Hot end design

Hi everyone,

Long time lurker here. I've had the chance to meet some of you at a CCHS meet before, was good to put names to faces.

I've been experimenting with a J-head derivative hot end recently and finally went with a small production run. There isn't much availability of hot ends locally, unless its custom made. Importing some of them is quite costly as well.



Here it is mounted to my Prusa.


there's more information at my blog post

any comments and CC's welcome.

Tom

Let me know when you have the available to buy! Thanks, pinchies

Just wondering what size is the nozzle? Do you do the 0.35mm heads?

Right now, I can do 0.25mm, 0.35mm and 0.5mm. Those are the only micro drill bits I have currently. The smaller sizes are a bit harder to get right though..


0.25mm hole.

Wow, 2.5 sounds pretty good? When are they available? and is it going to come complete with the Resistor and Thermistor? I've purchased 3 of these from OS and I would much rather get them here I assume Paypal or Pickup are ok?

I'll have a limited amount (~5) next week for those that want to try them out. I'm awaiting supply of more Peek

Details about the full kit are at my blog

For now, each kit includes;
1x CNC machined nozzle (0.5mm,0.35mm or 0.25mm)
1x 40mm Peek insulator (12mm dia)
1x Axial thermistor
1x Heater resistor
12cm length of PTFE tube 4mmOD/3mmID (enough for 3 usable lengths)
1x M8 fender washer for the mount (drilled 4.5dia, 30mm spaced for Wade's type extruders)
2x M4x30 socket caps for the mount

$50Aud + postage, paypal, DD or pickup n pay cash is ok.

Just to note though, these hot ends are still very new and also quite untested! I'm quite confident they work, as they are based off the very capable J-head design. In saying that, I'll be happy to help in anyway if there are problems with it.

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[kininarutom.blogspot.com.au]
[extrude3d.com]
Aussie made hot-ends

My only concern is with printing PLA - isn't the Jhead only designed for ABS?

pinchies Wrote:
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> My only concern is with printing PLA - isn't the
> Jhead only designed for ABS?


I've done 16 rolls of 3mm x 100m PLA on a Jhead and have no intention of ever changing!

With my JHead I've had no problems at all printing ~500 meters of PLA and 1 jam with the 2-3 meters of ABS I tried. Might have been a problem with the ABS itself though.

Gratefully received, thanks Tom. I will update once I have finished my printer and tried it out.

Good to hear thanks! First batch is sold out now, but I'll have more early next week. Should be steady supply from then on as I've ordered material for at least 100 hot ends.

I've included 4x nylon washers and changed the m4x30 to m4x35s with all kits (m4x30 may be too short for some extruders).

Would love to hear any feedback from those that have received them! I've put about 50m through my hot end and it has been flawless so far.

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[kininarutom.blogspot.com.au]
[extrude3d.com]
Aussie made hot-ends

Hi,

I purchased a couple of hotends from Tom (0.5 and 0.35mm), after I managed to destroy the original hotend on my printer, and they were delivered in a couple of days.

I have fitted the 0.5mm one to my Longboat Prusa Mendel with no issues at all - The mounting washer provided fits the original hotend mounting bolts on my extruder with no modification at all. After running through a few calibration tests , and updating my Sprinter firmware accordingly, the results are much better than the original hotend that came with the Longboat. I've attached a photo of one of the first prints with the new hotend (note I am not an Arsenal fan, but the print was for a friend who is).

It really is great to see a local provider here in Melbourne. Keep up the great work Tom...

Jez_A

Hi Tom,
I bought one of your 0.5mm jhead for my cnc-based repstrap. Last night I finally got everything working and produced my first prints, a couple of calibration items from http://reprap.org/wiki/Calibration.

I have to say I was very pleased with the results, here's a couple of pics.
0.5mm thin wall Using Vik Ollivers translucent blue PLA
20mm box - 100% infill I have no bed heater so this one lifted a bit..

thanks for helping me to get started!
Jason

JasonD Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Tom,
> I bought one of your 0.5mm jhead for my cnc-based
> repstrap. Last night I finally got everything
> working and produced my first prints, a couple of
> calibration items from
> [reprap.org].
>
> I have to say I was very pleased with the results,
> here's a couple of pics.
> 0.5mm thin wall Using Vik Ollivers translucent
> blue PLA
> 20mm box - 100% infill I have no bed heater so
> this one lifted a bit..
>
> thanks for helping me to get started!
> Jason

Very cool color! I must try some next time I do an order from Vik.

Great to hear you're up and running now. You seem to have it calibrated well too as I can see the edges and corner are very well defined.

As for lifting, I find that a fan running over the newly extruded plastic also helps reduce warping. I still get lifting even with a heated bed occasionally. Probably partly due to dust/finger prints on my glass bed.

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[kininarutom.blogspot.com.au]
[extrude3d.com]
Aussie made hot-ends

I am very impressed with mine, have used it with pla and abs, and both printed very well, I still have some calibration to do with it, but all in all a very good hotend.

Have just started with this hot end (0.35mm) very happy so far! I had one issue where the PLA swelled inside the tube, but disassembly could not be easier, and I figured out that it was my fault...

