Which hotend for a smartrap?

Hi all,
I have been playing for some days with my smartrap and we are getting to know each other. We both have some faults, mine being mostly ignorance, its being - well, many, but in particular the hotend.

I am having really a lot of troubles with hotend obstruction (it is the original hotend, the same of the ormerod model), in particular with some filaments. So far I managed to get rid of the problem only by increasing considerably extrusion temperature and speed with the problematic filaments. I was quite surprised to discover that the smartrap handles quite well higher speeds with minor loss of quality (100 mm/s without any issue, I do not dare chasing Regpye's speed records yet ).

However retraction does not really work for the oozing caused by the high temperature, moreover I can forget any bridging properties of those filaments (if they ever had some). While of course some benefit may come from a geared cold end (I still have the original direct drive), I think the best may come from a more tolerant hotend.

So here comes the question: what hotends have you tried or would you like in your smartrap?

Quote
cristian
Hi all,
I have been playing for some days with my smartrap and we are getting to know each other. We both have some faults, mine being mostly ignorance, its being - well, many, but in particular the hotend.

I am having really a lot of troubles with hotend obstruction (it is the original hotend, the same of the ormerod model), in particular with some filaments. So far I managed to get rid of the problem only by increasing considerably extrusion temperature and speed with the problematic filaments. I was quite surprised to discover that the smartrap handles quite well higher speeds with minor loss of quality (100 mm/s without any issue, I do not dare chasing Regpye's speed records yet ).

However retraction does not really work for the oozing caused by the high temperature, moreover I can forget any bridging properties of those filaments (if they ever had some). While of course some benefit may come from a geared cold end (I still have the original direct drive), I think the best may come from a more tolerant hotend.

So here comes the question: what hotends have you tried or would you like in your smartrap?

I don't wish this to appear as an advertisement, but I have given away a few hotends to have them tested other than by myself.
I have built seven SmartRaps, all different from each other, and each one has been fitted with one of these hotends.
Over two years of design, trial and error went into the design I have, and as I normally use PLA because of it's very good qualities, I needed to have a hotend that worked well with that filament.
I believe I have been successful. The hotend does work well, and it is not that expensive for a product that has been designed, tested and well made using the latest CNC machining techniques.
OK, so I have said my piece, I think it should now be up to others that have tried it out and report their findings.

As far as stock is concerned, there are plenty available.

---

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

If you want a reliable and awesome hotend, get one from the RegPye

Im using one of his little ''babies'' as tester, and so far it's the best hotend that I have been ever printing with.
Im not having anny issues with this, the output is greate, no cloggs, no oozebane, upper part of hotend is barelly hot(even when running on 230C)
Printing with 0.5mm nozzle is just a dream, and the 0.3 give the wonderfull details Oh, and my favorite 0.4mm is just good for lot of diffrent prints (when Im too lazy to change the nozzle)

Don't get it as some kind of adverstisment. Im just writing this as person amazed by this hotend and it's capabilities.
The hotend is worth the price, and will work for a verry long time.

Verteez.

There are many hotends around, I have RegPyes Genie hotend and I agree with Verteez it's a good choice for the SmartRap, Regs geared extruder also works like a dream.
I personally have only the huxley hotend to compare with and the difference is huge.

I think it is a nice extra to have Reg's support right here in the room. :-)

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BackEMF
There are many hotends around, I have RegPyes Genie hotend and I agree with Verteez it's a good choice for the SmartRap, Regs geared extruder also works like a dream.
I personally have only the huxley hotend to compare with and the difference is huge.

I think it is a nice extra to have Reg's support right here in the room. :-)

This! ^

I haven't printed much with Regpye's yet, but it worked very well before I ran out of filament... Lol... The geared extruder is very nice too... The only issue I had with his hotend was the ptfe push fit connector was cocked a bit causing the filament to snag when loading. Easy fix for me, as I just re threaded it straight. I'm about to move it to my ORD Bot Hadron for more "testing" lol... Since I do have a spool of ABS and a heatbed for it... I've never printed with ABS, so it will be a learning experience.

Now with that said, I really haven't had a bad hotend yet. I've used a Huxley which worked right out of the box even with my assembly skills. I used a 3mm hotend that came from Poland I think... I had to play with settings to get a nice print, but that had a lot to do with me not knowing anything about 3d printing then. I have a couple Ohioplastics Jhead-lite V2's which print very nicely.

I hear good and bad about other hotends, but these are the only ones I've used...

Hope that helped...

It's absolutely great what you did regpye here . You CAN and must advertise your work

Make me think i need to order some hot ends from you to test it ( even i know already they are very good quality ... we can see just on photos even without trying in real ).

thanks again for all you did on the smartrap community already.

---

the Smartrap project

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[www.thingiverse.com]
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[github.com]
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regpye
I don't wish this to appear as an advertisement, but I have given away a few hotends to have them tested other than by myself.

Actually, even if it were an advertisement, that would have been the right place to write about it since I was totally unaware.

First of all, by reading the description of your hotend it really seems designed for a printer like the smartrap, even if this came more than one year later. And since I have a smartrap, this really sounds great!

So, after reading on your website the technical details I would have few questions about its design, that I will ask now, and some rather "practical" questions about how to get it which I guess are of no interest for the forum so I will ask in private message or where you prefer me to write you.

The technical questions:

• while I understand that your design is particularly fitted for PLA printing, isn't it better for ABS as well? I mean: having a stronger gap between the hot and "cold" part of the hotend should improve (or at least not harm) printing with any type of filament. Or are there other issues that I am missing?
• at what maximal temperature can the hotend print? Both theoretical and practical according to your direct experience. I ask this because I don't exclude that at some point in the future I'll try to print with filaments that are more demanding in terms of temperature (such as polycarbonate). In this respect I have also one more specific question: isn't the PEEK insulator in your hotend too close to the heater block? PEEK should have a glass temperature of about 140°C, which by eye seems reachable there...

You can get it at http://regpye.com.au/

I think ABS needs more testing, it's build for and mainly tested with PLA. So once ABS is propper tested then Reg will sure give his ABS approval.

ABS and PLA are lowtemperature plastics. Hotends have a PTFE-linet inside and that limits the max. temperature to the meltingpoint of the PTFE (250C if I’m not mistaken)
So if you want to print high temperature plastics, like Nylon, then you need something like an all metal hotend, and they cost a lot more/ Not sure why, but maybe someone can elaborate on this?

So the max temperature I would say is about 240C maybe a bit higher but i wouldn't want to risk to melt the PTFE liner. (this is cheap to replace but it will probably cost you a chunk of time to fix specially the first time.

Wikipedia says 375C is the meltingpoint of PEEK

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 08:27PM by BackEMF.

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cristian

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regpye
I don't wish this to appear as an advertisement, but I have given away a few hotends to have them tested other than by myself.

Actually, even if it were an advertisement, that would have been the right place to write about it since I was totally unaware.

First of all, by reading the description of your hotend it really seems designed for a printer like the smartrap, even if this came more than one year later. And since I have a smartrap, this really sounds great!

So, after reading on your website the technical details I would have few questions about its design, that I will ask now, and some rather "practical" questions about how to get it which I guess are of no interest for the forum so I will ask in private message or where you prefer me to write you.

The technical questions:

• while I understand that your design is particularly fitted for PLA printing, isn't it better for ABS as well? I mean: having a stronger gap between the hot and "cold" part of the hotend should improve (or at least not harm) printing with any type of filament. Or are there other issues that I am missing?
• at what maximal temperature can the hotend print? Both theoretical and practical according to your direct experience. I ask this because I don't exclude that at some point in the future I'll try to print with filaments that are more demanding in terms of temperature (such as polycarbonate). In this respect I have also one more specific question: isn't the PEEK insulator in your hotend too close to the heater block? PEEK should have a glass temperature of about 140°C, which by eye seems reachable there...

Here are some details of the physical characteristics of PEEK

Physical Properties:

Specific Gravity: g/cm³ 1.4
Max Continuous Operating Temp: °C 250
Max Short Term Operating Temp (3-4hrs): °C 310
Tensile Strength: Mpa 130
Impact Resistance Charpy Unnotched: KJ/m² 50
Hardness: Rockwell M 102
Co-efficient of thermal expansion: m/(m.k) x 10¯6 25
Flammability Oxygen Index: % 40
Flammability UL94: V0
Food Grade: FDA No
Impact Resistance Charpy Notched: KJ/m² 5

I have been using this design for several years now without any problems whatever.
It will work with ABS as well, but ABS is not my preferred filament to use because I don't like the bad smell that comes off it, the printed part is not as stiff as PLA, and it wears quicker than PLA for gears and bushes. Most questions are already answered on the website, but if you have any more questions there is a form that you can use on the website at the bottom of the page and that will allow you to also add images if needed.
The hotends are available online through the website. The information paget tells about the hotend also has spoken word so you don't have to read all the information, you can just listen.
There has been a promotion on this month which will end at the end of this month, that is a free heater cartridge to be included with each hotend. The 100K thermistor is standard issue with the hotend.

---

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

You can buy another hot end, but chances are you'll have the same problems no matter what product you buy. Bowden setups have lousy performance with retraction. No hot end is going to fix that; it's just physics. If you want better performance on retraction, go with a direct drive system. I think 90% of the time, the best hot end is the one you already have. The truth is there's not much difference in how hot ends work. Plastic gets hot and shoots out the other end. Unless you still have jamming issues, don't fix something that isn't broken. Most people I know don't have $25-$50 to spend on food and gas. Spending that kind of money on a new hot end for me would be unthinkable.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2014 01:16AM by napalmvictory.

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napalmvictory
You can buy another hot end, but chances are you'll have the same problems no matter what product you buy. Bowden setups have lousy performance with retraction. No hot end is going to fix that; it's just physics. If you want better performance on retraction, go with a direct drive system. I think 90% of the time, the best hot end is the one you already have. The truth is there's not much difference in how hot ends work. Plastic gets hot and shoots out the other end. Unless you still have jamming issues, don't fix something that isn't broken. Most people I know don't have $25-$50 to spend on food and gas. Spending that kind of money on a new hot end for me would be unthinkable.

The truth is not all hotends are the same, some are very different from others and some work and some just don't work.
A proper hotend needs to be properly designed, not just thrown together and hope that it works.
To spend money on a hotend that appears to be cheap but doesn't do the job properly is a waste of money, and that is worse than paying for a slightly more expensive one that does work and will last for many years.
Any more words of wisdom Kyle?

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

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regpye
Any more words of wisdom Kyle?

Yes: If you're not thinking about *little kittens*, you're not concentrating.

Admin edited, reason:
Come on napalmvictory, let's keep it decent. We have male and female members here. I hope you like little kittens.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2014 09:50AM by Ohmarinus.

LOL!!!!

---

Enrico

[www.dapa3dservice.it] [www.studiodapa.it]
repstrap dApA, Ramps 1.4, MarlinKimbra / scanner 3D Cubify Sense / Formlabs Form 2

@ napalmvictory:

I'm also very budget minded, that's why i choose the smartrap. The huxley hotend seems to work good for some, i had a reasonable print out of it before it started to fail, and got ever worse.
And now i have this Genie hotend I do clearly see the difference despite other issues that are not hotend related.

I dont get why you are so biased against the bowden configuration. Ultimaker seems to have exellent performance with it. It's just a different way of doing things. I also know people who don't have $25 for food though they still spend money on fashion and other bling. But that's another issue alltogether. If you think it is to expensive then just don't buy it. To me it is less expensive then other hotends that give a similair quality so then it is at least not overpriced.

Just a remark about Bowden, yes I know it's not the best solution for retraction, but it gives gains in other areas. For example using a CoreXY setup, it makes your hotend carriage so light, that your machine has to move less mass when printing, resulting is more precise movement.

And for all my experiences with Bowden, if you tune your retraction well enough, it works like a charm still.

The only thing bowden can't do is printing with flexible filaments. So for that you are best off with a Wades/Gregs hinged extruder (aren't these the same?) or something like that.

What you could do is develop your own universal mount so that you can move the extruder motor around on the machine, on the bowden tube when you're using hard plastics and moving the extruder motor onto the carriage when you are going to print with flexible filaments. I'd love to do that, but I'm building a CoreXY which is giving me a hard time right now since I can't machine my own parts and everything has to be printed. Besides that I have to graduate next year

---

http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

Have a look at this:

flexpla and bowden

The human factor is the bottleneck once again.

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Ohmarinus
Admin edited, reason:
Come on napalmvictory, let's keep it decent. We have male and female members here.

Name 3 females on this forum.

Regpye: Your signature is slightly obnoxious. I don't get why you need to take things to the excess. Let's do more with less.

Just saying what we all think.

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napalmvictory

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Ohmarinus
Admin edited, reason:
Come on napalmvictory, let's keep it decent. We have male and female members here.

Name 3 females on this forum.

Regpye: Your signature is slightly obnoxious. I don't get why you need to take things to the excess. Let's do more with less.

Just saying what we all think.

Please explain Kyle?
Do you have to do this with EVERY new alias that you create.I would think that one name would be enough and I also think it is one of the rules on this forum too.
You have made yourself a nuisance on many of the forums and have been told so many times by many people that have grown sick of your childishness..
Get a life Kyle and leave others alone.

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

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BackEMF
Have a look at this:

flexpla and bowden

The human factor is the bottleneck once again.

A very interesting video you found.
I will have to try that flexible PLA, looks really useful stuff.

---

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

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napalmvictory
Name 3 females on this forum.

Excuse me for being off topic but that kind of remarks are not very inviting to them either...

I'm sure there are more ladies reading this forum, though i don't blame them for being silent when there are remarks like this floating around.

I'm still trying to get my hands on carburetor cleaner that someone used to soften PLA

Main reason is that i dont want to have a stock of 100 different plastics eating away shelflife.
Right now i have only natural PLA that eventually can be colored with food coloring and chemically softened with carb cleaner.
I will do another search too find out what chemical actually softens the PLA and hopefully that has less eco impact and also less impact on my wallet.

But as the video showed, flexible PLA CAN be printed on a bowden setup.

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BackEMF
I'm still trying to get my hands on carburetor cleaner that someone used to soften PLA

Main reason is that i dont want to have a stock of 100 different plastics eating away shelflife.

Not sure I got the point, but in the case I did: why not finding a way of coloring flexible PLA instead of softening and coloring stiff PLA?

For example the way this guy did with ABS and acetone, but using another solvent specific for PLA like the one used here (which is much safer than MEK).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2014 09:27AM by cristian.

Cool, I hope I actually can find this stuff in .NL / .EU

One question does this actually KEEP the PLA soft and flexible? Or does it get hard after the smoothing again? (Maybe that's the point that you seemed to have missed?)

Uhm... The point is: to have just one roll of PLA in the printer and one on stock, and then still be able to print hard soft and colored items. Color is not that important to me yet, but if I can occasionally print a soft gasket or a rubbery wheel that would be nice and save some storage space

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BackEMF
Cool, I hope I actually can find this stuff in .NL / .EU

One question does this actually KEEP the PLA soft and flexible? Or does it get hard after the smoothing again? (Maybe that's the point that you seemed to have missed?)

Uhm... The point is: to have just one roll of PLA in the printer and one on stock, and then still be able to print hard soft and colored items. Color is not that important to me yet, but if I can occasionally print a soft gasket or a rubbery wheel that would be nice and save some storage space

Well, what you'd like to have is for sure a dream: if you manage to get it, please tell us!

I don't know how solvents affect the properties of soft PLA, I'm not even sure that soft PLA is affected by ethyl acetate at all (although it should): as far as I know nobody tested it yet, so you may be the first and then you may report your findings in the forum.

On the other hand I would bet that carburator cleaner is not that good for the longevity (and look) of PLA, nor that the rubbery properties that it gives to PLA are the same than soft PLA or other rubbery filaments.

It's not a dream, carb cleaner does the trick already. But it's hard to get behind the ingredients of carb cleaner. And i'm hoping someone knows a more healthy material. I wonder how FlexPLA / Ninjaflex etc stay soft for long periods of time and if that's the same chemical. Though the recipe for those PLA mixtures are also not very open.

This also raises the issue of how safe it is to print 'toys'. What chemicals are released when a child puts a printed part in it's mouth? I'm not planning on printing toys, but some already do this...
Smoothing with that paint stripper is a very useful trick though I would be reluctant to do this with a toy. But this is another off topic discussion alltogether. :-)

Thanks for pointing me to that MEK Substitude!

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BackEMF
It's not a dream, carb cleaner does the trick already.

I'd like to know what is the effect of carbon cleaner on the polymer, to get that kind of flexibility.

If you can extrude your own filaments and you like doing new experiences, you may also borrow this idea.

However I bet that materials like ninjaflex are more durable and far less toxic than PLA treated with some unknown mixture of solvents. Moreover, some of them are not only flexible but also elastic.

There is a chemical in the carburater cleaner that softens the PLA and according to his findings the PLA seems to stay soft.
I have no idea what the actual chemical is, but sure would like to know. I personally don't like the idea of carburater cleaner, i only try to find a less toxic solution.

I like choice, but right now it seems like i need rols os:

PLA, ABS, hard, flexible, elastic, and in all available colour. Then I have a value of $1000+ catching dust on a shelf, and killing shelf life and space
Not to mention Woodfill, Stone, Bronze, PET, PC, and the next wonderful plastic.

So my tought was if there is a way to make PLA flexible after printing, and it can also be post-colored then i only need one good quality PLA, instead of Hard, Soft, and both in 10 colors, Thats 20 rolls of PLA, each costing $35 or more. That would be $700 for PLA alone $1400 when you also have ABS. And then you actually need 10 printers to print away all that plastic before it's shelflife is ended.

Hehehe, ok i got carried away, but this to get an idea of the waste of money if you want to do serious printing.
If every household 'needs' a printer in the future. then we need more storage space for plastics then we have space to live in. The plastic industry won't mind but even if all that plastic is bioplastic then what do we eat?

yes I got even more carried away :-)