Don't do it - Hot end
by aubenc, published
Description
-It's made without any science.
- Nichrome around steel: many chances for a short sooner or later thus many chances for, at least, extruder controller death.
- It constantly leaks some baked-rebaked-ultrabaked abs (volume like a drop of water every... +/-10cc of extruded ABS), the fumes are everything BUT healthy.
The electrical failure plus catastrophe side is reinforced by a low mass design and thermistor most probably not placed in the right place. That leads this thing to the need of 255C degrees as a working temperature.
I never dared to upload this for all those reasons, however...
...I've noticed an increasing number of visitors in the place where the pictures for this thing are: aubenc.imgur.com/hot_end_aka_mk45 and I need to say again:
Don't do it!
Run the risk you want for your printer but, at least, think about the fumes of the baked abs!
I'm expecting this thing to fail... (some 3 months wokrking without the smallest ridiculous failure) and then I'll try to address the issues this thing have. May be nobody will be using an MK4 like hot end anymore :-D
UPDATE: Nov 27, 2011
This thing died yesterday :-( To be honest, I killed it :-P (set the temp to 2255, RepG, at least v0024, only reports up to 255 and doesn't limit to this value... using just one byte?)
Bad news is, everything in the hot end melted together and now it's impossible to disassemble and see the origin of that little leak.
Good news is, nothing else was damaged (I guess I saw the smoke in time).
Conclusion: bot1334 has been using this thing for almost 8 months with zero maintenance. Before this, she was more time down for repair (one of the 3 MK4 that she used in half a year) than actually working.
Recent Comments
view allI think the best is not to need any cooling.It sounds a little bit contradictory to me to put energy to cool something that you're giving energy to get warm. That's why I was choosing the PEEK instead of steel.
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Many words about prevention and danger, but not so many words about how to create it. ;)
Can you tell me more about the hot-end how it get heated?
Because i wonder if a peltier element is perhaps beter to use.
Greetings, Dippo
Very High Temperature (VT) modules are rated for temperatures up to 200
°C not the required 220+C the heater actually needs to reach. Add to that the complication and heatsinks (peltier is not a heat source-they are a heat pump which moves heat from one side to the other).
http://www.tetech.com/Peltier-...
Trust me, th
is is not a path worth going down-physics is not on your side and mother nature puts up a pretty good fight.
Ok, some words then :-D
For the heating this is just like a MK4: nichrome + thermistor.
The PTFE tube is similar (I guess) to the one used in the MK5
&
amp;6 but the envelope is a piece of PEEK instead of a metallic tube.
I think that the pictures show well enough how I build it. The work in bolt and coupling nut where made using a press drill (not a good one) and a file.
The diameter of the extruded filament is 0.62mm (average).
It takes some 3min to make it up to 255C and some 10min to get back to room temperat
ure.
No need of fans, heater sinks, peltier things. You can touch the top thick washer/top of the peek without burning your fingers nor your house. BUT !!! If you let it at 255 more than... say another 3 min without extruding it will start to bake the abs.
Up to now is printing quite nice with the
flowrate value set to 190, @185 the quality is not that good. I usually print in the range 190/22-220/35, layer height 0.34, and tweaking infill, shells...
Everything I've uploaded as from thing:7703 (included) has been printed with it.
Hope that was not "too much words" now :-P
Is it bad I'm tickled by tags like 'downgrade' and 'dontdoit'
Ouch! I forgot the tag "dontlikeit"
well... sometimes....... the more you say "don't do it" the more they do it :-P (they never say it though :-D)


I am still not convinced that it is dangerous, so here is a sign!