Can't recommend enough!

How about an accurate thermistor table for the thermistors that you have with your kits?

Im not really interested in mapping one myself, so I put a different thermistor in so I could trust the readings, but if you have a temptable for those thermistors I wold be most appreciative.

By the way, I love this hotend and will be getting some more in the future.

The thermistor in the kits is the 135-104LAF-J01, which is one of the common thermistor tables used in the sprinter/marlin firmwares. It is option 7, which is for the 135-104LAG-J01. However the 135-104LAF-J01 has better thermistor tolerance of +/-5%, rather than 10%. But they are essentially the same thermistor as far as i'm aware, as they share the same datasheet.

Have you found the accuracy of the thermistor to be inadequate?

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[kininarutom.blogspot.com.au]
[extrude3d.com]
Aussie made hot-ends

Something new in the works, see if anyone can spot the difference with the current hotend.



this one should make it more obvious



comments, cc's?

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[kininarutom.blogspot.com.au]
[extrude3d.com]
Aussie made hot-ends

Are you still looking at doing the 1.75mm filament version?

I just got my prusa printing for the first time and your hot end worked perfectly! Very happy with the purchase.

Will get the calibration right then thinking of getting a fine nozzle.

I would be interested in a groovemount (like you've shown)

pezzer2003:
No plans yet to make up a new set of nozzles suited specifically for 1.75mm filaments. The hotends do seems to handle 1.75 filament OK though with a slight modification. Using 4mmOD/2mm ID PTFE tube and also a 1.8mm entry hole in the PEEK. I have done little testing with that prototype though.

Daggy:
Great to hear you're up and running!

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[kininarutom.blogspot.com.au]
[extrude3d.com]
Aussie made hot-ends

Also interested in the groovemount! I had a little trouble with the mounting nuts on the previous design warping and melting through my extruder mount plate... now I need to find someone to reprint me the dodgy mount plate.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2012 09:12AM by pinchies.

pinchies Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Also interested in the groovemount! I had a little
> trouble with the mounting nuts on the previous
> design warping and melting through my extruder
> mount plate... now I need to find someone to
> reprint me the dodgy mount plate.



The slot mounts will be available soon. I'll be happy to rework current hot ends out there with a slot, so early adopters I havent forgotten about you!

pinchies: PM me, I'll send you a replacement printed mount plate.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/07/2012 06:04AM by scwerta.

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[kininarutom.blogspot.com.au]
[extrude3d.com]
Aussie made hot-ends

Gee, thanks Tom! I realised it was warping too late to reprint my own... and still haven't printed my own set of spare parts... my novice mistake.

I'd like to introduce the updated version of the hot end. The X3D hot end, named after my new online store

Please check it out. www.eXtrude3D.com



I've done away with the fender washer and now included a machined aluminium mount. Price is still the same.

Also, I've added 1.75mm hot ends to the line up after completing testing with my roll of filament. I'm sticking with the same nozzles, so you dont need to have different nozzles for different filaments.



And lasty,

There is now a Bowden cable variant hot end.



More technical info on my blog, any comments and cc's welcome.

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[kininarutom.blogspot.com.au]
[extrude3d.com]
Aussie made hot-ends

I bought one of these in a 1.75mm filament variety .40 nozzle, scwerta was kind enough to source me most of the parts for a complete extruded, and I must say its been perfect, I now feel I'm getting better at printing and I attribute much of the success to the great extruder supplied from scwerta.

Gaz

This is the first hotend I've bought so can't compare to any others. I've just finished building my Prusa i3 - Modified with full steel frame & much larger 700x300x380 Build platform. I started with BilbyCNC 1.75mm ABS ($36/kg) with scwerta's 0.4mm hotend assembly and Wade's Reloaded Extruder. I was not expecting any decent results as I was starting with cheap filament & although reviews were good on scwerta's hotend - wasn't convinced it was the best out there, however was by far the cheapest except for ebay.

The results are amazing. Right off the bat I've been printing accurate parts with no issues at all with the hotend. It's been extremely reliable and quality of prints far exceeds the parts I bought to make the printer. I have not tried printing PLA yet, but for ABS it's faultless with not one blockage yet after using over 1/2kg of filament and at least 50 hot/cold cycles so far.

Very Impressed. Cheers!

Us Aussies seem to be the hotend people.
I also have a hotend that has been designed specifically for PLA and 1.75mm filaments.
Comes in two versions, the Genie MK1 which fits many machines and the MK2 which has a much shorter body.
Both are available with 0.3mm, 0.4mm or 0.5mm nozzles.
The heat break is the secret of this design, it stops any heat transferring up the barrel.

The MK1 is supplied with a grooved nut to fit all Genie machines, also a Bowden connection, and as well a 50mm mounting plate for most Wades type extruders. It make the hotend very adaptable.
The MK2 comes with a E3D type end and will also accept all the same fittings as the MK1 hotend.
Capable of taking either a resistor or a heated cartridge for heating, and is supplied with a 100K thermistor as standard and also a length of PTFE sleeve for insulating the thermistor leads.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci