both parts didn’t show any deformation from the fixing screw.

I started with a 0.6 mm nozzle and the parts printed with PLA at 210°C and 50 mm/s pretty good.

Later on I changed the nozzle with a 0.4 mm E3D nozzle with the goal to run some test prints to compare the modification with earlier results. So I run the extrusion rate test (3 – 10 mm3/s) at 210°C which delivered a comparable result (up to 7 mm3/s enough extrusion), although I expected it somewhat better. Then I ran the same test (all with red PLA from DUTCH FILAMENT) at 230°C. This was quite a short test: 3 mm3/s printed fine, but at 4 mm3/s the printer stopped already with the „Heater Error“ message !

I remembered that I have read in this forum, there is a safety function in the firmware, which stops the printer, when the temperature increase is too slow, when the heating is on.

After cooling the hotend down, I started the „Heatup nozzle“ function with a temperature set to 240°C. At 230°C the „Heater Error“ occured again (which could be reproduced with further tests).

I checked the hardware, if something went wrong during the alteration. Results: the heating element and the Pt100 sensor were both correct inserted; the nozzle didn’t touch the fan bracket (I had widened the nozzle opening to 10 mm).

I checked too the connection of the two heater cable ends to the mainboard which was also OK. So I concluded that the heating element might have reached almost the end of its lifetime (with only ca. 200 printing hours so far; I got the UM2 in this february).

The next step was connecting my spare heating element to the mainboard and the hotend and comparing the heating curves. The new heater has some more power, it heated during 125 seconds fro 25 to 220°C (the „old“ one needed 146 seconds). It can just hold a temperature of 250°C, but when it’s supposed to reach 260°C, it stops at ca. 252°C with the already familiar error message ! All this heating tests were done without extruding.

These tests with the new heating element puzzle me quite much:

- How about printing ABS and other high melting polymers ?

- Is the new heating element just at the low end oft he power specification (whatever this is) or what else has to be blamed for this poor result ? Any ideas and comments from the members are very welcome.

I have noticed, that 3dsolex offers now heating elements with 35 W (the standard one has 25 W). Who is already using this more powerful heater with what results )

Many thanks in advance for your comments and your time taking for that from

Paul

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

Hi Paul

Do both heater cartridge and sensor fit tightly in the heater block? If not, adding some copper grease might help...

[Anders Olsson 136]

I have mostly been printing ABS at 255-260 C, so it should not be any problem to reach that temperature.

The heating time for my machine is about 100 seconds from 20-210 C.

Two weeks ago I was printing Polycarbonate at 295 C, which also worked, but that is getting close to using all of the heater capacity.

I am using the original heater, which has operated more than 1000 hours by now.

- Are you sure the fan cap is not touching the heater block?

- Did you by the way upgrade to the latest firmware, to avoid unnecessary heater errors?

I have heard that the true power of the heater can differ quite a lot form the stated 25 W, I don't have any numbers though but swordriff may have some data on this.

[paban 4]

I have mostly been printing ABS at 255-260 C, so it should not be any problem to reach that temperature.

The heating time for my machine is about 100 seconds from 20-210 C.

Two weeks ago I was printing Polycarbonate at 295 C, which also worked, but that is getting close to using all of the heater capacity.

I am using the original heater, which has operated more than 1000 hours by now.

- Are you sure the fan cap is not touching the heater block?

- Did you by the way upgrade to the latest firmware, to avoid unnecessary heater errors?

I have heard that the true power of the heater can differ quite a lot form the stated 25 W, I don't have any numbers though but swordriff may have some data on this.

Hi Anders

Thank you for your quick response (and I still like your mod very much...).

I forgot to mention, that I had the fan bracket NOT mounted during the heating tests.

The firmware version is 15.02.01

Do you have any comments to the 35W heater (I have already ordered one from Swordriff) ?

I wish you a nice weekend

Paul

[paban 4]

Hi Paul

Do both heater cartridge and sensor fit tightly in the heater block? If not, adding some copper grease might help...

Hi dim3nsioneer

Thanks for your quick replay.

The heater cartridge is rather thight (hard to push in). The sensor isn't "loose" too.

I have no heat conducting paste available at the moment. As soon I get some, I'll try it.

wish you a nice weekend

Paul

[swordriff 119]

Paban! Ohm`s Law:

Heater paste is a good suggestion, but will not help if the cartridges are a nice fit.

The heaters vary from 17 to 26 Watt. You may have a weaker one.. Id say everything +- 10% is acceptable. You can Ohm it by disconnecting one lead from the pcb.,

If it is 23 Ohm, it will be ca 25 watt according to Ohms law: Watt = U x (I = U/R) which translates to 25(W) = 24 (V) x (24V/23R).

If your Heater is lets say 30 Ohm; it looks like this: 19.2 W( your heater effect) = 24V x 24V/30R)

[paban 4]

Paban! Ohm`s Law:

Heater paste is a good suggestion, but will not help if the cartridges are a nice fit.

The heaters vary from 17 to 26 Watt. You may have a weaker one.. Id say everything +- 10% is acceptable. You can Ohm it by disconnecting one lead from the pcb.,

If it is 23 Ohm, it will be ca 25 watt according to Ohms law: Watt = U x (I = U/R) which  translates to 25(W) = 24 (V) x (24V/23R).

If your Heater is lets say 30 Ohm; it looks like this: 19.2 W( your heater effect) = 24V x 24V/30R)

Hi Swordriff

Thanks for your quick and helpful answer and the refresher of my physics (a long time ago, not to far from the middle of the last century I knew that too ;-D )

As I hate to approach the PCB again (with this cable chaos, specially to put it careful all together at the end), I'll wait until the 35W heater arrives and then measure the resistance of all three.

So it takes some time until the community will hear about that.

Kind regards from Switzerland

Paul

EDIT: I just measured the resistance of the new (spare) heater. The multimeter shows 24 Ohm. So, the heating capacity should be OK for the new part (which doesn't perform well too). So it doesn't explain what goes wrong.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Guest

[fuzzhao 0]

I placed a order on 3dsolex for a Olsson block kit on April 18 2015, it did not ship yet, no status update whatsoever, and my emails are not being replied to. Does anybody know what's going on?

[swordriff 119]

I placed a order on 3dsolex for a Olsson block kit on April 18 2015, it did not ship yet, no status update whatsoever, and my emails are not being replied to. Does anybody know what's going on?

Frank, your order shipped from Norway on the 19th you where notified the same day, on the 24th after you asked, and now too.  

I understand you are keen to get it, and hopefully you will have it next week.

Maybe the emails are in the spam folder?

Please stay in touch.

NO, In fact I am refunding you. Please pay me when you have it.

Thank you.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Guest